AT first glance there are relatively few changes in the 2018 World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses (WBFSH) sire rankings with the same stallions filling the top two places again this year. Chacco-Blue consolidated his position in the show jumping rankings and, for the fourth successive year, Contendro and De Niro retained their respective eventing and dressage crowns.

The greatest change from an Irish perspective is the drop in home-based stallions in the eventing sire rankings; down to three from five last year and that includes the exported late Ramiro B who died recently. In the show jumping sire rankings, ‘Douglas’, Quintero and Querlybet Hero, that all spent most or part of their stud career here, are the sole Irish links in the top 100.