Data & Transparency
Most common studbooks and sires in Italian show jumping: the numbers on 8,861 horses
Published on 2026-06-17
Which studbooks and which sires recur most among show jumping horses competing in Italy? We measured it on our sample of 8,861 profiles with public results. The picture: a movement built on the Sella Italiano, but with strongly international sire genetics.
In short
- Sample: 8,861 show jumping horses with results in Italy.
- Most common studbook: Sella Italiano, 19% of profiles (by far the first).
- Most recurrent sires: international names — Cornet Obolensky, Diamant de Semilly, Kannan.
- Young population: median year of birth 2018, 81% born since 2015.
- By sex: 42% mares, 35% geldings, 23% stallions.
- Data free to cite with attribution to HorseReport.ai.
The most common studbooks
The Sella Italiano is, predictably, by far the most represented studbook. It is followed by two leading international jumping registries: Zangersheide and the Dutch KWPN.
| Studbook | Horses | % |
|---|---|---|
| Sella Italiano / Italian Saddle Horse (SEIT) | 1,693 | 19.1% |
| Zangersheide (ZANG) | 642 | 7.2% |
| KWPN – Netherlands | 605 | 6.8% |
| Selle Français (SF) | 307 | 3.5% |
| Hanoverian (HANN) | 213 | 2.4% |
| Oldenburg (OLDB) | 190 | 2.1% |
| Belgian Warmblood (BWP) | 182 | 2.1% |
| Holsteiner (HOLST) | 169 | 1.9% |
| Anglo-Arab (ANAR) | 150 | 1.7% |
The stallions leaving the most offspring
On the genetic side, the ranking of the most recurrent sires is dominated by the big names of international jumping: Cornet Obolensky leads, closely followed by Diamant de Semilly and Kannan.
| Stallion (sire) | Offspring in sample |
|---|---|
| Cornet Obolensky | 82 |
| Diamant de Semilly | 81 |
| Kannan | 71 |
| Chacoon Blue | 57 |
| Casall | 49 |
| Emerald van't Ruytershof | 48 |
| Old Chap Tame | 43 |
| Conthargos | 41 |
| Baedeker | 40 |
| Vagabond de la Pomme | 38 |
How to read these numbers
Two readings. One: the Sella Italiano is the backbone of the movement, yet the genetics of the most common sires are almost entirely foreign (Cornet Obolensky, Diamant de Semilly, Kannan) — a sign of breeding open to top European bloodlines. Two: the absolute counts of the top sires are close (82 vs 81 vs 71): they point to a leading cluster, not a clear dominator. Read with caution: imported horses have more traceable pedigrees than many Italian-bred ones, so international sires are probably over-represented relative to their true frequency.
See how (in)accessible public equestrian data is in our data accessibility study, or browse horses by studbook and sire.
Methodology
Analysis of a sample of 8,861 profiles of show jumping horses with public results in Italy, collected from equiresults.com (FISE-circuit competitions), extracted in June 2026. This is not a representative sample of the FISE population: it is the collection that powers the HorseReport.ai information pages. Studbook percentages are computed on the full sample (studbook is resolvable for 76% of profiles); the sire ranking considers profiles with a resolvable sire (~59%). Studbook codes are those recorded in the sources; some populations appear under more than one code. The data may be cited with attribution to HorseReport.ai.
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