THE midway point of 2025 is a good reference point to check which riders, studbooks and sires are leading the Hippomundo prizemoney-based rankings.

A quick overview shows that it’s good news for the Irish Sport Horse (ISH) studbook in eventing. Its unbroken run continues at the top of this sport, although in show jumping, the ISH studbook has slipped to ninth place.

Better news for ‘Irish-bred show jumping riders’ as Ireland currently ranks in fourth place, between other powerhouse nations such as the United States, France and Germany and ahead of Belgium, UK and Mexico.

Daniel Coyle, Cian O’Connor and Darragh Kenny are the top-three Irish show jumping riders, all earning over the half a million euro point so far in 2025.

Hello Chadora Lady is the present top-earning show jumping horse (€671,221 at the time of writing), a total which has helped boost her sire Chacco Blue’s lead in the show jumping sire rankings.

The Frank and Laura Glynn-bred FTS Killossery Konfusion (18th place in the overall show jumping horse rankings) retains his position as the top-earning Irish-bred.

Badminton winner Lordships Graffalo leads among the eventing horses and two Irish Sport Horses - Cooley Rosalent (third) and Cavalier Crystal (seventh), plus the Limerick-bred Colorado Blue (fifth), feature in the top-10.

Scott Brash (show jumping), Isabel Werth (dressage) and Ros Canter (eventing) are the current top-earning riders, while Austin O’Connor (sixth) makes a top-10 appearance in the eventing riders leaderboard.

Starting with the top-10 horses show jumping horses where 40% of the top-10 horses represent the Selle Français studbook and the Oldenburg Springpferde has the best strike rate with three OS-suffix performers in the top-five.

This complete top-10 reads as Hello Chadora Lady (OS. €671,221), Cayman Jolly Jumper (SF. €689,872), Donatello d’Auge (SF. €487,700), Checker 47 (OS. €441,631), Greya (OS.431,219), Farino Du Guinefort (SF. 402,705), Monaco N.O.P (HOLST. €401,814), Toulayna (Z. 383,842), Bonne Amie (ESHB. 380,765) and Bohysra D’auzay LA (SF. €378,528).

In addition to FTS Killossery Konfusion (18th, €277,443), there is one other Irish Sport Horse in the current top-50: the Patrick Connolly-bred James Kann Cruz in 39th place (€194,099).

Five-star influence

Over to eventing and after four of the seven global five-star events have been held already this year - Adelaide, Kentucky, Badminton and Luhmühlen - the prizemoney bank balance looks comparatively better than at the start of the year.

The top-10 eventing horses now are Lordships Graffalo (Sport Horse Breeding (GB). €138, 353), fischer Chipmunk FRH (HANN. €120,370), Cooley Rosalent (ISH. €76,296. Breeder: JW Rosbotham), Commando 3 (HOLST. €66,574), Colorado Blue (SHB (GB). €57,976), Izilot DHI (KWPN. €50,235), Cavalier Crystal (ISH. €42,824. Breeder: Thomas Horgan), Et Hop Du Matz (SF. €41,667), Ricker Ridge Sooty GNZ (€37,700) and Grafennacht (OLD. €35,185).

Apart from the New Zealand-bred Ricker Ridge Sooty GNZ, runner-up in the Luhmühlen CCI5*-L with Kiwi rider Samantha Lissington, the remainder of the top-10 horses were all bred in the northern hemisphere with a broad range of European studbooks represented.

Any other Irish Sport Horses in the top-30? Three more: Brookfield Quality (13th. €25,926. OBOS Quality. Breeder: Sean Kelly), Off The Record (23rd. €15,185. VDL Arkansas. Peter Brady) and Highly Suspicious (27th. €12,000. Russel. Eamon Kenny).

Cooley Rosalent’s position as the leading Irish Sport Horse in the present rankings is a fitting tribute to her late breeder JW (Woods) Rosbotham who passed awaylast Fruday, June 27th. What also makes the mare’s success to date even more impressive is her sire Valent’s strike rate as an eventing sire. And he was owned by the Rosbotham family too which is an even more rare occurence in five-star event horse breeding.

Nominated alongside Oliver Townend’s old war horse Ballaghmor Class in the British team’s longlist for the upcoming European eventing championships, there’s more opportunities yet for Cooley Rosalent to retain her position as the leading Irish-bred eventer in the Hippomundo rankings.

Seven-figures

The top money across the three sports is in show jumping and two riders - Britain’s Scott Brash (€1,114,604) and the USA’s Kent Farrington (€1,031,565) have already won seven-figure prizemoney this year.

Not far behind these top two-earning show jumping riders is Frenchman Simon Delestre (€964,839), followed by Mexico’s Nicolas Pizarro (€792,456), Germany’s Christian Kukuk (€771,779), Colombia’s John Perez Bohm (€710,232), Britain’s Ben Maher (€631,778), Ireland’s main earner Daniel Coyle (€611,809), France’s Julien Epaillard (€604,224) and then, The Netherlands’ Harrie Smolders rounds out the top-10 (603,553).

In addition to eighth-ranked Coyle, Cian O’Connor (14th. €571,191), Darragh Kenny (16th. €558,067), Conor Swail (24th. €487,712) and Jordan Coyle (27th. €451,209) all rank within Hippomundo’s top-30.

Jordan Coyle was rated as the Belgian database’s top earner last week amongst Irish riders, adding €88,578 to the figure above from his Spruce Meadows results. This inlcuded his Grand Prix third place last Sunday with Chaccolino.

Daniel Coyle is Ireland's top earner at the half way point of 2025 \ Tomas Holcbecher

So who are the other top-10 Irish riders that have boosted Ireland to that fourth place amongst the various countries? After these five riders listed above, we see Shane Sweetnam (€402,980), Denis Lynch (€368,718), Tom Wachman (€239,135), Simon McCarthy (€198,631) and Philip McGuane (€181,541).

Ireland ranks third in the average sum won by each of the top-10 ranked show jumping countries. Brazil (ranked 10th) has the highest average amongst this top-10 as its 106 riders on Hippomundo’s database have won an average of €22,105.

Next is the United States (432 riders, €€21,790 average) and then Ireland (320 riders, €21,402).

Considering the population of the top-two countries - 212 million and 340 million respectively for Brazil and the United States - Ireland certainly punches above its weight.

Chaccolino’s sire Chacco Blue sits comfortably at the top of the show jumping sire rankings, followed by Kannan, Cornet Obolensky, Diamant de Semilly, Toulon, Comme Il Faut, Mylord Carthago, Vigo d’Arsouilles, Emerald and VDL Cardento.

The top-10 eventing sires are currently Birkhof’s Grafenstolz TSF, Diarado, Contendro I, Jaguar Mail, Cavalier Crystal’s sire Jack Of Diamonds, Zavall VDL, Courage II, Contender, Valent and Numero Uno.

In dressage, the top-ranked sire is Totilas, followed by Quaterback and Lord Leatherdale, while the present top-three earning horses are DSP Quantaz (DSP-BB, €164,046), Glamourdale (KWPN. €144,108) and Wendy de la Fontaine (DWB. €133,901).

That’s an overview of the rankings leaders at the halfway point; as always, it will be interesting to compare this set with the end-of-year rankings after the European championships and five-star Grand Prix classes and events are tallied in.