SOME things don’t often change when it comes to rankings, although there were several noticeable differences seen in Hippomundo’s final results for 2025.
Started in 2015, the Irish Sport Horse (ISH) eventing studbook has retained its top place since Year One.
The ISH studbook had previously held a similar centre stage role in the World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses (WBFSH) eventing rankings. Over the past 15 years though, the Irish leader has come under pressure from various continental studbooks. When the WBFSH results were released last October, the Holsteiner Verband ranked first ahead of the ISH studbook and it was another strong performance by several German studbooks in the Hippomundo equivalent.
Many readers are familiar with how each set of rankings operate - the Belgian-based Hippomundo is based on prize money won, while the WBFSH results are based on FEI points and they have differing calendar years.
After Hippomundo’s calendar year’s end on December 31st, which studbooks finished in front? Once again, the other two dominant studbooks - the KWPN (dressage) and Selle Français (show jumping) - retained their 2024 top places.
One difference in 12 months is three new top-earning horses across the sports: Zonik Plus (dressage), Lordships Graffalo (eventing) and Hello Jefferson (show jumping). These three dethroned the 2024 titleholders, who incidentally were the all-mares trio of Wendy de Fontaine, the Michael Callery-bred Greenacres Special Cavalier and H&M Indiana.
Birkhof Grafenstolz (eventing) is the sole stallion to keep his Hippomundo 2024 crown. The two new kings are Cornet Obolensky (show jumping) and Totilas (dressage).
How did Irish breeding fare elsewhere? As usual, best in the eventing category, where the Limerick-born Colorado Blue finished third, ahead of three more Irish Sport Horses in the top-10: Cavalier Crystal (fifth), Cooley Rosalent (seventh) and Off The Record (ninth).
Three Irish-based stallions - one less than the previous year - appear among the top-10 eventing stallions. Cavalier Royale is the absentee after the 2024 Badminton winner Greenacres Special Cavalier’s quieter season.
Not surprisingly, the three - Jack Of Diamonds, Valent and VDL Arkansas - owe their places to the results of their respective progeny listed above.
Over to show jumping, where the ISH studbook retained ninth place for a second year running and James Kann Cruz inherited EIC Up Too Jacco Blue’s top-earning ISH title of 2024.
The Kannan grey, bred by Patrick Connolly, finished 12th in the overall show jumping horses’ rankings (one place higher than the Mark Sherry-bred). It’s a considerable leap from James Kann Cruz’s 56th place result 12 months ago, owed to the €809,374 earned by him and Shane Sweetnam throughout 2025.
Prize money won last year by Sweetnam’s horses place him third (€1,131,859) amongst Irish show jumping riders. Daniel Coyle (€1,153,245), closely followed by Denis Lynch (€1,147,550), are the two top-earning Irish riders.
More on the show jumping rankings in next week’s follow-up.
Belgium’s Justin Verboomen rode Zonik Plus, the world's top earning dressage horse, to win the Grand Prix Freestyle at the 2025 FEI Dressage European Championship in Crozet, France \ FEI
Dressage
The KWPN’s unbroken run in this studbook rankings category continues. In fact, there was no change at all from 2024’s top-five results, with the same studbooks - KWPN, Hanoverian Verband (HANN), Oldenburg (OLD), Danish Warmblood (DWB) and Westphalian (WESTF) - finishing in the exact order again last year.
The Dutch studbook’s €336,618 lead over its nearest market rival is slightly down on its 2024 margin (€386,000), although numerically, it is also strongest in horse numbers, with 743 KWPN dressage horses registered on the Hippomundo database.
In comparison, the seventh-placed Deutsche Sportpferde (DSP) has just one horse, although a formidable one in Isabell Werth’s 2025 World Cup runner-up: DSP Quantaz.
Basel, the World Cup final host venue last April, was also the setting for the final gala appearance of TSF Dalera BB at its earlier Longines CHI Classic last January.
The retirement of Jessica von Bredow-Werndl’s star performer has had a rankings knock-on effect for both the Trakehner mare (Hippomundo’s top-ranked dressage horse for three years in a row, from 2021 to 2023) and her sire Easy Game, now disappeared from the dressage sires top 100.
2025’s top-three ranked dressage horses are Justin Verboomen’s Hanoverian flagbearer Zonik Plus, followed by Lottie Fry’s Glamourdale and Matthias Rath’s Total Hope.
Totilas, the latter’s late sire and a talking horse of his generation, makes a rankings reappearance, this time as the top-ranked dressage sire. Similarly to the 2025 eventing sires’ leaderboard, no sire has more than one top-10 ranked offspring.
Down to 89th place in the dressage studbook rankings and we find three horses listed for the ISH studbook: Annaharvey Dunowen (Radolin. Breeder: Henry Deverell), Killard Precision (Mermus R. Breeder: Kathryn Duffy) and the U.S-based Lord Ivanhoe (Mine Lord Prince. Nancy Girzaitis), competed last year by Maeve Deverell, Sinead McGrath and Kristen Parris respectively.
(Interestingly, Killard Precision’s Crannagh Hero dam Killard Moonshadow is a full-sister to Michael Duffy’s good performer Killard Horizon).
Eventing
Unlike 2024, when Greenacres Special Cavalier (Cavalier Royale. Michael Callery) and Ballaghmor Class (Courage II. Noel Hickey) won Badminton and Maryland International for Caroline Powell and Oliver Townend, last year lacked a five-star win by an Irish-bred.
That has had a significant impact on the end-of-year rankings, reflected in the drop in prize money won by Irish Sport Horses throughout 2025. In 2024, the ISH prize money total was €1,037,744 (only the second time in the Hippomundo rankings’ history that the one million euro mark was exceeded in eventing prize money). Last year, this dropped to €880,889, showing the impact a five-star win can have on these rankings.
Despite the absence of a big payday, several top-10 good results were recorded by Irish Sport Horses, most notably by the Burghley specialist Cavalier Crystal, bred in Kilmacthomas, Co Waterford by Thomas Horgan.
The daughter of the Swedish-bred and former Lissava Stud resident stallion Jack Of Diamonds, placed third again at Burghley in the autumn to add to her springtime fourth place at Badminton with Harry Meade. Those results make her the top-ranked Irish Sport Horse in Hippomundo’s 2025 rankings.
Two places behind fifth-ranked Cavalier Crystal is Cooley Rosalent. Runner-up to Lordships Graffalo at Badminton and 12th at Burghley, the Valent mare is one of just three horses to retain their 2024 top-10 rankings place in last year’s results (Lordships Graffalo and Vitali being the other two).
She is a full-sister to both Philip Dutton’s Jewelent and Govalent, Sofia Sjoborg’s Swedish team horse at the European Championships at Blenheim last autumn.
All three were bred by the late Woods Rosbotham and another loss last month was the trio’s sire Valent, ranked seventh on the eventing sires 2025 leaderboard.
The third Irish Sport Horse to appear in the top 10 is the Peter Brady-bred Off The Record, winner of the CCI4*-S at Lexington last year for Will Coleman. The evergreen 16-year-old was also on the US team, which finished second in the Aachen Nations Cup last July.
All three ISH top-10 horses have continental sires. In this Cavan-bred’s case, it’s VDL Arkansas and he (10th place), plus Jack Of Diamonds (sixth) and Valent (seventh) duly feature at the top-end of the eventing sires leaderboard.
Shane Sweetnam with James Kann Cruz, the top earning ISH show jumper for 2025, at the Rolex Grand Prix of Geneva
Prize money gap
There is one other Irish connection within Hippomundo’s top-10 horses and that’s third-placed Colorado Blue (Jaguar Mail), bred at Mellon Stud by Kate Jarvey. Registered with Sport Horse Breeding (GB), he and Austin O’Connor recorded a historic win at Maryland International in 2023, the first win at five-star level by an Irish rider since 1965.
Last year, the pair finished third (Badminton) and second (Burghley) to the combination of Lordships Graffalo (who won €237,037 in 2025) and Ros Canter. The British pair also made history by bridging a 40-year gap since the previous Badminton-Burghley double in the same year: another British-bred in Priceless, ridden by Ginny Leng.
Separating Lordships Graffalo and Colorado Blue is fischerChipmunk FRH. The reigning Olympic individual gold medallist horse added €120,370 to his lifetime earnings after his and Michael Jung’s Lexington CCI5*-L win last springtime, followed by €3,075 (team gold) and €14,894 (individual silver) at the 2025 European championships in the autumn in another example of the monetary importance of a five-star win.
The Holsteiner Verband matched the ISH total of three top-10 ranked horses. Sport Horse Breeding (GB) was the only other eventing studbook with more than one top-10 horse.
Numerically, the ISH studbook was strongest with 954 Hippomundo-registered horses competing last year, although this was a drop on the 2024 figure (1,288). All of the top-10 studbooks saw a decrease in numbers, including the Selle Français book, next in line to the ISH (543 horses in 2025, compared to 632 French-breds in 2024).
When it comes to the highest average amount per top-10 studbook, Sport Horse Breeding (GB) scores the highest figure (€4,032) won by 121 horses, including the mega-earning pair of Lordships Graffalo and Colorado Blue.
Holsteiners came next (€2,013, 281 horses), followed by their German counterparts at the Hanoverian Verband (€1,181, 270) and then the Irish Sport Horse (€923, 954).
Best win strike rate? Here, the Holsteiners took the lead (6.8%), then the Hanoverians (4.9%) and Thoroughbreds in third (4.3%).
The ISH studbook win strike rate of 2.3 places it in eighth place, down from joint-sixth place in 2024.
Leading sires
The globetrotting Artist, who has now competed at four of the world’s seven five-star events and was runner-up at Maryland International last autumn, and the 2025 Adelaide CCI5*-L winner Willingapark Clifford were chiefly responsible for the strong showing by thoroughbreds in these rankings.
Artist is also the highest-placed thoroughbred (11th), one place ahead of Brookfield Quality (OBOS Quality. Sean Kelly), the highest-placed ISH in last year’s WBFSH rankings.
One more Irish Sport Horse appears in Hippomundo’s top 20 and that’s the thoroughbred-sired Annaghmore Valoner (Coroner. Sinead Healion) in 17th place.
Guillotine (Artist’s sire) and Coroner are the two thoroughbreds seen in the top-20 eventing sires’ tables.
Otherwise, 50% of the top-10 eventing sires are Holsteiners, including Diarado and Contender, two of four stallions to retain their 2024 top-10 places.
The other pair are the Trakehner stallion Birkhof’s Grafenstolz, who moves up one place to take the 2025 leading event sire title (Cavalier Royale claimed this in 2024 on account of Greenacres Special Cavalier’s Badminton result), while the Dutch-bred Valent also holds onto his top-10 place.
Other Irish-based stallions in the top 20 include OBOS Quality (11th. 76 offspring. €69,083 prize money), Tolan R (12th. 23. €66,658) and Coroner (19th. Two. €41,195).
Tolan R is the only sire with two offspring - HSH Blake and Cooley Nutcracker - in a separate table for the top-10 Irish Sport Horse eventers, an advantageous feature of Hippomundo’s information-rich database.
On the traditional front, Master Point (Pointilliste. Breeder: Bridget McGing. €9,224) is in 17th place amongst Irish Sport Horses, one place ahead of Sunday Times (Cult Hero. Paddy Joyce. €8,543) and then Ballyneety Rocketman (Diamond Discovery. James Hickey. €6,034) is next in 23rd.
Numbers-wise, the ISH studbook leads the way in the 2025 Hippomundo eventing rankings, which is good news for Irish breeders and producers. It was also the year of Lordships Graffalo and another strong rankings performance by the Holsteiner studbook.
Watch the five-star results - that’s the key message from the Hippomundo rankings.
By the numbers
2019 - the first year when the ISH studbook exceeded €1m in prize money. This seven-figure total was repeated in 2024.
Five - Just seven five-star events are held in the eventing calendar: Adelaide, Badminton, Burghley, Kentucky, Luhmühlen, Maryland International and Pau.
Four - Irish Sport Horses have topped Hippomundo’s event horse category four times since 2015: Vanir Kamira (2019, 2022), Ballaghmor Class (2023) and Greenacres Special Cavalier (2024).
Three - Olympic sports: dressage, eventing and show jumping. Only four studbooks appear across the three leaderboards in 2025 - KWPN, Oldenburg, Hanoverian and Zangersheide.
Two - studbooks: the Irish Sport Horse (eventing) and KWPN (dressage) again retain their unbroken Hippomundo lead in these categories.
One - home-bred Irish Sport Horse in the top-10 eventing horses and, as a bonus, by the breeder’s own stallion: J.W Rosbotham and Cooley Rosalent, by Valent. A rare achievement.