ITM Barrier Trials Proving Successful For Irish Industry

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The ITM Barrier Trials have grown in popularity over the years by not only providing an education for unraced horses but also proving a valuable resource for selling horses abroad. After Brian Sheerin's article we went along to the first trial of the year to find out more.

Transcript

00:01The TDN's Brian Sheeran recently wrote an article about the ITM Barrier Trials.

00:06They recently held their first one of the year NACE race course so we

00:10attended to find out a little bit more about them. This is a race day for young

00:17horses that have never run before. Primarily we've ten races today or ten

00:21trials, eight of which are for two unraised two-year-olds and so you'll

00:25probably see them the first batch are in behind us here now. So what we're trying

00:29to do is get horses unraised sold into markets like Hong Kong, Malaysia but we've

00:34got horses from America, England, France out of the trials so there would be quite

00:38a few for sale but the vast majority are this is a stepping stone to a full race

00:42day experience. That's what it's all about it's trying to compete with the

00:47Australians and the New Zealand and the barrier trials and introduce the concept

00:50here to find another way getting horses sold into Asia. So Gordon had a horse here

00:56last year trial was sold to Hong Kong, Light Years Glory and that won at the

01:01weekend in Hong Kong so it's a great boost for the trials. A couple of benefits

01:05really benefits and obviously having a look you know obviously we're spotting

01:09horses, young horses to sell abroad primarily to America and to the

01:13Middle East so it kind of gives a little bit of an upper hand. Seeing them now in

01:17their early education before they go to the track you know it's just all part of the

01:21process you know and I've seen them before and then you can say to your

01:24client you know listen we saw this horse do a nice barrier trial and now it's

01:28after running well in a you know it's after translating the form so it does it

01:32does help. I think they're a great idea I think not only from educating two-year-olds

01:38that you want to give an education to before they run and also if you have one

01:43that you think you want to sell it's a very good sales place for them but I think

01:48they're great and I think running them on turf is better than on the old

01:53weather I think gives you a fair idea of what they are because we're racing on

01:57turf this time of year. We started running them first of all before racing in

02:01Dundalk and then we've moved now to full race days so I think this is right this

02:06could be race sixth year of it they've been very successful this is actually now

02:10our biggest number to date we've 88 I think going today and 10 trials and fingers

02:17cross they all come home safely they're supported by we have 26 trainers here

02:21today so like they're a huge success everyone is very very positive towards

02:25them. Jeremy Green in ITM runs the whole operation so he does gets the entries

02:31getting entries in it's a full race day without prize money so you have to have

02:35everything here from your vets your blacksmiths you have a red cross your

02:38blue cross and organizing jockeys speaking to trainers and last week we had a

02:44breeze of sale as well in the middle of it all so it's huge logistics because

02:47it's a full race day experience really run by Jeremy. Everyone wants more and

02:53more of these because they're a great education for horses we'd love to run a

02:56few in January February for three year old maidens to get those into the Asian

02:59markets but it's just trying to get the whole you know to keep it going and do

03:03the day job as well

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