Susan Finnerty

THE Royal Warmblood Studbook of the Netherlands (KWPN) and the Warmblood Studbook of Ireland (WSI) are to enter into a ground-breaking partnership in Ireland, it was announced this week.

“The KWPN has offices in various countries throughout the world but this is the first time that they’re entering into a partnership with another studbook,” WSI breeding director Tom Reed told The Irish Field.

Set up in 2009, the WSI currently has 125 members and registers between two to three dozen foals per annum. “That was by design because we’re only focused on the top 200 mares in the country,” added Reed, who regards the partnership as “a way of growing the WSI and having a positive impact on the direction of breeding in Ireland in collaboration with breeders, riders and producers.”

The KWPN studbook is fifth in the WBFSH world rankings for show jumping and nine KWPN-registered horses won medals at the recent Rio Olympics, including the individual show jumping and dressage gold medal horses Big Star and Valegro. This has further added to the studbook’s reputation for breeding horses for these sports, while KWPN-bred horses are now second in number to Irish Sport Horses on the British eventing circuit.

GREAT FIT

“We believe there is a great fit between the KWPN and WSI,” said Johan Knaap, Director of the KWPN. “The Irish can teach the Dutch a lot about breeding and producing eventing horses, while the Dutch can help the Irish develop show jumping breeding, which will make Irish dominance of eventing even stronger.”

Knaap, together with the Dutch ambassador to Ireland, Paul Schellekens, will be among the speakers at a reception to launch the new partnership on on Monday, September 12th at 7pm in the Osprey Hotel in Naas.

“We’re really looking forward to introducing our Dutch partners to Irish breeders,” said Reed, extending an open invitation to the event.

Tapping into the KWPN’s database and online sales experience are two of the benefits envisaged for the partnership. A new homepage will be created for the WSI website, including a My WSI gateway for its members to access the KWPN’s considerable online databases. Another new move is a WSI online foal auction, scheduled for November, for pre-selected warmblood foals. This follows the Dutch studbook’s avant-garde approach to online sales, which includes two KWPN foal auctions each year.

Dates and venues will be announced next week for formal assessment and information days to be held in Ireland next month, which will allow owners and breeders to have mares, foals, fillies, geldings and yearling colts assessed. The KWPN jumping inspector Arnold Kootstra will be on the assessment panel.

“The WSI are going to be having five mare and young horse assessment/inspections days throughout the country in October and each of the days will have a pre-selection for the stallion inspections,” added Reed, who was encouraged by the reaction so far to the new initiative.

“It’s only 24 hours but we’ve gotten a very good response, loads of messages and people are very excited.”