The first horse inspection for the Longines FEI European eventing championships takes place this afternoon at Blair Castle where Ireland will be one of 15 nations competing at the event, the first of its kind to be held in Scotland.
Germany, the defending champions, haven’t won a European team title in Britain since 1959 but have claimed team and individual gold at every senior eventing championship since 2011.
Michael Jung, winner of last weekend’s Land Rover Burghley horse trials, is the reigning individual title holder and will defend his position riding FischerTakinou while his compatriot, Sandra Auffarth, competes with her world championship winning mount, Opgun Louvo.
Fellow German Ingrid Klimke, who was a team gold medallist and individual silver medallist at the previous championships in Malmö, rides her Badminton runner-up, Horseware Hale Bob.
Great Britain hasn’t been beaten in a European championship on home soil since 1962. As host, the country is fielding 12 riders headed by the world number two William Fox-Pitt who already has six European team golds to his name plus three individual medals. He rides his 2014 Kentucky four-star winner, the Irish-bred Bay My Hero.
Having been on the reserve list, Joseph Murphy was a late call-up to the Irish squad last week with Sportsfield Othello. Also selected by Horse Sport Ireland’s senior eventing team manager Nick Turner are Michael Ryan (Ballylynch Adventure), Camilla Speirs (Portersize Just A Jiff), Sam Watson (Horseware Lukeswell) and the Britain-based pair of Austin O’Connor (Balham Houdini) and Padraig McCarthy (Simon Porloe).
The team draw and running order will be announced after this afternoon’s horse inspection. There will be dressage throughout Thursday and Friday with the cross-country phase taking place on Saturday. “I have tried to create a cross-country course that reflects the heritage of Scotland and provides a true test of horsemanship,” said course designer Ian Stark. The concluding show jumping phase will be held on Sunday.
Earlier in the summer, Horse Sport Ireland was announced as an official partner at the Scottish venue for two years and will sponsor the international supporters’ pavilion at the championships and a fence on the cross-country course.
Over the weekend, HSI will continue its project to collect and analyse data relating to the conformation of horses competing at the highest level in eventing. Linear profiles, where conformation traits are measured against a scale, will be completed for those horses whose owners have agreed to participate in the study. The purpose of this research is to help in the breeding of the next generation of top-class horse athletes.
The Irish Sport Horse Studbook has topped the World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses (WBFSH) eventing studbook rankings, established in 1994, for 19 of the last 21 years.
