Following on from last issue's article on our recent LEADER-funded Breaking & Schooling Incentive Scheme, where we gave owners up to £400 to assist them in the cost of having their horses professionally prepared for the Sales, this issue I want to explain the Equine MOT concept, which emerged from the Scheme.

What started us along this road was the desire to see the prices of our horses increase at Performance Sales, which we felt were a buyer's market at the moment. Buyers being few, they offer little, secure in the knowledge that the vendor has little choice but to accept his offer or else take the horse home.

We decided that the central problem lay not with the horses, but with the number of buyers being attracted to these sales. More buyers at the ringside, generating a little healthy competition in the marketplace would, on its own, without any other measures, lift the average sales price, and decrease the number of horses returning home in the evening.

So, what is keeping buyers away from the sales ring? The majority of buyers at performance sales are professional buyers, who are experienced in the complexities of horse trading, and are confident that their judgement will keep them from buying unsuitable horses. The veterinary certificate offered with the horse is the Dealer's assurance that the horse is all right physically, and with his own knowledge this is enough for him to be able to make his choice.

But what of the end-user, the person our horses end up with? Why do they not come to the ringside and avail of the wide choice of horses on show as they make their decision? It's quite simple, if you think for a minute as a leisure rider. The leisure rider may only ever buy one horse. He knows he is inexperienced in the world of equine wheeler-dealing, and he needs a longer time to evaluate the horse before being confident enough to part with cash. This is why most leisure riders buy horses they already know - perhaps having seen them at riding club events, or maybe they have ridden the horse at a riding school. And this is why leisure riders like to deal with Dealers - they are usually given a trial period, and if the horse doesn't suit, they can take it back.

So, if we want to bring leisure riders in to bid at the performance sales, we need to find some way to help them decide which horse is best suited to them, and we need to remove the risk they perceive to be attached to buying a horse they do not know. This is where the Equine MOT Test comes in.

Put in marketing terms, the Equine MOT seeks to promote consumer confidence by offering more product information, and assuring the customer that the product has been tested and comes up to standard. In horsey language, it means that we put a rider on board who tests three important elements:

Firstly, the Judge checks that the horse has been correctly trained - moves away from the leg, yields to the bit etc. Last April, I received a phone call from a lady in England who had bought two horses at a sale in Ireland the previous month. One of the two was MOT tested. When she got the two of them home, she quickly discovered that the other horse had never been asked to work on the bit before - it simply went straight up when she took up a contact. The MOT horse, which was not a star by any means, she was able to sell straight on to a teenager, from whom she had just heard. What that teenager had to say was enough to prompt her to phone me to find out if there were any more MOT horses entered in the next sale.

The second important test the judge performs is to test the horse's temperament. This is done by asking it to perform something it has not yet done in its training. If it goes 'I haven't a clue what you're asking, but I'll try' then it is safe. If it goes 'bugger off you annoying person', it is not suitable for a novice rider.

Finally, the judge tests the horse's manners on the ground. Will it lift its feet without striking out. Will it load into a trailer without fuss. Why is this important? Well, firstly, just as many injuries occur on the ground as in the saddle, mostly due to unruly animals which have not been taught to stand still or to lead. And secondly, you can't expect a leisure rider to know how to, or indeed to want to, cope with a mule that won't go near a horsebox.

We have had some word back on MOT horses, all of it, I am pleased to say, good. One MOT horse was turned away, brought in six weeks ago, and came out to win the Longford Hunter Trials Open Team event on St Patrick's weekend. Another is serving his time as a useful riding school cob, and has just finished a season hunting with the Taras and the Louths. It also completed three riding club one day events last summer, and was placed in the Advanced Primary class of the National One Day Event held in Glaslough last September. This is what the MOT is all about - producing sane, sensible horses, which will do anything the rider has a mind to try. A few of the horses have turned out to have talent, and they are gearing up for the summer's showjumping season, where we wish them all the best of luck.

Now, horses being horses, one cannot guarantee that the little beggar won't suddenly take a dislike to red phone boxes in the morning, but we can guarantee that the horse will understand the aids a rider in Germany uses to tell him he must go past ( not flip over). We can also guarantee that the performance the horse gave for the Test is its true performance, by blood testing all animals for pain killers and sedatives, and by operating a strict policy of no acceptance of further horses from owners or trainers who are not so committed to cleaning up the Irish 'rogue' image as we are. We are in for the long haul, and trying to promote consumer confidence in our horses means that if we are to gain a reputation for honesty, we must ask no less of our owners and trainers.

The theory behind the Equine MOT Test is that if the buyers know more about the horse, the risk in buying the animal is reduced, and therefore they will be willing to pay a little more. We tested this out last year through Cavan Sales, and were pleased that without any marketing apart from an explanation of the concept in the sales catalogue, and the auctioneers kindly reading out our judges comments on each horse as it came into the ring, prices did increase - by over 600gns on average. We were even more pleased to see groups of buyers travelling from the UK the day before the sales, to watch the horses being put through their MOT. This clearly is a concept which is creating a lot of interest among the horse-buying public, and that can only be good for everyone who sends horses to performance sales. Many thanks to the Clarke family for allowing us to try out something new through their excellent facilities.

So where to next? Well, LEADER are out of action this year, as they await further funds from Brussels. So if we are to continue, it must be on a commercial basis, with the cost of testing the horses being covered by a fee charged to each applicant. This is where we need your help - it is vital that we get this right from the point of view of both the Vendor and the Buyer.