‘It will be difficult now to buy a stallion’

SCRAPPING the stallion tax exemption from July 31, 2008, will make buying stallions a lot more financially risky.

According to the financial advisor to one of the country’s finest studs, it will have catastrophic consequences for the industry with many of the smaller stud farms being unable to purchase the required standard of stallion to compete.

It could also push some of the larger breeders abroad. Most stallions are bought by syndicates made up of ordinary, everyday tax payers with a love for horses, according to Micheal Fahy, financial adviser to the Rathbarry Stud in Fermoy, Co Cork. The stud employs 30 to 40 staff who look after more than 150 mares on a permanent basis between their own mares and long-term, boarding mares from overseas on the 900-acre farm.