“The search for Grand Prix horses is becoming a war”
“A lot of riders and owners are desperate to find horses. The search for Grand Prix horses is becoming a war, with all the financial implications that it has.”
Ingmar De Vos, FEI President, on the MoM Breeding PodcastThe registration figures show what he is describing.
One curve going down
Germany is one of the world's biggest warmblood breeding nations, and its studbooks publish their registration figures every year.
In 2023, German breeders registered 28,049 warmblood foals. In 2024, 25,100. In 2025, around 23,000.
That is an 18% drop in two years. In absolute terms, Germany produced roughly five thousand fewer warmblood foals last year than it did two years earlier. The Dutch numbers are heading the same way.
These numbers do not bounce back in a season. A foal that isn't born this year is a horse that won't be for sale in five or ten years. So the effect is straightforward: there are not enough horses coming through to meet the demand that is building, and on current figures that gap gets wider every year.
One curve going up
Now look at the other side of the market.
The FEI registers more riders every year. There are more international competitions than there have ever been. And the growth outside Europe is on a different scale altogether: China went from around 30 riding clubs to more than 3,000 in fifteen years.
Nearly half of all FEI-registered athletes are under 21. That generation is moving into international classes faster than ever — and every one of them needs a horse to do it.
Fewer horses being born. More riders looking for them. That is the whole story in two sentences.
What that means for breeders
Demand for good horses is rising while fewer are being bred. For anyone breeding today, that is a real opportunity — and one that will run for years, not for a season.
No dam line guarantees a Grand Prix horse. But a line that has already produced one, more than once, is a better starting point than a line that hasn't.
At Mares of Macha we want to help our breeders make the most of that opportunity: embryos from mares that jumped at the highest level themselves, or produced horses that did. Fixed price, 45-day in-foal guarantee.
Listen to the full episode with Ingmar De Vos on the MoM Breeding Podcast, or explore the collection to see which dam lines are available.