ROUNDING off a standout year, Hippomundo’s prize money-based rankings brought further good news for Irish Sport Horse breeding. Ballaghmor Class ended 2023 as the top-earning event horse of the year, the Irish Sport Horse (ISH) studbook retained its leading eventing studbook title and three Irish Sport Horses - Pacino Amiro (eighth), GRS Lady Amaro (19th) and James Kann Cruz (24th) - feature in the top-25 show jumping horses.
Simon Scott is once again the leading Irish show jumping breeder, ranking overall eighth amongst global show jumping breeders, thanks to Pacino Amiro’s near-million euro prize money tally last year.
It’s a posthumous leading eventing breeder title for the late Noel Hickey, while Kedrah House Stud’s Holsteiner stallion Courage II, finished second to Hippomundo’s top eventing sire, Birkhof’s Grafenztolz.
2023’s complete rankings (see www.hippomundo.com) round off a successful year for Irish breeding and the ISH studbook, as the studbook finished first (eventing) and sixth (show jumping) in the World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses (WBFSH) rankings, announced last October.
The ISH studbook continues to climb the Hippomundo rankings too, having made its first top-10 appearance amongst the show jumping powerhouse studbooks in 2021, then moved up one more place to ninth (2022) and finished last year in eighth place. Again, as with its WBFSH rankings, this was the best show jumping breeding result recorded by the studbook.
Hippomundo’s top-earning horses of 2023? Only one horse - TSF Dalera BB, dubbed the “Dancing Queen”, retained her title from the previous year and the Trakehner mare completes another of her WBFSH/Hippomundo number one horse doubles.
The Noel Hickey-bred Ballaghmor Class replaces another Irish Sport Horse – the since-retired Vanir Kamira – as Hippomundo’s top-earning event horse and, on the show jumping leaderboard, Killer Queen VDM was deposed in 2023 by Checker 47, leading a strong surge by the Westphalian studbook in the final rankings.
Prize money comparison
Just as the ISH studbook retained its eventing title, so too did the KWPN in dressage, while in show jumping, the Dutch studbook swapped places with last year’s top studbook - the Selle Français - to complete a KWPN double.
In 2022, Killer Queen VDM was the sole show jumping horse to earn in excess of one million euros during the competition year; in 2023, that figure rose to a half-dozen as Checker 47, Stargold, King Edward, Zineday, Donatello D’Auge and Leone Jei all reached that milestone.
Close behind these millionaire horses is Pacino Amiro, whose pragmatic Donegal breeder Simon Scott recently featured in the Breeders’ 10 series. Pacino Amiro is ranked one place behind Mila, the Oldenburger Springpferde mare, who earned her largest paycheque (€833,335) at the Global Champions Tour playoffs in Prague with Clare’s Eoin McMahon.
King Edward, Leone Jei and Monaco N.O.P. are the three other horses, together with Pacino Amiro, to retain their top-10 show jumping horses places from the 2022 rankings.
His Aachen Grand Prix win in 2022 placed Ben 31 in 10th place in the previous year’s results. Ranked 30th in 2023, the horse made headlines recently with his rider Gerrit Nieberg’s announcement of the Westphalian-bred gelding’s sale to United States team member Lucy Davies.
TSF Dalera BB increased her 2023 take-home pay, winning €306,821 last year compared to €193,947 in 2022, a figure that still lags behind the high-end show jumping earners.
In fact, the top 60 show jumping horses all won more than TSF Dalera BB in 2023.
Ballaghmor Class and Colorado Blue, the Limerick-bred pair of greys, were the top-earning event horses of 2023, following their five-star success strike rates at either end of the eventing season.
Ballaghmor Class and Oliver Townend finished runners-up at Badminton before a second Burghley win in the autumn, six years after their previous win there in 2017. These two results brought the Tokyo Olympics team gold medallist horse’s prize money in 2023 to €194,523.
Similarly, the Kate Jarvey-bred Colorado Blue, another Tokyo Olympics horse, and Austin O’Connor’s third place at Badminton banked their first sizeable cheque last year. Then came the pair’s historic win at Maryland International in October, when O’Connor scored the first Irish win at five-star level since 1965.
Last year, three Irish Sport Horses were in the Hippomundo top-10 event horses (Vanir Kamira, Capels Hollow Drift and Swallow Springs). With Colorado Blue flying under the Sport Horse Breeding (GB) banner, this left just Ballaghmor Class as the sole ISH in the top-10, although Cavalier Crystal was close behind in 11th place. Cooley Rosalent (18th), Oughterard Cooley (21st), Maja’s Hope (23rd), Capel’s Hollow Drift (26th), Greenacres Special Cavalier (28th) and Rehy DJ (29th) all feature in the Hippomundo top-30, ahead of the closely-bunched pair of Off The Record (31st) and Cooley Nutcracker (32nd).
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Contribly
Five-star success
Where did the top-earning ISH show jumping horses rack up their big paydays?
Pacino Amiro and Bertram Allen kicked off their busy campaign with a modest €55 earned for their first warm-up class of the season at Wellington CCI4*.
A trio of five-star Grand Prix third places at Wellington (€69,000), Windsor (€75,000) and Spruce Meadows (€311,600), plus the pair’s La Coruña Grand Prix win (€100,000) and a €125,000 dividend from their fourth place in the Global Champions Tour Grand Prix at the Prague playoffs brought the Donegal-bred’s 2023 figure to €905,401.
His lifetime earnings to date? The Pacino 12-year-old has now passed the two million euro marker, having won €2,079,383 to date for his Donegal owner Aiden McGrory.
GRS Lady Amaro is the newcomer amongst the top-earning ISH ranks this year. Bred at Garryrichard Stud by Denis Hickey, her pedigree is interesting as the 11-year-old Amaretto D’Arco mare is out of Legal Lady, a thoroughbred dam by the Hickey family’s National Hunt sire Over The River.
GRS Lady Ophelia is a year-younger sibling and, according to the Hippomundo database, won the princely sum of €58 last year, for her 12th place at Blair Castle CCI4*-S with Padraig McCarthy. This again illustrates the difference in prize money, albeit at different levels in this case, between the two sports.
How much did GRS Lady Amaro earn in 2023? €563,968, bringing her current lifetime winnings to €628,794. Mark McAuley, Hickey’s nephew, had already netted €100,000 at the Global Champions Tour playoffs in Prague before his biggest result to date, finishing second with GRS Lady Amaro in a top-class Grand Prix field - United Touch S won, Checker 47 was third - at the pre-Christmas Geneva CSI5*.
Also in the Geneva Grand Prix startlist were Pacino Amiro and another consistent Irish-bred, the Kannan-sired James Kann Cruz. Third in this Swiss class the previous December, the Patrick Connolly-bred racked up another half-a-million in prize money last year, which brought James Kann Cruz into the millionaire horse league with earnings to date of €1,078,177.
His and Shane Sweetnam’s historic World Cup qualifier win at Lexington in November added €70,358 to his 2023 tally. This also includes €100,000 for their runner-up place in the Dinard CSI5* Grand Prix to Elektrik Blue P, and ahead of Leone Jei in third.
Mark McAuley and GRS Lady Amaro (ISH) in action at Hickstead in July 2023. The mare is a newcomer amongst the top-earning ISH ranks this year \ Nigel Goddard
Paris countdown
Cruising dams were a strong feature in both the top ISH eventing and show jumping horses and James Kann Cruz is another example. Pacino was the standout sire amongst the top ISH show jumpers, with no less than three of the top-10 Irish-breds - Pacino Amiro, BP Wakita and EIC Cooley Jump The Q - all by the Diamant de Semilly son.
Chacco-Blue is the next popular sire with two offspring: the Andrew Bourns-campaigned Sea TopBlue and Up Too Jacco Blue, who quadrupled his 2022 winnings. That year, Up Too Jacco Blue won €114,936 with Austria’s Max Kühner (EIC Cooley Jump The Q is another of his successful Irish string).
Last year, the 13-year-old gelding, bred by Mark Sherry, won €471,706, which has now brought Up Too Jacco Blue’s earnings to date to €646,027.
Prague was yet again the setting for another Irish Sport Horse’s bonanza, as Kühner and the Kildare-bred’s Grand Prix third place, (one ahead of Pacino Amiro), added €200,000 to his record.
FTS Killossery Konfusion, Rincoola Milsean and HHS Calais all feature again in the top-10 Irish Sport Horses in the latest Hippomundo end of year rankings, all earning six figures and keeping the ISH suffix on five-star fixtures’ results sheets.
2023 was an excellent year for Irish show jumping breeding, aligned with the ongoing success of the evergreen warrior, Ballaghmor Class.
Two leading eventing studbook titles for the Irish Sport Horse, in both the WBFSH and now Hippomundo rankings’ results, is a remarkable achievement in the face of the growing challenge from continental studbooks. The millionaire pair of Pacino Amiro and James Kann Cruz, plus five-star Grand Prix results for GRS Lady Amaro and Up Too Jacco Blue, have promoted Irish Sport Horse breeding, providing priceless publicity at five-star level.
Prize money levels across the Olympic sports are always an eyeopener, although honour and glory replace prize money at the Olympic Games.
For now, the Olympic Games countdown gears up and plans for the likely team members are staked out. Will there be an Irish-bred medallist next July and August amongst 2024’s top-ranked horses? Time will tell.
Next week: Studbooks, sires and statistics.