The Role of Breeding in the Horse Industry

Racing  can  be  broken  down  into  three  tiers  of  production:  Show  Jumping  operation/OTB facilities,  maintaining  competitive  and  potentially  competitive  horses,  and  breeding,  which included maintaining potential and retired breeding horses. Each tier is dependent on the other tier for its income. For instance, show and OTBs generate revenue from the general public which attends and/or wagers upon competitive show horses, owners of competing horses derive their income from the shows in the form of purses, and breeders derive their income by selling horses to owners who want to own and enter horses into a competition.

 

Breeding plays a signicant role in the racing industry. For instance:

· Approximately 930,000 horses are involved in the breeding process or are transitioning into or out of the breeding process – in the racing sector alone.

 

·  Breeding  horses  in  the  racing  segment  produce  a  direct  impact  for  the  industry  of approximately €2.5 billion and a total impact of almost €6 billion.

 

· Approximately 39,000 full-time equivalent jobs are created directly from breeding activity, a total of approximately 300,000 FTE jobs are created when considering the indirect and induced impacts.

 

Breeding also plays a signicant role in the showing industry segment. While the showing segment may not have the national public attention that races generates for the racing industry, the showing segment features thousands of local, regional and national shows. Competitive

horse shows have many of the same dynamics as racing, shows require horses to compete for prizes, and horses are breed specically for the purposes of becoming a competitive show horse.