Breeder Location

Interactive table showing Geographic Locations of New Zealand Breeders

The headline is a good one. Mares served lifted from 1,571 to 1,670 in the 2025/26 season, a rise of 6.3 per cent, with total services up 6.6 per cent to 1,785. After sixteen years of contraction that is worth marking.

The more interesting number sits underneath it. Individual breeder numbers rose from 1,226 to 1,308 over the same period, a lift of 6.7 per cent. Growth in mares served and growth in breeders have moved almost exactly together, which tells us where this season came from. It is not existing breeders serving bigger books. It is more people breeding.

That distinction matters, because the two produce very different futures. A season built on existing breeders expanding is fragile and can reverse the moment costs or confidence shift. A season built on new participants entering is the beginning of a base. On this year's evidence we have the second.

Geographically the growth is concentrated. Canterbury accounts for the bulk of it, up 77 breeders, with Selwyn alone contributing 35 and confirming its position as the largest breeding district in the country. Southland added 10. Against that, Otago fell by 20, and both the Bay of Plenty and Tasman-Nelson/Marlborough slipped. The national picture is positive but it is not universal, and the regions going backwards are worth watching.

You can see all of that for yourself in the chart below, which is interactive. Drag the slider to move between seasons, from 1995 through to 2025/26, and the rankings, the shares and the summary figures all update as you go. If you would rather watch the whole story unfold, press Play and it will step through all eight seasons on its own. It is worth doing at least once, because thirty years of change is far easier to grasp in motion than it is from a table.

The three buttons at the top right switch between New Zealand, the North Island and the South Island, and every figure recalculates for whichever you choose. Hovering over a region in the ranked list will highlight it in the chart alongside, and hovering the chart works the same way in reverse. On a phone the ranked list is the easier way to read it. For the raw numbers, open Full table, every season underneath.

A word of caution on how far to push any of this. Our thirty year record runs from 3,508 breeders in 1995 to 1,308 today, a fall of 63 per cent, with the steepest losses between 2010 and 2015. Set the slider to 2010 and then to 2015 and you will see it in a single step. One season of growth against that backdrop is encouraging, not conclusive. Two consecutive seasons of lift would be a trend. One is a data point.

What we will be looking for in 2026/27 is whether the new entrants of this season come back with a second mare. Retention, not recruitment, is what turns a good year into a recovery.

A note on what is counted. These figures are individual breeders, mapped to a region using the residential postcode on their record. Breeders based overseas or without a valid postcode are excluded from every season, so the totals shown are domestic breeders only.