Imagine the impact on racing and bloodstock statistics without Group and Grade 1 races? With no Olympics or World Cup finals, a suspended Global Champions Tour and just one five-star three-day-event held in 2020, last year’s rankings were always going to reflect a reduced year.
There was good news though for the Irish Sport Horse (ISH) studbook and Irish breeders.
Galway Bay Stud’s Justin Burke was the leading Irish show jumping breeder in both the Hippomundo and World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses (WBFSH) rankings, Mountmellick farmer PJ Kearns bred Horseware Woodcourt Garrison, the highest-placed ISH event horse in the WBFSH results and John Mulvey was second on Hippomundo’s eventing breeders leaderboard, thanks to Brookfield Inocent.
Although the ISH studbook finished in fourth place in the WBFSH eventing studbook rankings, it retained its unbroken run on Hippomundo. ISH show jumpers won €1,350,830 in prizemoney, a result which saw the studbook place 11th in the Hippomundo rankings.
What 2021 holds competition-wise is relatively unknown, although at the time of writing, the Tokyo Olympics and the closed door five-star event at Kentucky were scheduled to go ahead. For now, lets compare how Irish-breds fared in last year’s rankings.
Breeder John Mulvey is hoping Piggy March and Brookfield Inocent make it to Tokyo this year \ Peter Nixon
Hippomundo
Hippomundo offer hours of data for riders and breeders to browse through. Sophisticated features for its subscribers include full details on rankings, pedigrees (including blacktype families) and a foal planner option.
Its individual horse, studbook and sire rankings are based on prize money won by performers, representatives and offspring recorded on a comprehensive database.
Starting off with eventing, it was another win by the ISH studbook and dream result for John Mulvey, a self-professed ‘small breeder.’
With the pandemic, there was no possibility of the ISH studbook ever matching its €1,123,568 earnings of 2019. This figure was boosted at five-star level by the likes of Ballaghmor Class (Courage II, bred by Noel Hickey), Cooley Master Class (Ramiro, bred by John Hagan), MGH Grafton Street (O.B.O.S Quality 004, bred by Martin Collins) and Vanir Kamira (Camiro de Haar Z, bred by Kate Jackson).
Pau, the sole five-star event to go ahead last year, was the game-changer when the Mulvey-bred Brookfield Inocent, MHS King Joules (Ghareeb. Ita Brennan) and Mermus R Diamonds (Mermus R, bred by Gary Higgins) finished second, sixth and ninth respectively at the French fixture. Those results placed John Mulvey (second) and the late Ita Brennan (10th) on Hippomundo’s top-10 eventing breeders leader board.
Andrea Etter completed the top-three Irish breeders in 13th place with the best of the Etter-breds being Fernhill By Night. The Radolin gelding won the Aiken CCI4*-S last autumn when the American circuit resumed.
Pau’s results also saw Brookfield Inocent (British Eventing’s top horse in 2020) and his sire Inocent place second in the individual horse and eventing sire rankings. Inocent is the only Irish-based stallion in Hippomundo’s top-10 eventing stallions (headed by Pau winner London 52’s sire Landos) and his Mulvey-bred is the only Irish-bred in the top-10, although Fernhill By Night (11th) and MHS King Joules (13th) came close.
Looking at Hippomundo’s show jumping results, the ISH studbook finished 11th last year.
And the highest-ranked Irish show jumping breeder? That was former dairy farmer-turned-horse breeder Justin Burke, who has catapulted up the Hippomundo rankings from 218th place in 2019 to 15th last year.
Best of the half-dozen Burke-breds is Luibanta BH (Luidam x Abantos). She won €121,570 last year which brings her career earnings to €484,011 and we’ll see her name crop up again in the WBFSH results. Burke’s second-highest earner was Galway Bay Jed (Romanov x Lux Z) on €34,864.
Two more Irish breeders broke the six-figure prize money barrier. Marion Hughes (ranked 31st on the show jumping breeders leaderboard, €124,585) has 10 horses listed, headed by HHS Fortune (Catoki x Ard VDL Douglas, €48,678).
The third breeder is Liam McKee (55th) whose leading performer is Penelope Cruz (Ustinov x Peter Pan). Another to feature prominently in the WBFSH rankings, she earned €99,495 last year to bring the total earned by McKee-breds to €100,115.
Denis Lynch's GC Chopin's Bushi (Contendro II) was second in the individual showjumping horses rankings \ Laurence Dunne Jumpinaction.net
The ISH studbook got off to a flying start in the 2021 Hippomundo rankings, thanks to the Simon Scott-bred Pacino Amiro (Pacino x NC Amiro). His winning form on the Florida circuit with Bertram Allen has already seen the 11-year-old lodge €147,200 into his prizemoney account to lie in sixth place currently and boost the ISH studbook to seventh. An excellent start to 2021 to follow on from another great set of results for Irish-breds in the Hippomundo rankings.
WBFSH
At face value, fourth place in the eventing rankings may appear a disappointing result for the usually poll-topping ISH studbook. 2020 was not a typical year.
However the ISH studbook did climb three places from 2019’s all-time low result (17th) to finish 14th in the show jumping division.
How are WBFSH studbook results calculated? By points earned at FEI competitions by the top half-dozen horses of each member studbook. Last year’s top-six ISH event are Horseware Woodcourt Garrison (Garrison Royale x Furisto, bred by Patrick J. Kearns); Imperial Sky (Puissance x Horos, bred by Carolyn Lanigan O’Keeffe); Lukas (Lux Z x Roi Danzig, bred by Louise Parkhill); Monarts Masterpiece (Master Imp x Crosstown Dancer, bred by Wilfred Atkinson); Woodford Reserve (Tinarana’s Inspector x Laughtons Flight, bred by Frank Hickey) and Tullyoran Cruise JRA (Vriend x Bahrain Cruise, bred by Patrick Walpole).
Revised individual event horse results see two Irish Sport Horses – Horseware Woodcourt Garrison (fourth) and Imperial Sky (sixth) in the top 10. Both these horses and Lukas (23rd) are long-listed for the Tokyo Olympics.
The top-six ISHs in the show jumping studbook rankings are Luibanta BH (Luidam x Abantos, bred by Justin Burke); Penelope Cruz (Ustinov x Peter Pan, bred by Liam McKee); BEC Lorenzo (SIEC Livello x Guidam, bred by Brian Duff); Castleforbes Vladimir (Vivaldo Van Het Costersveld x Quick Star, bred by Lady Georgina Forbes); Columbcille De Reve (Hermes de Reve x Errigal Flight, bred by George McDonald) and Lapuccino 2 (SIEC Livello, bred by Sven Kapp).
Familiar names
Again, we see some familiar names in both the Hippomundo and WBFSH show jumping rankings. The highest-ranked Irish-bred show jumper was the Justin Burke-bred Galway Bay Jed, registered with the Anglo European Studbook (AES) in 79th place, just five places above Luibanta BH (84th).
Two more Irish-breds at the top end of the WBFSH rankings are event horse Shanaclough Contadora at 21st (Contador x Coevers Diamond Boy, bred by Ann Glynn) and Irish Masters winner Compelling Z at 162nd (Chellano Z x Carthago Z, bred by Carmel Ryan), registered with the AES and Zangersheide studbooks respectively.
The top-three dressage studbooks are the KWPN, Oldenburg and Westfalian. The Selle Français and BWP studbooks fill second and third places behind the KWPN in show jumping and the Dutch studbook completes its WBFSH 2020 treble by topping the eventing category, followed by the Selle Français and Hannoverian Verband.
Four-in-a-row
Chacco-Blue retained his WBFSH show jumping sires title for a fourth successive year and two Irish-based stallions – O.B.O.S Quality 004 and Ars Vivendi – appear in the top-10 eventing sires. Zara Tindall’s latest Irish-bred Class Affair, bred by Maurice O’Brien heads O.B.O.S Quality’s 31 listed offspring and the Thomas Byrne-bred and Australian-based RLE Poynstown Will is the best of Ars Vivendi’s 21 progeny. Incidentally, Ars Vivendi is ranked second in the United States Equestrian Federation (USEF) 2020 eventing sire rankings.
With Pau’s late October results counting towards the 2021 WBFSH rankings, the ISH studbook is on its way to reclaiming its eventing title. And a string of good Grand Prix results over the winter by Pacino Amiro, Lapuccino 2 and Castlefield Vegas (bred by John Clarke) also bodes well for Irish show jumping breeding and next year’s rankings results.
• Its top-10 show jumping studbooks (2020) are the Selle Français, KWPN, BWP, Holsteiner, Zangersheide, Oldenburger Springpferd, Hannoverian, Westfalian, sBs and Oldenburger.
• 4,771 Selle Français-registered show jumping horses earned €7,843,990 in 2020 or an average of €1,669 per horse. The highest average amount per horse within the top-10 studbooks was the Oldenburg (OLD) registry (562 horses, €2,564 per horse). Punching well above their weight were 544 ISH (€2,483) - just an €81 difference between the Irish-breds and 10th-placed German studbook.
• Daniel Deusser’s top horse Killer Queen (Eldorado van de Zeshoek TN x For Pleasure. BWP. Breeder: Dirk and Ann Bruggeman-Carpentier) was the top earning show jumping horse (€281,226).
• Chacco-Blue (Chambertin) and the Le Tot de Semilly son Diamant de Semilly (second) completed a 1-2 result in both the WBFSH and Hippomundo 2020 show jumping sire rankings.
• In 2020, 396 Chacco-Blue offspring won a total of €1,620,763 (€4,093 per horse) which gave him an extra edge over Diamant de Semilly (€1,498,389). Toulon (Heartbreaker) rounds out the top-three sires (€829,485).
• Irish Sport Horses earned €1,123,568 in eventing prizemoney in 2019. With just one five-star event in 2020, the ISH total dropped to €143,449.
The top-10 show jumping sires (2020) are Chacco-Blue (MECK), Diamant de Semilly (SF), Toulon (BWP), Mylord Carthago (SF), Casall (HOLST), Berlin (HOLST), Kashmir Van’t Schuttershof (SBS), Cardento (HOLST), Nabab de Reve (BWP) and Diarado (HOLST).The top-10 eventing sires (2020) are Grafenstolz (TRAK), Diarado (HOLST), Jaguar Mail (SF), Contendro I (HOLST), O.B.O.S Quality (OLD, Diamant de Semilly (SF), Nouma D’Auzay (SF), Ars Vivendi (HOLST), Mighty Magic (HOLST) and Landos (HOLST). 13 of the top 50 eventing sires are or were based in Ireland, including O.B.O.S Quality (OLD), fifth), Ars Vivendi (HOLST), eighth), Puissance (ISH) [TIH], 13th), Shannondale Sarco (BWP), 14th), Tinarana’s Inspector (WESTF), 17th), Albaran (TB), 19th,), Radolin (KWPN), 23rd), Lux Z (HANN), 24th), Master Imp (TB), 25th), Courage II (HOLST) 28th), Womanizer (KWPN), 28th), Heritage Fortunus (HANN), 40th) and Garrison Royal (ISH), 42nd).Three top-100 show jumping sires – VDL Douglas (32nd), Luidam (40th) and Querleybet Hero (91st) – spent part of their stud career here. Chacco-Blue and Grafenstolz were competed as young horses by Cameron Hanley and Michael Jung respectively.Denis Lynch’s star GC Chopin’s Bushi (Contendro II), competed for a spell by the late Jack Dodd, was second in the individual show jumping horses rankings, topped by Denver (Albfuehren’s Memphis).Chalou (Chacco-Blue), King Of Diamonds (Rubioso N), Rouge de Revel (Quouglof Rouge), Elektrik Blue (Eldorado van de Zeshoek), Baloussino (Baloussini), Evita SG Z (Verdi TN), Voulage Du Val Henry (Quidam de Revel) and Akuna Matata (Quinar) complete the top-10.
Imagine the impact on racing and bloodstock statistics without Group and Grade 1 races? With no Olympics or World Cup finals, a suspended Global Champions Tour and just one five-star three-day-event held in 2020, last year’s rankings were always going to reflect a reduced year.
There was good news though for the Irish Sport Horse (ISH) studbook and Irish breeders.
Galway Bay Stud’s Justin Burke was the leading Irish show jumping breeder in both the Hippomundo and World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses (WBFSH) rankings, Mountmellick farmer PJ Kearns bred Horseware Woodcourt Garrison, the highest-placed ISH event horse in the WBFSH results and John Mulvey was second on Hippomundo’s eventing breeders leaderboard, thanks to Brookfield Inocent.
Although the ISH studbook finished in fourth place in the WBFSH eventing studbook rankings, it retained its unbroken run on Hippomundo. ISH show jumpers won €1,350,830 in prizemoney, a result which saw the studbook place 11th in the Hippomundo rankings.
What 2021 holds competition-wise is relatively unknown, although at the time of writing, the Tokyo Olympics and the closed door five-star event at Kentucky were scheduled to go ahead. For now, lets compare how Irish-breds fared in last year’s rankings.
Breeder John Mulvey is hoping Piggy March and Brookfield Inocent make it to Tokyo this year \ Peter Nixon
Hippomundo
Hippomundo offer hours of data for riders and breeders to browse through. Sophisticated features for its subscribers include full details on rankings, pedigrees (including blacktype families) and a foal planner option.
Its individual horse, studbook and sire rankings are based on prize money won by performers, representatives and offspring recorded on a comprehensive database.
Starting off with eventing, it was another win by the ISH studbook and dream result for John Mulvey, a self-professed ‘small breeder.’
With the pandemic, there was no possibility of the ISH studbook ever matching its €1,123,568 earnings of 2019. This figure was boosted at five-star level by the likes of Ballaghmor Class (Courage II, bred by Noel Hickey), Cooley Master Class (Ramiro, bred by John Hagan), MGH Grafton Street (O.B.O.S Quality 004, bred by Martin Collins) and Vanir Kamira (Camiro de Haar Z, bred by Kate Jackson).
Pau, the sole five-star event to go ahead last year, was the game-changer when the Mulvey-bred Brookfield Inocent, MHS King Joules (Ghareeb. Ita Brennan) and Mermus R Diamonds (Mermus R, bred by Gary Higgins) finished second, sixth and ninth respectively at the French fixture. Those results placed John Mulvey (second) and the late Ita Brennan (10th) on Hippomundo’s top-10 eventing breeders leader board.
Andrea Etter completed the top-three Irish breeders in 13th place with the best of the Etter-breds being Fernhill By Night. The Radolin gelding won the Aiken CCI4*-S last autumn when the American circuit resumed.
Pau’s results also saw Brookfield Inocent (British Eventing’s top horse in 2020) and his sire Inocent place second in the individual horse and eventing sire rankings. Inocent is the only Irish-based stallion in Hippomundo’s top-10 eventing stallions (headed by Pau winner London 52’s sire Landos) and his Mulvey-bred is the only Irish-bred in the top-10, although Fernhill By Night (11th) and MHS King Joules (13th) came close.
Looking at Hippomundo’s show jumping results, the ISH studbook finished 11th last year.
And the highest-ranked Irish show jumping breeder? That was former dairy farmer-turned-horse breeder Justin Burke, who has catapulted up the Hippomundo rankings from 218th place in 2019 to 15th last year.
Best of the half-dozen Burke-breds is Luibanta BH (Luidam x Abantos). She won €121,570 last year which brings her career earnings to €484,011 and we’ll see her name crop up again in the WBFSH results. Burke’s second-highest earner was Galway Bay Jed (Romanov x Lux Z) on €34,864.
Two more Irish breeders broke the six-figure prize money barrier. Marion Hughes (ranked 31st on the show jumping breeders leaderboard, €124,585) has 10 horses listed, headed by HHS Fortune (Catoki x Ard VDL Douglas, €48,678).
The third breeder is Liam McKee (55th) whose leading performer is Penelope Cruz (Ustinov x Peter Pan). Another to feature prominently in the WBFSH rankings, she earned €99,495 last year to bring the total earned by McKee-breds to €100,115.
Denis Lynch's GC Chopin's Bushi (Contendro II) was second in the individual showjumping horses rankings \ Laurence Dunne Jumpinaction.net
The ISH studbook got off to a flying start in the 2021 Hippomundo rankings, thanks to the Simon Scott-bred Pacino Amiro (Pacino x NC Amiro). His winning form on the Florida circuit with Bertram Allen has already seen the 11-year-old lodge €147,200 into his prizemoney account to lie in sixth place currently and boost the ISH studbook to seventh. An excellent start to 2021 to follow on from another great set of results for Irish-breds in the Hippomundo rankings.
WBFSH
At face value, fourth place in the eventing rankings may appear a disappointing result for the usually poll-topping ISH studbook. 2020 was not a typical year.
However the ISH studbook did climb three places from 2019’s all-time low result (17th) to finish 14th in the show jumping division.
How are WBFSH studbook results calculated? By points earned at FEI competitions by the top half-dozen horses of each member studbook. Last year’s top-six ISH event are Horseware Woodcourt Garrison (Garrison Royale x Furisto, bred by Patrick J. Kearns); Imperial Sky (Puissance x Horos, bred by Carolyn Lanigan O’Keeffe); Lukas (Lux Z x Roi Danzig, bred by Louise Parkhill); Monarts Masterpiece (Master Imp x Crosstown Dancer, bred by Wilfred Atkinson); Woodford Reserve (Tinarana’s Inspector x Laughtons Flight, bred by Frank Hickey) and Tullyoran Cruise JRA (Vriend x Bahrain Cruise, bred by Patrick Walpole).
Revised individual event horse results see two Irish Sport Horses – Horseware Woodcourt Garrison (fourth) and Imperial Sky (sixth) in the top 10. Both these horses and Lukas (23rd) are long-listed for the Tokyo Olympics.
The top-six ISHs in the show jumping studbook rankings are Luibanta BH (Luidam x Abantos, bred by Justin Burke); Penelope Cruz (Ustinov x Peter Pan, bred by Liam McKee); BEC Lorenzo (SIEC Livello x Guidam, bred by Brian Duff); Castleforbes Vladimir (Vivaldo Van Het Costersveld x Quick Star, bred by Lady Georgina Forbes); Columbcille De Reve (Hermes de Reve x Errigal Flight, bred by George McDonald) and Lapuccino 2 (SIEC Livello, bred by Sven Kapp).
Familiar names
Again, we see some familiar names in both the Hippomundo and WBFSH show jumping rankings. The highest-ranked Irish-bred show jumper was the Justin Burke-bred Galway Bay Jed, registered with the Anglo European Studbook (AES) in 79th place, just five places above Luibanta BH (84th).
Two more Irish-breds at the top end of the WBFSH rankings are event horse Shanaclough Contadora at 21st (Contador x Coevers Diamond Boy, bred by Ann Glynn) and Irish Masters winner Compelling Z at 162nd (Chellano Z x Carthago Z, bred by Carmel Ryan), registered with the AES and Zangersheide studbooks respectively.
The top-three dressage studbooks are the KWPN, Oldenburg and Westfalian. The Selle Français and BWP studbooks fill second and third places behind the KWPN in show jumping and the Dutch studbook completes its WBFSH 2020 treble by topping the eventing category, followed by the Selle Français and Hannoverian Verband.
Four-in-a-row
Chacco-Blue retained his WBFSH show jumping sires title for a fourth successive year and two Irish-based stallions – O.B.O.S Quality 004 and Ars Vivendi – appear in the top-10 eventing sires. Zara Tindall’s latest Irish-bred Class Affair, bred by Maurice O’Brien heads O.B.O.S Quality’s 31 listed offspring and the Thomas Byrne-bred and Australian-based RLE Poynstown Will is the best of Ars Vivendi’s 21 progeny. Incidentally, Ars Vivendi is ranked second in the United States Equestrian Federation (USEF) 2020 eventing sire rankings.
With Pau’s late October results counting towards the 2021 WBFSH rankings, the ISH studbook is on its way to reclaiming its eventing title. And a string of good Grand Prix results over the winter by Pacino Amiro, Lapuccino 2 and Castlefield Vegas (bred by John Clarke) also bodes well for Irish show jumping breeding and next year’s rankings results.
• Its top-10 show jumping studbooks (2020) are the Selle Français, KWPN, BWP, Holsteiner, Zangersheide, Oldenburger Springpferd, Hannoverian, Westfalian, sBs and Oldenburger.
• 4,771 Selle Français-registered show jumping horses earned €7,843,990 in 2020 or an average of €1,669 per horse. The highest average amount per horse within the top-10 studbooks was the Oldenburg (OLD) registry (562 horses, €2,564 per horse). Punching well above their weight were 544 ISH (€2,483) - just an €81 difference between the Irish-breds and 10th-placed German studbook.
• Daniel Deusser’s top horse Killer Queen (Eldorado van de Zeshoek TN x For Pleasure. BWP. Breeder: Dirk and Ann Bruggeman-Carpentier) was the top earning show jumping horse (€281,226).
• Chacco-Blue (Chambertin) and the Le Tot de Semilly son Diamant de Semilly (second) completed a 1-2 result in both the WBFSH and Hippomundo 2020 show jumping sire rankings.
• In 2020, 396 Chacco-Blue offspring won a total of €1,620,763 (€4,093 per horse) which gave him an extra edge over Diamant de Semilly (€1,498,389). Toulon (Heartbreaker) rounds out the top-three sires (€829,485).
• Irish Sport Horses earned €1,123,568 in eventing prizemoney in 2019. With just one five-star event in 2020, the ISH total dropped to €143,449.
The top-10 show jumping sires (2020) are Chacco-Blue (MECK), Diamant de Semilly (SF), Toulon (BWP), Mylord Carthago (SF), Casall (HOLST), Berlin (HOLST), Kashmir Van’t Schuttershof (SBS), Cardento (HOLST), Nabab de Reve (BWP) and Diarado (HOLST).The top-10 eventing sires (2020) are Grafenstolz (TRAK), Diarado (HOLST), Jaguar Mail (SF), Contendro I (HOLST), O.B.O.S Quality (OLD, Diamant de Semilly (SF), Nouma D’Auzay (SF), Ars Vivendi (HOLST), Mighty Magic (HOLST) and Landos (HOLST). 13 of the top 50 eventing sires are or were based in Ireland, including O.B.O.S Quality (OLD), fifth), Ars Vivendi (HOLST), eighth), Puissance (ISH) [TIH], 13th), Shannondale Sarco (BWP), 14th), Tinarana’s Inspector (WESTF), 17th), Albaran (TB), 19th,), Radolin (KWPN), 23rd), Lux Z (HANN), 24th), Master Imp (TB), 25th), Courage II (HOLST) 28th), Womanizer (KWPN), 28th), Heritage Fortunus (HANN), 40th) and Garrison Royal (ISH), 42nd).Three top-100 show jumping sires – VDL Douglas (32nd), Luidam (40th) and Querleybet Hero (91st) – spent part of their stud career here. Chacco-Blue and Grafenstolz were competed as young horses by Cameron Hanley and Michael Jung respectively.Denis Lynch’s star GC Chopin’s Bushi (Contendro II), competed for a spell by the late Jack Dodd, was second in the individual show jumping horses rankings, topped by Denver (Albfuehren’s Memphis).Chalou (Chacco-Blue), King Of Diamonds (Rubioso N), Rouge de Revel (Quouglof Rouge), Elektrik Blue (Eldorado van de Zeshoek), Baloussino (Baloussini), Evita SG Z (Verdi TN), Voulage Du Val Henry (Quidam de Revel) and Akuna Matata (Quinar) complete the top-10. 
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