The Army Equitation School is to get an additional £100,000 this year to buy horses, the Minister for Defence, Mr Smith, announced yesterday at the show.
The Minister was deputising for the President, Mrs McAleese, at the main event of the day, the Aga Khan Nations Cup competition, which Italy won.
The Minister told a press conference afterwards that he intended to increase the horse purchasing fund for the second year in a row, and said the total available to the school will now be £350,000.
While he accepted that this figure was still very low it would help the school which had already achieved excellence in many areas. He also announced that his Department would sponsor two bursaries worth £5,000 each for two young riders with international potential.
Mr Smith said this will be an all-Ireland scheme organised jointly by the RDS, the Equestrian Federation and the Army Equitation School. The two recipients of the bursaries will be trained by the Army school.
The president of the RDS, Mr Liam Connellan, welcomed the announcement, saying he greatly appreciated the Minister's decision to mark the show's 125th anniversary in this way.
The issue of "digging out" foxes continued to run yesterday, with the Irish Council against Blood Sports, Ireland's largest animal welfare organisation, criticising the Minister for Agriculture and the hunters.
Ms Aideen Yourell, the spokeswoman for the ICABS, claimed that the new rules actually made it easier to justify the digging out of foxes. She accused the fox-hunters of "pulling off the biggest con ever" by proposing rules that appear to ban the practice, but which, in fact, justify it in nearly every circumstance.
"The new code means it is business as usual for the cruelty brigade because hunts will experience no restrictions whatever on their activities," she said at the show.