JUSTIN BURKE and John Mulvey, two self-professed ‘small breeders’, produced the top Irish-breds in Hippomundo’s 2020 rankings. Meanwhile, the Irish Sport Horse (ISH) studbook bounced back from fourth place in last year’s World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses (WBFSH) eventing rankings to retain its number one place on Hippomundo’s leaderboard.

Hippomundo’s highly-detailed rankings are based on prize money won by the performers recorded on its database, whereas the WBFSH rankings system is based on points gathered in FEI competitions.

One clear indicator of how the 2020 competition year was rocked by the pandemic is a marked drop in prize money earned by dressage, eventing and show jumping horses last year after the cancellation of numerous fixtures.

For example, 804 ISH event horses earned €143,449 in 2020, the year when all the lucrative five-star fixtures, bar Pau, were cancelled. Compare this to the substantially higher figure of €1,226,710, won by 1,499 Irish-breds during the 2019 season.

The figure is even starker when looking at the show jumping results. In 2019, 6,496 KWPN-registered show jumpers won the massive sum of €23,550,302. This tails away by two-thirds to €7,843,990 in 2020, a year without many of the Grand Slams, Global Champions Tour legs and Grand Prix classes.

There was also a change in the show jumping studbook order as that €7 million figure was won by the Selle Français studbook which overtook 2019’s number one, the KWPN.

Aside from sobering statistics about less competitions and drop in prize money, there’s undoubtedly bright spots for Irish breeders amongst the wealth of information delivered by the Hippomundo rankings. The ISH studbook, a constant at the top of eventing rankings, recorded a good result in the show jumping rankings too and with €1,350,830 won by Irish Sport Horses, moved up one place from 2019 to finish 11th last year.

One interesting statistic on the Hippomundo site is the average amount of prize money won per horse by studbook. Just €81 separated the ISH and 10th-placed Oldenburg (OLD) studbook averages. Some 562 Oldenburger-registered show jumping horses earned an average of €2,564 each last year, compared to €2,483 per Irish Sport Horses (544).

That Oldenburg studbook average sum proved the best strike rate amongst the top-10 show jumping studbooks. For example, the top-ranked Selle Français studbook, with 4,701 performers, averaged €1,669 per horse.

So who were the top 10 ISH show jumping breeders?

Irish breeder leaders

Galway’s Justin Burke has skyrocketed up the rankings from 218th place in 2019 to 15th last year. This is the best result for an Irish breeder in the Hippomundo show jumping rankings since Suma Stud’s eighth place in 2018, the year of the magnificent Suma’s Zorro.

The six Burke-bred horses listed on this database racked up €157,584 in prize money last year and his top flag bearer is the consistent Luibanta BH (Luidam x Abantos), Amanda Derbyshire’s Team GB horse. Now ranked as her late sire’s biggest money earner, the 13-year-old mare’s career earnings to date stand at €484,011, of which she earned €121,570 in 2020.

In addition to their Hippomundo results, Burke’s top pair of Luibanta BH and Galway Bay Jed were the highest-placed Irish-breds in last year’s WBFSH show jumping horse rankings. Luibanta BH (formerly Galway Bay Luibanta) ranked best of the Irish Sport Horses in 84th place and the Anglo European Studbook (AES)-registered Galway Bay Jed ranked five places above her in 79th. Competed by James Wilson (GB) Galway Bay Jed earned €34,864 last year.

Both horses were foaled in 2008, shortly after Burke switched from breeding pedigree cattle to sport horses. “We are delighted with the news on the Hippomundo rankings, especially when we are such a small breeder and never thinking, after making the decision to sell our pedigree dairy cows, that we would get to this level so quickly in 12 years,” Justin told The Irish Field this week.

Two more Irish breeders broke the six-figure prize-money barrier. Marion Hughes (ranked 31st) has 10 horses listed with the 10-year-old HHS Fortune (Catoki x Ard VDL Douglas) contributing €48,678 to their grand total of €124,585. Another of the Hippomundo top-10 ISH show jumpers – HHS Burnchurch (Heritage Fortunus x Cavalier Royale) – was also bred by Marion.

Penelope Cruz (Ustinov x Peter Pan) is one of four horses listed for Derry breeder Liam McKee (55th) and her €99,495 earnings last year pushed their combined prize money to €100,115. Another 13-year-old mare, Penelope Cruz was the second-highest ranked Irish Sport Horse in the WBFSH 2020 show jumping rankings.

The other top-10 Irish show jumping breeders include Brian Duff, ranked in 114th place with three horses. BEC Lorenzo (SIEC Livello x Guidam) is the main breadwinner and brings their prize-money total to €66,803.

Two other breeders with multiple horses are Ita Brennan (142nd) with seven (€57,114 won) and Lady Georgina Forbes (252nd) with six (€33,938). HHS Calais (Cavalier Royale x O.B.O.S Quality 004) and Castleforbes Vladimir (Vivaldo van het Costersveld x Quick Star) are their best respective performers.

Charles Howard Cranston (170th), Carmel Ryan (176th), Cheryl Broderick (260th) and George McDonald (276th) bred Cool Passion (Passion x Coolcorran Cool Diamond). €46,688); Compelling Z (Chellano Z x Carthago Z). €45,194); Super Chilled (Gelvin Clover. €32,665) and Columbille De Reve (Hermes de Reve x Errigal Flight). €31,475).

In summary, the top 10 ISH show jumping horses from the Hippomundo 2020 rankings are: Luibanta BH, Penelope Cruz, BEC Lorenzo, HHS Fortune, My Cool Passion, HHS Calais, HHS Burnchurch, Super Chilled, Columbcille de Reve and Express Trend (Future Trend x Condios. Liam Nicholas. €26,563).

Eventing

PAU, the sole five-star event of 2020, proved the game changer for the latest Hippomundo rankings. Its results cemented the ISH studbook’s number one place and boosted individual Irish breeder and Irish-breds results. London 52’s Pau win with Laura Collett (GB) placed the 12-year-old and his sire Landos at the top of the individual horse and eventing sire rankings respectively.

Runner-up Brookfield Inocent (Inocent x Kings Servant) recorded several runner-up results last year, including his best result to date with Piggy March (GB) at Pau. Not that his breeder John Mulvey is bemoaning the run of seconditis but instead, is marvelling at having bred a five-star horse.

“The girls in the yard even got me a hoodie with ‘World number 2’ written on it!” said the Wicklow producer, the leading Irish eventing breeder in the Hippomundo rankings. His second place in the breeders’ rankings (with London 52’s German breeder Ocke Riewerts as number one) is matched by both Brookfield Inocent and his sire’s second places in the individual event horse and sire rankings.

Inocent, the I Love You son who stood with Michael Hutchinson, is the only Irish-based stallion in Hippomundo’s top-10 eventing sire rankings of last year.

There was more good news for Mulvey over the New Year as Brookfield Inocent and Piggy March were announced as British Eventing’s top horse and rider of the year.

“Things like that don’t happen to me so anything else would be fabulous to be honest. Fingers crossed they both get to Tokyo in 2021,” said producer John, who runs a busy yard in Kilternan.

Another Irish breeder to feature in Hippomundo’s top-10 eventing breeders is the late Ita Brennan (10th). Again, the Pau CCI5* results proved pivotal as the main earner (€5,400) amongst the seven MHS-bred event horses is MHS King Joules (Ghareeb x Cavalier Royale).

Now a 16-year-old, he placed sixth at the French fixture in October for Oliver Townend (GB). This half-brother to MHS Going Global is also the second of the two Irish-breds in British Eventing’s top-10 horses of 2020, finishing ninth in this league.

Andrea Etter’s Sportpferde AG Etter is listed in 13th place with two horses, of which Fernhill By Night (Radolin x Argentinus) claimed €5,260 for his CCI4*-S win at Aiken with Liz Halliday-Sharp (USA). The South Carolina fixture was one of the fortunate ones to go ahead in the US calendar with Kentucky and what was scheduled to be North America’s second five-star at Fair Hill International – both cancelled.

Listings

Rounding off the Irish breeders ranked in Hippomundo’s top-25 are Oonagh Kennedy (20th) and J.W (Woods) Rosbotham (23rd), each with two horses listed. The Kennedy-bred Fernhill Prezley (Aldatus Z x Glidawn Diamond) earned €4,598 after the 11-year-old mare’s win with Boyd Martin (USA) in the CCI3*-S at Aiken, while Cooley Rosalent (Valent x Rosalier) was the main earner for Rosbotham.

Her silver medal result at the WBFSH young event horse championships at Le Lion d’Angers with Oliver Townend (GB) also came with a €4,200 paycheque. Her full-brother Jewelent was the second Rosbotham-bred.

Completing the top-10 Irish breeders on the Hippomundo rankings are Margaret Power (31st), who bred the sole thoroughbred in the Irish-bred group: Mind Me (Saffron Walden x Simply Great. €3,500), Michael Beattie (34th), Marion Hughes (36th), Paul O’Byrne (40th) and Alan Molan (44th).

Ardeo Premier (Hold Up Premier x Cruising. €3,100) was the chief earner of Michael Beattie’s pair. Marion Hughes, like her aunt Ita Brennan, is doubly represented in both the show jumping and eventing Irish top-10 breeder rankings on Hippomundo. Best of her four is Cooley Be Cool (Heritage Fortunus x Cavalier Royale. €1,848).

The Paul O’Byrne-bred Uppercourt Cooley (Warrenstown You 2 x O.B.O.S Quality. €2,999) and Maryville Sir Henry (Sir Shutterfly x Cavalier Royale. €2,810), bred by Alan Molan also appear in the top-10 Irish Sport Horses.

Brookfield Inocent heads this listing, followed by Fernhill By Night, MHS King Joules, Fernhill Prezley, Cooley Rosalent, Ardeo Premier, Uppercourt Cooley, Maryville Sir Henry, Cooley SOS (formerly Killyglass Emilion’s Courage. Emilion x Courage II. J.W Primrose. €2,554) and Mermus R Diamonds (Mermus R x Colourfield. Gary Higgins. €2,400).

Dressage

HEIKE Holstein’s Tokyo Olympic hopeful Sambuca (Samarant x Limmerick) is the sole horse listed for the SIES (Breeders Elite Studbook for Irish & European Sporthorses) studbook and the home-bred earned €970 last year from five international outings.

Flying the flag again for Irish native breeds on the U.S. dressage circuit are the Irish Draught stallion Steeped In Luck (Mount Diamond Flag x Agherlow. James Lee) and the part-bred Connemara, Kynynmont Gunsmoke’s Gideon (Gunsmoke. Pamela Liddell), both competing at CDI3* level.

How the 2020 rankings would have panned out in a full competition year is unknown. The Hippomundo results have delivered some excellent results for Irish breeding with another eventing studbook title, recognition for breeders and food for thought.

What they said

“IT’s a great honour for a small breeder like me to get recognition like this and to see Brookfield Inocent and Piggy doing so well. I only ever have one broodmare so if Tokyo brought a medal it truly would be what we all dream of” – John Mulvey

“We are looking forward to 2021 in these difficult times and won’t feel it until our next crop of foals are due. We have two sisters to Luibanta here and will have a few new fillies to enter our breeding programme. Very lucky to have the dam lines and I’ve a full-sister to Luibanta just turning two. The pressure is on the other mares to keep it up” – Justin Burke

Did you know

Meet Hippomundo

ALTHOUGH there were fewer competitions last year, technology and time proved silver linings for Hippomundo’s Koen Terryn. Started seven years ago, the Belgian-based company now has 12 employees.

Koen Terryn, CEO and founder of Hippomundo \ Eóin Noonan/Sportsfile

“2020 is a year that no one will forget. Covid has changed the world forever. There were fewer shows and overall travel was discouraged, but fortunately many competitions and auctions could be watched via livestream. The internet brought the horse or foal to the customer’s living room,” said Koen.

Breeders, riders and producers had more time last year to browse the Hippomundo website, available in four languages. 2.27 million pedigrees were checked out by followers in 146 countries in 2020. “In an ideal world, all data, in terms of both sport and breeding, should be in one large database and this information should be made available to all breeders, riders, studbooks, federations, investors and enthusiasts.

“More studbooks are coming on board. In the meantime, Hippomundo ensures that both national and international competition results of the horses registered with those studbooks are readily available on their own website. A win-win situation,” he added about liasing with various federations and studbooks to ensure databases are kept as accurate and current as possible.

What about data protection issues? According to Koen, some studbooks and federations cite GDPR rules as a reason they cannot share information. “But the breeding scene is becoming global, it’s not local anymore. Breeders need to see a global picture of all horses from all studbooks together. We are [in] 2021, we have developed into a global breeding and sport industry.”

He also points out that only the breeders name is included. “We don’t talk about his address, email or mobile number. Those details are GDPR-related. But we only talk about a breeding name, not the details, so there is no GDPR problem at all. Do you see a problem if we mention the name of a winning rider? That’s the same situation,” he said, adding that in seven years they have received only one request to remove the name of a breeder.