Latest RDS research into the national traditional mare herd has highlighted an alarming decline in recent years, with numbers just over the 100-mark left in the country.

In keeping with recommendations from the Reaching New Heights strategy, researcher Marcus O’Donnell’s three-year mare profiling project on behalf of the RDS is ongoing and has now identified just 103 elite traditionally-bred show jumping mares and dams left.

The traditional Irish horse (TIH) is identified as a horse with three successive generations of recorded Irish traditional pedigree, which can be one or a combination of three breeds: the Irish draught, the Connemara pony and the thoroughbred.

O’Donnell’s research looks for mares that have competed at 1.40m level or above. So far he has found only 40 that meet this criteria and has identified another 63 TIH dams who have produced horses who competed at 1.40m or higher. Not surprisingly, the top five high-performance show jumping mares are all by Cruising, with Mo Chroi, Solerina and Cruise Hill taking the top three slots.

Loughview Diamond Lucy (Jack of Diamonds), Dunadry Lady (Crosstown Dancer), Madame Delphine (Clover Brigade), Oldtown Katie (Clover Fields) and Omard Queenie (Clover Hill) head the top five placings in the high-performance broodmare category.

“It shows how endangered the traditional show jumping mare is at this stage. It is sad that there are so few still available for breeding. And it highlights how important it is to get fillies from these mares in order to make an effort to protect the performance TIH.

“If we were to get fillies from those mares now, it would give a certain amount of breathing space. It would be another generation of traditional performance mares on the ground,” said O’Donnell.

The RDS aims to publish the list of mares in a book with extended “blacktype” performance pedigrees for each mare over the coming months, and O’Donnell is keen to hear from breeders ahead of this.

“I believe the list is almost complete but we want to make sure we don’t miss any. So if breeders know of any mares who should be on the list, we want them to get in touch. Or if there are progeny of mares out there that might boost the dam’s ranking in our list, we want to know about it.”

Markus O’Donnell can be contacted by email at marcus odonnell@hotmail.com