Important notice regarding declaring horses for coming season

Ahead of the 2019/20 point-to-point season getting started at Toomebridge on Saturday October 5th, handlers are reminded of an important notification regarding the declaring of their horses going forward.

The passport of a horse being declared to run at a point-to-point meeting must be presented to the Clerk of the Scales, or the hunts relevant declaration clerk, at the time of declaring to run.

The Irish Horse Racing Regulatory Board (I.H.R.B) have instructed Hunt Officials not to take a declaration for a horse without a passport. Photocopies of passports in any format will not be accepted.

Handlers have previously been notified of this policy for declarations and the production of passports when they received their Handlers Permit confirmation letter, and it is important that this is now followed in order to avoid a horse not being permitted to run if the passport is not present at the time of declaration.

There will also be a slight alteration to the process of checking passports for out-of-date flu vaccinations. Previously all passports were checked for the correct flu vaccinations, however the IHRB officials at each fixture will now be supplied with a list of horses whose flu vaccination needs to be checked, as the date of the last vaccine that was on the passport when it was supplied to the IHRB as part of the Hunter Certificate application process, has passed.

In addition to this, the officials will also continue to check a random selection of the other passports supplied upon declaration.