A WIDE cross-section of the Irish sport horse industry has voiced its opinions to Horse Sport Ireland (HSI) and the Department of Agriculture over HSI’s decision to suspend the springtime stallion inspections.

HSI’s breeding sub-board made that unprecedented decision last November as part of a review, scheduled to be completed by April 30th, of its entire inspections system, first introduced in 2010.

Some 324 stallions, or an average of 54 per annum, were presented at Cavan since then, ranging from a high of 90 candidates in 2011, to just 25 in 2014. With a few notable exceptions, the overall low level of support for the approved graduates was one of the main reasons given by HSI for its decision.

“We need a sustainable system in the long run. In our view, there has been far too much emphasis on the suspension of the 2016 spring stallion inspections. The really big issue is what system will we have for the next 10 years and beyond?” stated an HSI spokesperson this week.

The scale of objections to the stallion inspection suspension may have been a surprise in some quarters, considering the low numbers of breeders and spectators present at the Cavan inspections and stallion parade, (the 2015 event was cancelled).

The same apathy has also been matched by poor numbers attending Horse Board annual general meetings and voting in elections. From 5,000 active breeders within the Horse Board, over 140 submissions (which when multiple figures were factored in amounted to an estimated 250 responses) were sent in, while less than 20 breeders attended the November agm.

However, news of the inspections suspension has galvanised responses from leading producers, stallion owners, international riders and grassroots breeders.

Tiernan Gill has been particularly active with the Ballina buyer and producer spearheading support for the system.

“We’ll be the laughing stock of international breeders if we don’t have inspections,” said Gill, who first wrote to HSI last November together with other trade figures including Cameron Hanley, Paul Hendrix, Barry O’Connor and Richard Bourns, and to the Minister for Agriculture, Simon Coveney. Gill, together with sales agent O’Connor, Liam Lynskey, Liam Cotter and Jack Doyle, (the latter pair are also on the HSI inspection panel) arranged a meeting, held in early December in Mullingar, with HSI officials to voice their concerns.

“We met Pat Wall [HSI chairman] and Damian McDonald and we were told the inspections were costing money. If you can’t run the stallion inspections at a profit, get people who know what to do, to do it. Make it a day they can make money out of. Cavan could be like the European inspections where spectators pay to watch, you could include a show and awards to make a great event.”

Gill also offered to sponsor the Cavan inspections. “Then we heard cost isn’t the issue, ‘people aren’t using the stallions’ and ‘people don’t heed the stallion books’. They should keep them going until they find a solution, this is 10 steps back for Ireland.”

The newly-elected RDS Equestrian Committee member confirmed that this committee has also written to HSI over the matter. “I think the inspections should be made tougher, you have to be cruel to be kind. It’s like the X Factor, Simon Cowell knows what he’s doing in the music industry whereas the mother of the singer thinks that singer is the best in the world!

“I’m not a stallion owner, I have nothing to gain out of this but short-fix solutions won’t work. I’m not running anyone down but it’s time to get nostalgia out of the way. People are getting more educated and that will be the key to the future. I’ve never seen as many people at Cavan with money to buy a foal, regardless of whether they were looking for European or traditional. It will be 8-10 years before the system works but we’re starting to see an improvement,” added Gill.

When asked about Gill’s sponsorship offer, HSI responded: “Cost is only part of the issues. We need a sustainable system in the long run.”

Describing herself as a typical ‘two mare breeder’ Liz Scott, who is also an FEI international show jumping judge, had several major queries in her submissions to both HSI and the Department of Agriculture.

“Before this, we had bred indiscriminately and as a result, we were overstocked with unsaleable animals which we could not sell. What credibility will we have as a studbook without inspections?

“Does HSI not realise that Ireland will be the dumping ground for horses that do not make the grade in their own studbooks? Will a laissez-faire approach to studbook management not lead to indiscriminate breeding which will in turn lead to a significant increase in the Irish equine welfare problem?”

Michael Murphy, the chairman of the reignited Stallion Owners Society, confirmed the group has sent in its submission. “My phone is ringing all the time with owners asking what’s going on. There are some of the stallion owners who don’t want inspections,” said Murphy, who is vehemently opposed to HSI’s interim proposal for 2016 stallion prospects.

“We do our bit, we say our piece. They had started to engage with us but it took a long time,” said Murphy describing the society’s working relationship with HSI. “What I’ve been told is what they’re going to do is if your horse is veterinary sound and X- rays, then they cover with him and he’ll get a Class 2. It’s not very fair, how can you downgrade someone’s horse without seeing him? If they’re not going to have inspections, they cannot penalise the stallion owner by making the horses Class 2. We’re not going to have the horse degraded with the stroke of a pen by someone sitting in an office. If they try to go down the road of trying to make stallions Class 2, there’s no point going to HSI, we’ll be going to the Minister’s door .

“We must look after our native breeds,” he continued. We may not be top of the show jumping world, but there’s still a demand for a good Irish horse. Your nice looking horse will always sell. I look for Irish-bred traditional foals and I can’t get enough of them. I sold 22 foals this year, 21 of them out of the country and every year, I am just finding it harder to get that foal and I see the standard dropping a little bit.”

Ivor and Olive Broderick have stood one of the widest ranges of stallions for Irish breeders at their Kylemore Stud, including Tyson, their latest European find, plus Huntingfield Rebel and Watermill Swatch, the busiest Irish Draught and thoroughbred sires in boom times. “I suppose our greatest disappointment with HSI inspections is that over the last 20 years, the prestige of getting a stallion passed is gone. They threw so much money at it over the last number of years, but really failed to implement what they set out to. And responsibility must be accepted and questions answered by those who were making the decisions for the last 10 years in HSI regarding breeding policy and inspections.

“All the new Approved statuses, be they NA1 or NA2 etc were a disaster! We all said it at the outset, but HSI failed to listen to the breeders and stallion owners. Around 15 years ago, I sent in a submission to HSI,” stated Olive. “It outlined all the changes needed and a cost- effective way of implementing them. Rather than even read the document, they instead sent inspectors on a junket four years in a row to Holland to find out the same thing and then failed miserably in their implementation of the system.

“The hardest thing is that when more than ever we need a decent inspection system for our traditional and native breeds, it’s taken away. It’s just impossible to get a decent young thoroughbred for the sport sector right now but maybe if we find one we can have him inspected in Germany or Holland!”

And just this week, the KWPN inspections were in full swing in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, while the meteoric Belgian studbook, the sBs has reported a 25% increase in stallion candidates for its upcoming inspections. Against those events, the fact that Ireland, a former leading power in international show jumping breeding, will have no inspections this spring will continue to fuel debate.

WHOSE IDEA WAS THIS ANYWAY?

WHOSE idea was it to suspend the inspections in the first place?

This is one of the most-asked questions of the inspections and the answer to it is still far from clear.

After a request for further clarification and a request for the minutes of any relevant meeting, this was HSI’s response: “The chairman of the breeding sub-board [Jim Beecher] made a proposal to the meeting of November 3rd, which, following discussion was accepted by the board.

“The main reasons to suspend the inspections were: 1. That the Irish Sport Horse Studbook inspections are a two-stage process. If people start in the current process they have to be allowed finish under the same rules.

“Starting a new round under the existing regime would mean we would have to do stage two of the existing system again in 2017. The majority view was that we should suspend the inspections until the review was complete which we hope will be by April 30th. Stage 2 inspections for animals that commenced the process in spring 2015 will be taking place shortly.

“2. There is also a major concern about the cost of running the current system. While the cost versus the overall long-term benefit is something that will be to the forefront of the review. There is a short term concern about committing to this level of spending again for 2016. The Finance Committee would also share these concerns.”

Read what Tiernan Gill, Richard Bourns, Enda Carroll and more say about the controversy here