Almost a year after completion of accounts, Horse Sport Ireland this week finally released its annual report for 2015, and one that was full of surprises.

For a company employing 26 permanent staff and nine temporary administration staff, it finished the 2015 fiscal year with just €28,000 in cash reserves, despite receiving over €6m in income.

Income in 2015 was broken down as follows:
•Department of Agriculture grants €1.8 million 


• “Operational income” including fees for foal registrations and passports €1,690,000


•Irish Sports Council high performance and core grants €1,436,000

Expenditure in 2015 was as follows:

•Breeding projects, initiatives, international marketing and operations (including staff costs) €3,455,000

•IT, development, the HSI website and the CapallOIR database €168,000

•International marketing €104,000

•Marketing exhibitions €132,000

•Individual projects:

Lanaken and Le Lion d’Angers €59,000

Genetic indexing/conservation €55,000

Mare inspections €45,000

Stallion inspections €55,000

Innovation Fund €97,000

Unspecified breeding initiatives €100,000


•Sport programmes, high performance, Sport NI and operations €2,644,000

Furthermore, HSI’s total staff costs rose by more than €100,000 between 2014 and 2015, up from €1,501,908 in 2014 to €1,605,916 last year.

HSI meeting with Michael Creed TD, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Horse Sport Ireland’s finance committee chairman James Kennedy

Horse Sport Ireland’s finance committee chairman James Kennedy told the Irish Field last week that the organisation intends to build its cash reserve from the meagre €28,000 it achieved last year to in excess of €610,000 over the next five years.

While not explaining why the 89 page annual report for 2015 was not published until November of 2016, HSI’s corporate affairs manager, Laura Skelton told The Field: “While the report is very comprehensive and detailed, it is being published later than we would like. We intend to prioritise resources to publish it earlier next year and/or to perhaps publish the financial results in advance of the full publication.”
Jack Burns