Sport Horse foal registration – the basics

Sport horse foals must be registered within six months of birth or before December 31 on the year of their birth. If you have a foal with recorded pedigree there is slightly more to include in the registration process, in comparison to a foal without fully recorded pedigree.

For your foal to be eligible for either the Irish Sport Horse (ISH) or the Irish Draught (ID) Horse studbooks the sire and the dam of the foal must be registered in the Irish Horse Register (IHR).

If your foal is not eligible for either studbook there is a process to gain a non-pedigree passport.

Breeders must send their correctly completed covering certificate to Horse Sport Ireland (HSI), who will then automatically issue the registered owner of the dam with a foal kit.

There is a simple three-step process for registering your foal.

1 – Call your vet

When you receive your foaling kit you will need to call your veterinary surgeon. The foal kit contains four things – a marking chart, DNA hair sample bag, return envelopes and an information leaflet.

Your vet must fill out the marking chart for your foal, they will also microchip your foal and attach the microchip bar code to the marking chart. Your foal should only be microchipped using a HSI microchip, these microchips are issued to veterinary surgeons for animals who will be registered in the Irish Horse Register.

Your vet will remove a hair sample from your foal and place it in the DNA hair sample bag. This DNA hair sample bag must be sent to Weatherby’s Ireland for DNA testing. If the dam of the foal has not been previously DNA typed, there is also a DNA hair sample bag for the mare, which should also be sent to Weatherby’s.

All of this information is clearly noted in the information leaflet included in the foal kit.

2 – Send the marking chart to HSI

When your veterinary surgeon has completed your foal’s marking chart, you must return this to HSI.

You must also include the correct fee. The initial fee for registering a foal is €80 for IHR members or €117 for non-members.

3 – Receive your passport

The final step of registering your foal is to receive your Irish Sport Horse studbook passport. This will be sent to you once HSI receive the correctly filled out marking chart, correct fee and the DNA result from Weatherby’s. The passport will be sent to the registered owner of the dam.

There is a new Irish Horse Register online database which is free to use once you create a log-in. This online platform offers a range of services including mare declarations

Once you enter the relevant information for each of your mares into the database, the information is then stored on the system. You then choose the stallion.

For choosing the mare and the stallion on the database users have a choice of declared previously, a search function, or manually entering the mare or stallion.

Once the mare and stallion are selected you then enter the covering details, including the covering type and date. The final step of online mare declaration is to enter the mare’s owner’s details.

If you want to register a foal who has a non-registered sire or dam and thus, is not eligible for the Irish Sport Horse or the Irish Draught Horse studbook book, you can obtain a non-pedigree passport for them. The steps for registering a non-pedigree foal are very similar to the steps for registering a pedigree foal. Your vet should complete the marking chart and microchip your foal. This marking chart and correct fee should then be sent to Horse Sport Ireland. There is no DNA testing required for non-pedigree foals so once you return the marking chart and fee, Horse Sport Ireland will issue the owner of the mare with the passport. If you have questions on foal registration the Horse Sport Ireland office is open from 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday and you can call 045 850800.