THE NUMBER of Irish-bred showjumping horses in the world top 200 horses has doubled from two last year to four this year, Horse Sport Ireland (HSI) said yesterday.
Giving a progress report on the HSI new breeding policy, Alison Corbally, who is HSI director of breeding and programmes, said while Irish horses dominated the world studbooks for eventing horses for the last 15 years, we had a long way to go in the show-jumping sector.
“What we have put in place in terms of inspections of Irish sport horse mares and Irish draught mares is a concise inspection regime and these inspections will be taking place in August and September,” she said.
She said a total of 32 stallions had been presented for Irish sport horse stallion inspection and 42 Irish draught stallions had also been presented.
The new system allows breeders for the first time to access the inspection results of stallions which met the inspection requirements, by looking at the HSI website.
She said 14 Irish stallions had been awarded “star” ratings on their performance and progeny performance and these would be taking part in the Horse Stallion parade during the Dublin Horse Show on Friday next.
She said the best known of these stallions was Cruising who was now 25 years old but was still involved in breeding thorough artificial insemination.
She also announced the Garda Mounted Unit was to receive an Irish draught gelding for the unit which would be sponsored by HSI.
She said other initiatives which had taken place over the year included the launch of its first magazine, HSI Breeder, which is being distributed to 20,000 breeders.
In addition, HSI had set up a Breeders Registration Helpline for breeders with registration queries which was available for two hours each working day.
Asked about the welfare issue in the industry, Ms Corbally said the HSI had been in communication with Minister for Agriculture Brendan Smith on aspects of the problem. “In particular, we have been asking the Minister to make it mandatory to have a transfer of ownership of a horse noted so when something goes wrong, the owner can be traced,” she said.
The current position was that horses were micro-chipped and given a passport within six months of birth but the change of ownership was not obligatory.
The HSI, she said, was urging breeders to register their animals as soon as possible after their birth and reminded them that horses which were not registered when they were under six months, would not be allowed into the food chain.
One of the four Irish sport horses which rank in the top 200 world showjumping rankings, Flexible, will be at Dublin Horse Show this week but will be jumping for the US. The Dublin Horse Show runs from today until Sunday, August 8th.