In his seminal study The Making of the Modern Warmblood, Australian expert Christopher Hector makes this far-reaching assessment of the current state of Sport Horse breeding: “The stallions, who are themselves the product of a border-hopping innovation, have burst asunder the last remnants of the locality based system of breeding that had been the way of making Warmbloods for several hundred years. The truly modern Warmblood is a horse with no borders.”

This stark reality is borne out through in the current World Breeding Federation show jumping ratings (WBFSH).

The number one horse on that list is Zinius from the Dutch KWPN stud book. He is by the French Selle Francais sire Nabab de Reve and out of a mare by Kannan who is by the Hanovarian Voltaire.

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The “border-hopping” trend is again exemplified by the third placed on that list. This is the mare Bianca from the Swedish SWB stud book. She is by the Oldenburg Baloubet du Rouet and out of a Holsteiner by Cardento. And so it goes.

Traditional Irish

For generations Irish breeders held fast to our traditional crosses of thoroughbred to Irish Draught. But by the 1980’s there was a dramatic change. Instead of mares and geldings, the world’s top show jumpers were riding stallions and they made a huge impact.

One can remember the great Galoubet at the 1982 World Championships in Dublin. There were others like Alme, Quick Star, Nimmerdor and many more that became the stallion stars that proved their ability in world class competition.

Regardless of their stud book origin they and their stallion sons became the must-haves of European Sport Horse breeding. Eventually the facts of life became too compelling for Ireland to keep its stud book closed to ‘foreign’ blood.

So, it was opened. And not only that, in the new millennium we ended up with two stud books in the country.

In the making

The evolution of Sport Horse breeding is not by any means finished. It is still very young by comparison with the hundreds of year old thoroughbred.

Some would even predict that eventually we will have a Universal Sport Horse Stud Book that will make nonsense of all localised books and that country of origin will be the only mark of distinction.

Until that time comes our new Board of Horse Sport Ireland will have to deal with the ever changing circumstances of our ISH stud book.

It may well be that it will have to be much more the property of the breeders themselves and registration funded. The Indecon report hinted at just such an outcome.

We will wait and see.