A capacity crowd watched Ireland win the Kerrygold Nations Cup in a tightly contested competition in the RDS yesterday. The President, Mrs McAleese, presented the victorious team with the Aga Khan Trophy. The crowd at the grounds gave the team a standing ovation.
It was the team's seventh Nations Cup win and the eighth in the series.
This first Irish Nations Cup of the millennium was a sell-out. All 12,000 tickets for the stands had been booked since early this week. The occasion began with a special parade of the 1999 Grand National Winner, Bobby Jo, and the 2000 Grand National Winner, Papillon.
There was an enthusiastic welcome from the crowd when Bobby Jo, led by Bill Henry and ridden by Paul Carberry, and Papillon, led by Katie Walsh and ridden by Ruby Walsh, entered the arena.
They proceeded to the President's box while the radio commentary of the two great races was played over the public address system, to the cheers of the crowd.
The last time an Irish National Hunt racehorse was paraded at the grounds was the great Arkle, which was ridden by Pat Taaffe and trained by Tom Dreaper. That was in 1966.
Later in the competition, another great Irish horse, the stallion, Cruising, was honoured by the RDS where he had had so many victories.
Cruising is retiring from competition. He has been the top Irish sport horse for the past 10 years.
A special presentation was made to Mrs Mary McCann, of Hartwell Stud, Naas, Co Kildare, where Cruising stands at stud. The presentation was made in the same ring where he was a member of a number of Nations Cup winning teams, most notably in 1995.
Speaking before the competition, the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, said he was disappointed that only one of the Irish team this year was a traditional Irish horse. The rest were warmbloods.
Breeders, he said, had to wait much longer for the traditionally bred Irish horse to begin competing, whereas the warmblood horses could be ready for competition in four years. However, the Irish horse could compete until it was 15 or 16 years old.
Mr Walsh said his Department was looking at ways to help the equine industry find, train and keep staff. He said this was creating a major problem.
Working with horses, he said, was an unsociable job, with horses having to be exercised early in the morning and events taking place at weekends.
Young people were being attracted into other industries such as IT, where they could have weekends off. Those in the equine industry, which directly employs 25,000 people, could not.