ALL breeders know the adage, “Breed the best to the best and hope for the best”. In horse breeding how do we define and measure “the best”? Well, it depends on your individual breeding goal, but in thoroughbreds it is the amount of uppercase blacktype in the pedigree.

In performance sport horses it is the same, i.e., the number of highest-level international performers in the pedigree, also denoted as uppercase blacktype in pedigree reports.

This is surely a simple approach that we can all utilise as breeders. Is the recent success of young Irish Sport Horses breaking though to win Grands Prix and Ranking classes at 1.60m level really a surprise? Or is it the result of careful performance pedigree selection by the breeders involved and appropriate production of these talented young horses through the Horse Sport Ireland-supported Irish production system?

It is an impressive list of Irish Sport Horses this year to date MHS Fernhill (AKA Kilkenny), Castlefield Vegas, HHS Burnchurch, BBS McGregor, HHS Javas Gucci, HHS Fortune, HHS Calais and Javas Miss Jordan to name just a few.

Performance dam lines

in action

MHS Fernhill (now know as Kilkenny) is an excellent example. He is by Cardento and out of MHS Pembrook lady, who was bred by the late Ita Brennan in Co Kilkenny in 2012. Most of you will know that MHS Pembrook Lady’s Trixie Lady dam line is very strong, having produced over 16 international jumping horses, including Max Hauri’s medal-winning Royal Athlete in the 1990s to the Nations Cup hero MHS Going Global. The line’s combination of performance and soundness has also produced a similar number of international eventers including the CCI5* level MHS King Joules, Cooley Cross Border and Proud Courage.

The Trixie Lady line is the foundation line for the production of the Brennan family success today. MHS Fernhill started his jumping career with Sophie Richards as a four-year-old and progressed through the Irish Sport Horse Studbook series as a five-, six- and seven-year-old, achieving many placings and prize money throughout this period. He also qualified for RDS Dublin as a four and six-year-old, and as a five-year-old year he competed at the FEI/WBFSH Young Horse Championships at Lanaken, Belguim.

However, this dam line is interesting for another reason, particularly for Irish breeders aspiring to upgrade and buy/breed into the best families available.

In 2015, Joanne Fox and Finbar Mulligan of Wicklow’s Kilmashogue Stud were seeking a new bloodline to add to their impressive broodmares. A very astute and scientific approach to broodmare sourcing lead them to Tom Brennan’s farm in Co Kilkenny. This visit resulted in the purchase of MHS Fernhill’s (Kilkenny) dam, MHS Pembrook Lady. Finbar and Joanne were attracted by her pedigree, the offspring from the family, and the freedom of movement of the mare herself on the day they visited.

Since 2015 they have been well rewarded with two filly and two colt foals to top performance sires, all registered under their Pembrook prefix. A filly by Diamant de Semilly has been retained by them for breeding at Kilmashogue Stud. The 2017 colt by Kannan was the sale-topper at the Irish Breeders’ Classic foal sale and was bought by Greg Brodrick who has retained him as a stallion called Pembrook Corbetts Lane (ISH).

In 2019, the filly by Diamant de Semilly, called Pembrook Knockroe, was the sale-topper at the Cavan Elite Foal sale. This is a great example of how progressive breeders can research and upgrade into a top international Grand Prix-producing family and be rewarded quickly by breeding replacement fillies and top pedigree foals for sale.

In 2021, Horse Sport Ireland’s Mare Upgrade scheme will provide further assistance for breeders interested in following the example. For further details, see https://www.horsesportireland.ie/breeding/breeding-initiatives/

BBS McGregor (ISH) and Jack Ryan claim victory in Barnadown in the seven-year-old Irish Sport Horse Studbook class in 2019 at the presentation with HSI's Alison Corbally \ Laurence Dunne Jumpinaction.net

National picture

In Horse Sport Ireland, we have been concerned regarding the number of active broodmares that have not competed. As a result, Horse Sport Ireland have been conducting a performance mare benchmarking exercise for the past number of years involving the manual detailed tracing of Irish Sport Horses as they compete world-wide.

The goal was to implement recommendation 1.4 of Reaching New Heights regarding the mare herd and to provide an up-to-date profile of the active ISH mare herd in relation to their registration and breeding details, performance summary, genetic evaluation results and progeny profile.

This work was carried out by the Horse Sport Ireland geneticist, Katherine Brady, as part of the annual genetic evaluation work of the studbook.

Bearing in mind the opening paragraphs of this article regarding the use of performance dam lines to shorten the odds in the production of top-level performance horses, the statistics are stark.

Michael Pender and HHS Burnchurch in action at Grand Prix Geneva 2019 with HHS Burnchurch \ Tadhg Ryan Bit-Media.com

  • Only 67 (0.6%) of active broodmares, have show jumped at the highest level (Table 1).
  • 50 of these were ISH broodmares, 17 were of other breeds (AES, BWP, HANN, HESS, HOLST, KWPN, OLD, WESTF, ZANG) which have been endorsed for cross breeding into the Irish Sport Horse studbook.
  • Only 169 of recent ISH foals had a grandam who competed at any level.
  • 74% of broodmares had no known sport registration for themselves or their progeny.

    • So, what is the overall capacity of our active broodmare herd, that are most likely to breed a top performance horse?

  • If we define a mare as having a good chance of breeding a top showjumper as mares who have been successful at 1.40m or have previously produced a 1.40m foal, there are 249 such broodmares active in the five years up to 2019.
  • If we define a mare as having a reasonable chance of breeding a top showjumper as mares who have been successful at 1.50m or have previously produced a 1.50m foal, there are 148 such broodmares active in the five years up to 2019.
  • If we define a mare as having a good chance of breeding a top eventer as mares who have previously produced a four-star foal, there are 165 such broodmares active in the last five years up to 2019.

    • Taking a glass-half-full approach from Table 2, one might determine that we have 1,465 performance mares actively breeding throughout the period. In show jumping, 951 mares actively breeding that have competed themselves or bred a 1.30m or higher offspring and in eventing, 514 mares actively breeding that have competed or a bred a CCI2* or better offspring.

    However, the most startling statistic is that 74% of the active broodmare population have not competed in either SJ or eventing at any national level, nor have they bred offspring that have competed.

    Next steps

    Having witnessed the early indications of this research, Horse Sport Ireland has implemented specific breeding initiatives for the past years to encourage breeders to break and produce their young fillies and performance test them prior to breeding and have introduced additional incentives for mares. These schemes are aimed to assist in the upgrading and production of performance mares of the future.

    Returning to the adage, “Breed the best to the best and hope for the best”, how is this done in practice and how can the current HSI schemes and industry support assist?

    Horse Sport Ireland have produced a summary of the six key steps followed by breeders of successful Irish performance horses and outlined the strategic supports that HSI provide for each stage.

    The results of the benchmarking exercise are clear: a scientific approach to horse breeding works and is within the reach of all Irish performance sport horse breeders.