The sport horse industry in New Zealand is worth over $1 billion a year according to a University of Waikato student’s study results.

University of Waikato, located in Hamilton, New Zealand, Masters of Business Administration student Alex Matheson completed what’s believed to be the first investigation into the size and scope of the sport horse industry in that country. A graduate of the agricultural and horse-industry based Marcus Oldham College in Australia, Matheson decided to undertake the study after finding there was no information available on the collective economic impact of the industry.

Sport horses are defined as all horses that are not being used for racing or breeding horses for the purpose of racing.

"I wanted to get a better understanding of the sport horse industry in New Zealand," Matheson relayed. "The actual size of this sector of the industry is not widely known and before this has not been studied collectively