Down the years the national management of Irish equestrianism has often given the impression of two horses pulling in opposite directions.

There was the office trying to pull things together and the participants wanting to go their own way. As a result, director generals, national secretaries or CEOs have many times been caught in a battle against forces they could not control.

Horses are like a third arm of their owners or riders and therein lies the seeds of conflict for any overall manager attempting to service the needs of all.

Thus, for the second time in 12 months Horse Sport Ireland (HSI) is in search of that very special person who can successfully take on that challenging overall governing role.

Following Ronan Murphy’s departure last October after a three year stint in the job, Joe Reynolds has been filling the position as acting CEO.

An initial search for a permanent replacement during the early months of 2021 proved unsuccessful and Joe has continued as both chair and acting CEO.

Requirements

The recruitment advertisement sets out the requirements for a successful candidate, including that: “He/she will have an interest and feeling for the Irish and international sport horse sector and a proven track record in leading management teams through periods of growth and change.

“He/she will possess evidence of interacting successfully with a diverse range of stakeholders as well as experience of managing major capital investments and demonstrable commercial business acumen.”

For any business or organisation the demands of that advert would be difficult to fulfil, but add in the need to know the personalities to be dealt with, the huge diversity of groups affiliated to HSI and the need for very specific dealings with what are called stakeholders and this amounts to a very demanding post indeed.

To my mind, HSI may have to look very close to home in order to find a person with enough knowledge of the sport horse scene in order to negotiate the many diversities of this multi-pronged sector.

People management and seeing many sides of the same problem will in the end be more important than all the other attributes listed.

There is also the demand for very equitable distribution of funding in an annual budget that now touches on the €8m mark.

And just to make matters even more demanding, there is the challenge of convincing government of the need for increased funding that will help the sport horse sector reach its full potential.