MADAM,
I have bred mares who feature on both of Marcus O’Donnell’s lists of high performing mares and high performing broodmares. I would argue that, perilous and all that the state of the Traditional Irish Sport Horse is in, the state of the breeders of Traditional Irish Sport Horses is even more perilous.
In my opinion, a lot of the reason for the decline of the Traditional Irish Sport Horse in Ireland is a severe lack of information on official websites.
Take, for example, a horse I bred – Uskerty Diamond Lady (ISH-TIH). She is a 12-year-old mare by Carrick Diamond Lad (ISH-TIH) out of Uskerty Barnaby (ISH-TIH) by Young Barnaby(XX). Her dam, Uskerty Barnaby, is also on the High Performance Mares list.
There was no horse at any level in Ireland who won as consistently as Uskerty Diamond Lady last year. She won six legs of the Connolly’s Red Mills Munster Grand Prix League, as well as taking two second and two third place finishes from 11 starts.
Ridden by Francis Connors, the mare also had wins and placings in the Leinster Grand Prix League, not forgetting her win in the inaugural €20,000 Devenish Nutrition Bet Show Jumping Live at the Mullingar International in May and the Speed Derby at Millstreet in August.
If you do a search on Horse Sport Ireland’s website for “Uskerty”, four results pop up.
Three of the four are results of the horses that jumped internationally that week, which include Uskerty Diamnd Lady’s wins but there is no write-up for any of the competitions linked to the search results.
The fourth result is dated March 17th 2014 and contains the write-up of the Connolly’s Red Mills Munster Grand Prix leg in Ballinamona.
That’s an appalling lack of information on an international Grade A multiple Grand Prix winning mare!
If a horse of her calibre cannot get recognition for her hard-earned achievements and be endorsed by her own breed society on their own website, is it any wonder that the status of the Traditional Irish Horse is in such a perilous state?
And why, after 20-25 years of following the path of the people on the continent, have we not produced another Cruising? Another Flexible?
How many other breed societies can claim to have a horse in the World Cup Final at 20 years of age? As far as I’m aware the Irish Sport Horse is the only breed society to achieve this. Is there any other breed society with horses like that representing their studbook? Why are we not breeding more of them?
Why are they dying out and the breeders of those horses dying out?
What really is Horse Sport Ireland trying to achieve? The type of horses that got us to the top and kept us at the top of the WBFSH are dying out, their breeders are dying out and the information on those horses, breeders and producers is either non-existent or inaccurate.
Why is there virtually no information available on official websites on the virtues of the traditionally-bred Irish Sport Horse? Why do the younger generation have to find out about traditional horses through social media?
Without solid information on the studbook’s official website, owners, breeders and producers of these horses face an uphill battle when it comes to disseminating information to the media and ultimately in the sales ring. That is why the returns on these horses are so low, no matter how good those horses are.
What is so wrong about breeding horses of the calibre of Cruising, Flexible or for that matter Uskerty Diamond Lady? Ok, she’s a bit on the small side but she’s a ball of power, she’s fast, she’s careful, she can jump, she can turn on a cent, she tries her heart out and she gives her all to try to win.
Are these not qualities to be valued? Does her line of breeding not add value to the national herd?
Yours etc
John Doyle
Uskerty Horses
Co Kilkenny