What exactly is a sports horse?

It's a made up marketing term to allow the British and Irish to compete against people selling warmbloods.. just like warmbloods, there is no one type.
 
Fifty percent more expensive than If they admitted they didnt know the sire and dam. Thats what it is. :p
 
In my experience a sports horse is a warmblood owned by someone who wants to big up their 'abilities' by 150% and bask in all the oohs and aahs they get ;)

Obviously not the case with all... But certainly a fair few!
 
My boy would fall under that description (doesn't mean he'll make a good sports horse though!). He is registered with AES, his sire and siblings event / dressage and he was bred with competing in mind from Warmblood and Irish lines. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that they are bred from good/proven stock with the intention of going on to compete themselves.
 
Think its a term which is thrown around and like another poster said- makes them appear worth more money! Dont get confused with a genuine sports horse though. Mine is a branded Belgian sport horse....she is a warmblood but registered with the SBS studbook.
 
My ISH has a green passport so I do know what/who his parents were and breeding before that too.

As for sports he is good at, eating, pooing and removing his field mates grazing muzzle are the ones he excels at.
 
An Irish Sports horse is a TB X Irish Draft, although I have seen TB x Connie being advertised as ISH. They should be good all round ponies / horses. They should be good all round ponies / horses.
 
I agree, it's a marketing term so british/irish bred can compete with european sellers.

One of ours is registered ISH, he was fairly sporty but only realistically at riding club level (he's 15.1hh!) but then the same can be said for plenty of warmbloods! I think it's usually used to mean a tb crossed with something heavier... I've seen some very un-athletic looking sporthorses! Seems to be used to describe anything that comes out of ireland that isn't a cob or a thoroughbred.

It's a shame they couldn't open a proper registry with gradings, that might actually give the term British/Irish Sporthorse some credibility. It's like the American Warmblood Society, you see all sorts of random, inexplicably conformed horses registered with them.
 
Allover said:
IMO a sports horse is one that is bred having a competition future in mind and should come from graded parentage.
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Over here a sports horse is this ^^. Breeders generally refer to sports horses as a generic term for fully passported, graded and licensed horses.

However if you are asking about Sports Horse registries then that is something different. Very often horses who are registered with a Sport Horse registry is because it does not have an extended pedigree or there are parts of the pedigree missing/unknown hence the horse is not able to be registered with a full Warmblood registry.
 
Gazen said:
An Irish Sports horse is a TB X Irish Draft, although I have seen TB x Connie being advertised as ISH. They should be good all round ponies / horses. They should be good all round ponies / horses.
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Not necessarily I was under the impression that an ISH could be any combination of connie/WB/ID/TB just depended what it was registered as ie. not all id/tb are automatically ISH or you could have an ISH that was technically entirely WB. If that makes any sense. The yard I worked at in Spain bred CDE's (caballo de espanol) which is pretty much the Spanish equivalent and they were kwpn x oldenburg but as they were bred in Spain and registered they were classed as CDE.
 
Spring Feather said:
Over here a sports horse is this ^^. Breeders generally refer to sports horses as a generic term for fully passported, graded and licensed horses.

However if you are asking about Sports Horse registries then that is something different. Very often horses who are registered with a Sport Horse registry is because it does not have an extended pedigree or there are parts of the pedigree missing/unknown hence the horse is not able to be registered with a full Warmblood registry.
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Like the different books used in the http://www.sporthorsegb.co.uk website?
 
My youngster only has his dam on his passport - he is registered as a "cob type" and I am assured that his dam is a cob. He however, is distinctly uncob like - my vet, when he came to give him his jags said if he was passporting him he would passport as a Scottish Sports Horse so I am led to believe that this can be done with horses of unknown breeding that look a certain way??? But he could not be an Irish Sports Horse as they must have proven parentage? (someone can correct me if thats wrong cause Im not 100% sure on that. But we have since found that my youngster is actually a WBxCob so Im not sure what he could be passported as as vet recommended re-passporting him when hes fully grown whcih is a few years away yet.
 
I think they only need approved parents to have a green irish sport horse passport. You can get blue and white ones too. Can't remember which one is which thou. Sorry.
 
Um Shutterbug, what is re-passporting? I thought you could get an over stamp if you want a horse registered with multiple societies? Apologies if I am on the wrong track here, but I thought a passport was for life.

My maxicob, an Irish bog trotter of uncertain parentage, has the white passport.
 
Tiddlypom said:
Um Shutterbug, what is re-passporting? I thought you could get an over stamp if you want a horse registered with multiple societies? Apologies if I am on the wrong track here, but I thought a passport was for life.

My maxicob, an Irish bog trotter of uncertain parentage, has the white passport.
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I honestly have no idea - vet mentioned it - hes got a Pet ID passport, so its not one from a society - hes not registered or anything - vet just said he wouldnt class him as a cob type and we could passport him once hes fully grown as a Sports Horse - my other horse was passported by the dealer I bought him from and he was a 5 year old so I am assuming that its something that can be done. Not really too clued up about passports to be honest, only know that I must have one :)
 
Copperpot said:
My ISH has a green passport so I do know what/who his parents were and breeding before that too.

As for sports he is good at, eating, pooing and removing his field mates grazing muzzle are the ones he excels at.
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Obviously related to my green passported ISH then - I would add nicking tack room keys and anything else he can get his lips around to the list; removing himself from full neck rugs without a mark on them or him and changing fields all by himself when he thinks he's got to make too much effort to eat in the one he's meant to be in.
 
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Tiddlypom said:
Um Shutterbug, what is re-passporting? I thought you could get an over stamp if you want a horse registered with multiple societies? Apologies if I am on the wrong track here, but I thought a passport was for life.

My maxicob, an Irish bog trotter of uncertain parentage, has the white passport.
Click to expand...

But I just did some research just now and according to Horse Passport Agency - a horse should only ever have one passport although Im guessing thats not the case for a lot of horses as a few dealers I know issue new passports for every horse they sell even if they do have the passport from the previous owner - so I guess my vet doesnt know much about passports either then lol

Sorry for the thread hijack there OP
 
My horse, Shire-TBX, is registered with the American Warmblood Society. Previous owner had her inspected, branded, the works, as a two year old. Why I don't know, but there you have it. I could have registered with some kind of sport horse society thingme when I moved her over to the UK, but would have had to send them her actual papers with her pedigree (sitting in a closet at my parents' house in the US) and paid a lot more money. I didn't care that much so she is passported as though she has unknown breeding with the Horse Passport Agency.
 
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