Rural breeders lifeblood of the sport horse sector
A new report reveals the contribution of small-scale breeders and owners to our sport horse industry, writes
BREEDERS in rural Ireland accounted for a third of the €816 million contributed to the Irish economy in 2016 by the sport horse sector. That’s one of the main findings from a new report commissioned by Horse Sport Ireland and conducted by Alison Corbally of HSI and Professor Alan Fahey of UCD.
It showed that breeding accounted for €271 million (33pc) of all expenditure last year.
For these breeders, stud related costs accounted for the highest expenditure — almost €37m, while veterinary was also high on the list, with over €29m spent on animal care in 2016.
Cork breeder Brian Daly, who runs the successful Scarteen Stud outside Newmarket, said that in his case the increased use of Artificial Insemination (AI) and embryo transfers have driven his veterinary costs up dramatically in the past decade.
This has led to massive overheads when it comes to the production of young horses.
In 2005, some 16pc of Irish sport horse foals were born as the result of AI, compared to between 70pc and 100pc in other European sport horse breeds. In 2016 it is estimated that 42pc of Irish breeders covered their mares through AI, up 10pc from 2012, giving rise to an increase in the creation of jobs in this sector, particularly in veterinary.
“Even though we cover a good few of our own performance mares with our own stallions, we still have very high vet bills as most are by embryo transfer,” said Mr Daly.
He estimates the cost of producing a foal by embryo transfer is €3,000 to €4,000, but when it comes to selling the animal as a three-year-old, you are unlikely to get anywhere near the return for money spent.
“This year we had only a few three-year-olds to sell as most had been sold as foals, but we find there has been little interest in them. In fact I find this has been the hardest year ever to sell,” he added.
Along with his father Billy, Brian Daly said that of late most of their horse sales are done privately, especially to the UK. “I find that more and more of our clients will not attend sales in Ireland, but prefer to buy privately from breeders as they know exactly what they are buying.”
The study found that, of the 11,727 horses sold in Ireland in 2016, 75.86pc of those were sold privately as opposed to 24.10pc through auction houses.
The percentage of sport horses sold at auction for export has remained stable between 56pc and 56.2pc in the same time period.
Stuart Clarke of Cavan Equestrian Centre believes that these figures are mainly the result of a drop in numbers of horses being bred in recent years and vendors selling by use of social media and the internet.
“The numbers of horses going through the ring have definitely dropped back, but only this year have we seen a slight improvement in prices,” he said.
In the case of Cavan Equestrian Centre, he said that most of their foreign customers come from the UK while Swedish buyers are also prominent.
The majority of animals sold abroad are aged four and upwards, with a high percentage of the three-year-olds remaining in the country.
Mr Clarke says that the introduction of elite sales has been good for the industry, but Ireland still lags behind its European counterparts. “Our foal sales have gone from strength to strength but for every sale we have here, there are seven or eight in Europe within the same few weeks. It is hard to compete with that,” he said.
The report found that of the 14,830 active sport horse breeders in Ireland in 2016, 31pc reported that they were aiming to breed a show jumper, with 29pc aiming to breeder eventers. A further 16pc indicated that they wished to breed leisure horses, with 13pc aiming to breed show horses.
For the past 30 years Billy and Brian Daly Scarteen Stud have been breeding to produce show jumpers, but Brian says there is sadly no incentive in Ireland to produce horses up to Grand Prix level.
Their home-bred mare Newmarket Clare Lady has been competing with much success with Francis Connors, but at a major cost. “To date we believe she has cost us in the region of €60,000. We will be a long time making that back in prize-money,” he said.
The report said that an increase in funding is required from the Irish Government to help support the growth of the Irish sport horse industry in both domestic and global markets.
This sentiment was backed up by Stuart Clarke, who concluded. “If the Government could allocate more money it could be used to support the industry from the top right down to the bottom.
“Prize-money for shows could be increased and breeders would have more of an incentive to produce good-quality horses to sell on.”