Horse Sport Ireland chairman Pat Wall said there was a possibility that Pillar 2 funding from the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) could be drawn down as an education fund to help breeders create discussion groups along the lines of those already set up by commercial dairy, beef and sheep farmers.

Wall maintained that the funding could be used to pay for facilitators who would run discussion groups on a county or regional basis across the country. However, he warned that such funding was unlikely to materialise unless horse breeders took the initiative to start up discussion groups themselves.

“We need to be seen to do something for ourselves first, we shouldn’t be waiting for the Minister to help us out,” Wall told The Irish Field.

“Before this breeding season starts, I would like to see people get together and start their own discussion groups locally.”

The discussion group model has already proven to be extremely successful in commercial farming, where research found that discussion group farmers are more profitable and better at financial and grassland management than non-members. One group of horse breeders in Co Waterford who set up a discussion group almost five years ago are now reaping the rewards.

John Walsh, chairman of the 30-strong Waterford Sport Horse Breeders Group, said membership of the group helped breeders in selecting the mares to breed from and sharing the latest information on stallions.

“We got Peter Leonard down to assess all our mares and we used that to get rid of some that weren’t worth breeding from.

“We have gone to the continent to see what young sires are on the way up,” he explained. “We are buying foals from good families and last year we had Tiernan Gill and Capt David O’Brien down to judge our performance foal class.

“With the help of the group and research on CapallOir, I found a mare with all the old valuable Irish lines – she has Master Imp, Skyboy, King Of Diamonds and Highland Flight in her pedigree,” added Walsh. “She has 10 international horses in her pedigree and she is in foal to Clover Flush this year.”

He continued: “The group has its own website and we are creating a brand of our own. Between us, we have 40 foals due this year. We just put them on the website this week and we have enquiries for those foals from America already.”