Estonian Sport Horse Breeders` Society is an association of breeders who have the common goal to breed quality and for whom quality means winning.
We started at 2001, having not much more than a firm idea what we want to achieve.

Will to perform took us closer to the world and the world closer to us. Our horses in the showjumping world are ACE OF HEARTS (Gregory Wathelet), Q PARAVATTI N (Jack Whitaker), olympic horse ALFONS RA (Yuri Mansur), BONNE AMIE (Abdel Said),  HEROLD N (Luca Moneta), PATROL V, TRAFFIC, V CARLOS, WILANDER etc.
Imported semen of the popular international stallions – HEARTBREAKER, VERDI, CLINTON – have given the best results in our breeding. We were the first studbook that licensed excellent stallions SPARTACUS (hannoverian) and A PIKACHU DE MUZE (BWP).

Absolut top of ESH success was reached at 2021, when three ESH horses qualified to TOKYO 2020 OLYMPICS!

ESH Donna Anna and Dina Ellermann were the first Estonian equestrian team participating at the olympics: READ HERE

ESH Alfons Ra was the most successful horse under Yuri Mansur of the Brazilian team: READ HERE

We register Estonian born sport horses in two studbooks:

• ESH – Estonian Sport Horse
• ERP – Estonian Riding Pony (and it`s section EVP – Estonian small pony)

You can find our horses in Estonian Equine Database https://ariel.pria.ee/hobu/

Competition results can be found in ratsanet.ee  – database by Estonian Equestrian Federation

ESHBS is a member of World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses (WBFSH) from 2005 and so we belong to the great community of sporthorse breeders of all nations.

Our main events keep our breeders together and active:

• • Stallion Days in springtime
  • Estonian Young Horse Championships in summertime
  • Young Horse Final Evaluations in autumn

History

It was not easy to establish a sport horse studbook in a country without good riding horse breeding traditions. Horse breeding in Estonia had been oriented to horses for hard work and simple keeping conditions. Highest level in that field was reached in 1920-1940, when the number of horses rose very fast and was relatively one of the biggest in Europe – 210 horses to 1000 citizens. The main breed was a heavy warmblood horse for agriculture – the Toric breed. Toric horses were used in cavalry too, but for international sports we had no horse.
In Soviet time some efforts were made to breed trakehners. From 1970 the Takehner breeding had good development based mostly on mares and stallions from Russian Kirov Stud.
But after our independence was gained, trakehners and toric horses were not any more popular among the riders already visiting international competitions. Some breeders had bigger ambitions too, and the knowledge about methods of breeding KWPN, BWP, holstein and other breeds activated our minds to launche a new studbook having goal to breed for performance and use the best genes available.
By support of Minister of Agriculture Ivari Padar and Director of Animal Breeding Inspection Agu Kööp 25 breeders founded Estonian Sport Horse Breeders`Society 26.04.2000 and got the state recognition to keep Estonian Sport Horse Studbook. Now the number of our members exceeds 200 breeders.
Soon the popularity of sport horse breeding increased and in 2015 the number of foal registrations in our studbooks ESH and ERP (Estonian riding pony) was bigger than other studbooks in Estonia had together. It seems maybe strange for most European countries, but to this point in Estonia the biggest studbook had been the Estonian aborigene horse.
The quality of our horses has got great impulse from importing some good sport horses, which turned out to be excellent stallions. A Pikachu de Muze (born 2000, Kannan-Ta Belle van Sombeke-Chin-Cin) was 2006 the World champion of 6y-old horses and its descendants compete internationally under riders of Ireland, Great Britain and of course Estonia. Spartacus (b. 2003, Stakkato-Galina-Grannus) was in Estonia temporarily 2005-2007, got in Estonia its first licence and 60 foals. Later it has been in Netherlands and Germany a popular stallion, and in sports a candidate to German olympic team. From very beginning we started to use imported semen from world-known stallions. The list of most used international stallions You find on page: https://en.estsporthorse.ee/breeding-stallions/ The use of electronic database we also started from the very beginning of our studbook. It can be seen https://ariel.pria.ee/hobu/
We are very thankful to many persons who have visited our shows and seminars. First of them was mrs. Jeannette Nijhof in 2002. Many times our foreign judges in young horse evaluations have been Henk Nijhof sen. from Netherlands and Lars Berglund from Sweden. Last years we have had the pleasure to host prof. dr. Stefaan De Smet (BWP), Nico Schulpen from Netherlands, Bernard Le Courtois from France, Walter Lelie from Belgium etc. Important role for our breeding has had the membership of WBFSH we got in 2005. It was very much the advice and support of prof. dr. Ingvar Fredricson which made it possible for our association. Good advice we got from dr. Greve who said at our seminar in 2008: „We must not think what we have, we must think what we want!“