Breeding Excellence

By Tania Millen, BSc, MJ

“The Canadian Sport Horse Association is the oldest performance horse registry in North America,” says Lisa Murphy, the Canadian Sport Horse Association (CSHA) Vice President who has volunteered for almost 30 years with the organization. “We’re older than some of the stud books in Europe and we need to celebrate that.”

The CSHA started as the Canadian Hunter and Light Horse Improvement Society in 1926 to encourage breeders to produce rideable horses after a dramatic decline in Canada’s horse population due to World War I.

“I think it’s really important to embrace and celebrate a stud book that has lasted for 100 years,” says Murphy.

“We want to honour all of the remarkable breeders, owners, riders, and volunteers that have shaped where we are today,” says Michael Ward, CSHA’s President.

In anticipation of the milestone, Murphy and the CSHA Alberta Chapter have been hosting Countdown to a Century Symposium Series Masterclasses. Clinicians have included Americans Beezie and John Madden teaching the Madden Method (2022), Canada’s Tiffany Foster (2023), and Ireland’s Andrew Bourns (2024).

Related: The Madden Method Symposium

This year’s 100-year celebrations included a clinic by Amy Millar at Rocky Mountain Show Jumping facility in De Winton, Alberta on June 8, 2026.

Millar, who has represented Canada at the Olympics as part of the Canadian Show Jumping Team, agreed to teach the clinic because she feels it’s important to give back to a sport that has given her so much.

“I've spent my whole life in this world, and it’s been a great life. It is a great life. I want to see Canadians breeding top-level horses and I want to see a pipeline for young riders, so they understand how to get from where they are to the top of the sport,” says Millar. Teaching a clinic to riders on CSHA-registered horses was a natural fit.

But developing horses that can compete at the top of today’s horse sports has been a long road. After Canada shipped over 130,000 horses to Europe for World War I, the Canadian horse population was decimated.

“The Canadian government imported Thoroughbred stallions to help reestablish lighter riding horses and carriage horses in Canada,” says Kim Berlie, who has been a CSHA member for over 35 years and bred CSHA horses for 24 years near High River, Alberta.

The Canadian Hunter and Light Horse Improvement Society was formed to rebuild the riding and carriage horse population. It encouraged ranchers and farmers to breed their cold-blooded drafty farm mares with the imported Thoroughbred stallions.

There was a big hunt club community in Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritimes, so the mares used for plowing were bred to the lighter stallions to produce field hunters and carriage horses.

“The Society was way ahead of everybody else because they had a stud book that started recording pedigrees in the 1920s,” says Berlie.

George Beardmore was the Master of Fox Hounds of the Toronto Hunt in the early 20th century and one of the original officers responsible for the Society being incorporated as a non-profit corporation under the Companies Act.

George Beardmore, an early-20th-century Master of Fox Hounds of the Toronto Hunt, was among the original officers who incorporated the Canadian Hunter and Light Horse Improvement Society as a non-profit under the Companies Act. Here, he rides a solid field hunter over a timber fence in North York, Ontario. It was at this time that the Society began encouraging the breeding of lighter, more athletic horses for the hunt field. Photo: William James, Paul Higgins collection

Sam Stanley was a farmer from England who served in the British Army in World War I, purchasing and training remounts. After moving to Canada, Stanley developed his own breeding program, which was instrumental in developing early Canadian performance horses.

Through the 1930s to 1960s, horse use evolved from mining, hauling logs, farming, and ranching into performance sport. The demand for competitive horses increased.

Related: Tiffany Foster Symposium: Making Riders Think

In 1951, Mr. J.M. McCallum was an official with National Livestock Records in Ottawa, Ontario, and started the futurity program for Canadian Sport Horses. It was originally one class for three-year-olds that had been nominated into the program as weanlings and was held at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto. The J.M. McCallum Futurity Challenge Trophy was presented to the class winner from 1954 to 2012. The winner often went on to achieve success in performance sport.

Later, the futurity was held at the Canadian Sport Horse Breeders’ Show and Royal Agricultural Winter Fair (RAWF) in Toronto, Ontario, where foal, yearling, and two-year-old classes were added. Those classes continue today.

Once the Canadian Hunter and Light Horse Improvement Society changed its name to the Canadian Hunter Improvement Society, Stanley became its president in the early 1960s. He stood approved stallions Bengal, Lafite, My Kingdom, Sailor’s Axe, Spun Gold, and War Doe, donating Lafite and War Doe to the Society to be available for a reasonable fee to breeders.

“Dinnie Hall-Holland Fuller Greenway was one of our directors, and she told me that as kids they would field hunt in the morning and then load the horses up in a truck and take them to the Royal Winter Fair and show them in carriage competitions that night,” says Berlie. “She said the horses were all-purpose and could do a lot.”

Greenway’s well-known parents G.A.P. and Catherine Brickenden were prominent sport horse breeders. The Brickendens and Greenway produced horses that represented Canada at the Olympics and Pan American Games.

Cilroy, a 17.2-hand coach horse/Thoroughbred cross epitomized breeding success. He “accomplished what most of the world’s greatest horsemen believed impossible,” wrote Barbara May in her 1958 best-seller The Five Circles. The book shares the story of Cilroy and John Rumble bringing home the three-day eventing team bronze medal from the 1956 Olympic Games. (The Games were primarily held in Melbourne, Australia, but due to strict animal quarantines in Australia at the time, the equestrian events were held separately in Stockholm, Sweden.)

Cilroy was one of only 12 of 57 starters to have a clear round in the gruelling 22-mile endurance test on cross-country day. Of the 19 teams that started, the Canadian team was one of only seven whose three horses all completed the course.

In the 1960s, some of the first European warmbloods were imported into North America.

“It was Canadian Sport Horse breeders that brought warmbloods to Canada,” says Berlie.

Stallions Wigwam, Weimar, Sextus, Sandsturm, and Denar infused German bloodlines into Canadian breeding programs and influenced performance lines for the next 40 years. My King and his sons My Friend and Mister Meaner added Rheinlander blood into the Canadian studbook.

Trakehner stallions imported into Canada in the 1970s — Antares, Boraks, Ceinin, Tannenberg, Handel, and Lolos — added their talent to Canada’s performance horse gene pool, too.

As more European warmbloods were imported, CSHA opened its stud book to include warmblood lines. It was the first studbook in North America to include European warmbloods in its pedigrees.

“From the 1960s to the 1980s, the majority of Canadian and American show jumping and three-day eventing team riders rode Canadian Sport Horses,” says Berlie.

The horses had a lot of Thoroughbred blood in them, and the Canadians and Americans were used to riding a lighter, quicker type of horse.

“They were beating the Europeans hands down because the Europeans had warmbloods that were bigger and heavier and slower,” says Berlie. “The Europeans didn’t start to lighten up their horses until the 1990s.”

In the mid-1980s, the Canadian Hunter and Light Horse Improvement Society met market demand by rebranding as the Canadian Sport Horse Association. The term “sport horse,” defined as a horse capable of successfully competing in the disciplines of dressage, jumper, eventing, or hunter, helped differentiate the breed.

“In the 1980s, there was a huge change in the kind of horse that was being produced and what it was expected to do,” says Berlie.

The Canadian Sport Horse has an Evolving Breed designation by Agriculture Canada’s Animal Pedigree Act, which allows Canadian Sport Horse breeders the flexibility to plan their breeding programs based on market trends and genetic science.

“We’re versatile,” says Murphy. That versatility means that the CSHA offers registration specifically for Sport Pony Stallions, too.

The CSHA also designates performance premium labels — bronze, silver, gold, and platinum — to stallions, which help breeders target specific attributes they’re seeking.

“You’re breeding for a specific purpose, and you want a bloodline that is proven time and again,” says Berlie.

The CSHA was the second organization in North America to do DNA testing to verify parentage as well.

“Mistakes happen no matter how diligent breed organizations or breeding farms are,” says Berlie. “You pay big money for particular bloodlines, and DNA testing ensures that you’re getting what you’re paying for.”

Throughout the years, CSHA breeders have produced some of Canada’s top performance horses and support for Canada’s sport horses runs deep.

Millar Brooke Farm in Perth, Ontario, owned and operated by the Millar family, registers their horses with the CSHA because the family is so proud to be Canadian.

“If we breed a horse that becomes famous, we want everyone to know it’s Canadian-bred,” says Millar.

Meanwhile, the Brickenden family are continuing their legacy in Canada’s sport horse world by sponsoring the Brickenden 5* International Challenge jumper class at the RAWF in Toronto this November.

CSHA futurity classes will also be held, and the Champion of those classes will receive the Dorinda Greenway Memorial Award.

The coveted Lieutenant Governor’s Cup, an under-saddle class for three-year-olds which the CSHA sponsors, will be challenged by the best sport horses in the country. Meanwhile, the in-hand Governor General’s Cup for three-year-olds is sponsored by Michael Rumble.

“Being the first domestic Sport Horse Registry in North America, we want to celebrate the horses that have been produced by such a dedicated group of enthusiasts over the last century,” says Ward.

“100 years means consistency,” says Berlie. “It means that you are providing a very good product that stands the test of time, and I think Canadians can be proud of that.”

“As our studbook continues to evolve, we look forward to the next 100 years of producing top-quality horses that excel at the top of their disciplines,” says Ward.

Related: 22 Exceptional Canadian Sport Horses: Cilroy to Hickstead

Related: Amy Millar's Show Jumping Training Tips: Building Better Horses

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Main Photo: The 1947 Canadian Sport Horse Cilroy, ridden by John Rumble at the 1956 Olympic Games, helped Canada secure the bronze medal in three-day eventing. Photo courtesy of CSHA