SPECULATION has been rife in recent weeks about the future role of AI (Artificial Intelligence) which is tipped to replace up to as many as 300 million workers worldwide, according to a report by investment bankers Goldman Sachs.
At this time of year, with the covering season now in full swing, most breeders are more concerned about another form of AI – artificial insemination and getting foals safely on the ground.
What about last year’s foal crop? Traditionally, the annual foal book, produced initially by the Irish Horse Board and in latter years by Horse Sport Ireland’s breeding department, landed through paid-up members letterboxes during the summertime. It was an invaluable resource for breeders and buyers alike, as, prior to the GDPR-sensitive era, breeders addresses were provided.
As well as these fast-track leads for potential buyers, the book’s covering patterns and pages of sires, listed with their registered progeny, always proved highly useful.
As would have one of those Artificial Intelligence bots for totting up the busiest sires tables.
However, it’s been four years since a foal book was produced. “The last foal book was in 2019,” confirmed Dr Sonja Egan, HSI’s Head of Breeding, Innovation and Production, with lack of resources and funding support for a printed hard copy cited as factors for its temporary cessation.
“I do intend to automate the foal book in 2023, as I am in the process of doing for the stallion book. This will mean that the information will be available ‘live’ based on our database, and will produce full, printable reports.”
2022 foal crop
Since then, a brief summary of breeding statistics contained in the HSI annual report has been the main source of information about foal crops. So what do we know about the 2022 foal crop from the available HSI figures?
There was another increase in the number of foals registered with HSI (7,686), consisting of Irish Sport Horses (5,469), Irish Draughts (1,063), Irish Sport Pony (145), Irish Cobs (98), Kerry Bog Pony (54), Donkeys (20) and part-bred Irish Cobs (15).
An additional 822 ‘Identification Documents’ for foals with unknown pedigrees were also issued, a slight decrease since 2021 (829) but an increase since 2019 (611).
The 2022 foal registration figure has now overtaken the previous highest number of registered foals (7,633) recorded back during the Celtic Tiger boom (2008).
The first of two key takeaway points from last year’s HSI figures is the fact that ‘Foreign breeds,’ or continental, sires produced an average of four out of every 10 foals last year. Use of warmblood stallions hovered around the 35% mark in recent years and in 2022, had increased to 40.15%.
Irish Draught stallions continue to retain a quarter share of the market while support for Irish Sport Horse and thoroughbred stallions continues to drop.
It was back in 1996 when the use of thoroughbred stallions (38%) outnumbered support for warmblood sires that year.
Having dropped in support to single digits in recent years, TB-sired foals accounted for a mere 7.34% of last year’s tally of 6,677 foals across the Irish Sport Horse, Irish Draught and Irish Sport Pony herds.
Startling
The other quite startling statistic is that 60.21% of last year’s registered foals were either by non-inspected Entry (38.10%) or Not Approved 1 (22.11%) stallions. Approved sires accounted for just 26.06%, or just one-quarter of the 2022 sport horse foal registrations, down from 33.3% four years ago (2019).
Does this point to some breeders lack of faith in the stallion inspection system or belief in their own decisions about sire choices?
Galway (854) was once again the most productive foal-producing county, followed by a close race between Clare (445) and Wexford (442). Down, previously included in the Northern Ireland collective figure, makes its own top-10 appearance.
Busiest sires? No precise information was available, however Sligo Candy Boy, whose breeder Padraig Howley features in this week’s Breeders’ 10, has consistently featured at the top of the Irish Sport Horse stallion tables in recent years.
And while not relating to the 2022 figures, we do have some insight into traditional breeding patterns. In the past, there were no precise figures available for the percentage of Traditional Irish Horse (TIH) foals amongst annual foal crops.
However, the most recent data (2021) provided by Horse Sport Ireland to the Traditional Irish Horse Association (TIHA) showed that the most popular thoroughbred sires that year of TIH foals were Pointilliste (36), Road To Happiness (16), Golden Master and Lucarelli (15), Shadow Gate (13), Jack The Robin (12), Centennial, Elusive Emir and Financial Reward (nine each) and Move To Strike (seven). These numbers are in addition to the stallions other non-TIH foals born in 2021.
Incidentally, the Lambert family’s home-bred Jack The Robin was since sold to Belgian stud owner Wim Schoukens. As the Hanoverian Verband’s breeding manager Ulrich Hahne mentioned in the The Irish Field’s Stallion Guide article, the German studbook had planned to inspect the Robin de la Maison son.
“We inspected Jack The Robin xx,” Hahne told The Irish Field in an update this week.
“For the reason, that he has no performance records we needed a special resolution to approve him. He is temporarily approved for 2023 and 2024. We will make a further decision, when we have inspected his first Hanoverian foals.”
The TIHA recently announced the development of a DNA Ancestry Test, in partnership with Plusvital while just this week, Horse Sport Ireland launched their breeding initiatives for 2023.
The HSI schemes, funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) and totalling near to €2.9 million, offer breeders, stallion owners and producers a variety of options, including x-ray and Mare Upgrade, embryo transfer, ICSI, Premium mare and colt retention programmes.
Another interesting prospect is the HSI Roadshow, described as “an engagement roadshow from the HSI team to present and discuss prevalent topics to the industry,” with dates to be released.
Next week: HSI and TIHA Schemes.
Foals registered by breed
Foals sired by breed code 2022
Foals by sire category 2022
Foals registered by county 2022
* These statistics only include those 6,677 Irish Sport Horse, Irish Draught and Irish Sports Pony foals registered in 2022.