A RESOUNDING result for Irish-breds at Burghley saw the Irish Sport Horse studbook sail into the lead in the World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses (WBFSH) rankings, putting clear blue sea between it and nearest rivals, the Hanoverian Verband and KWPN.

It was a tightly-bunched team of six this year. Or seven, including Burghley winner, MGH Grafton Street (18th place) whose white passport sees him in ‘Unknown’ limbo in the WBFSH rankings.

With just seven points between MGH Grafton Street (210 points) and 21st-placed Rioghan Rua (203) and a comfortable 188 point lead for the ISH studbook, the issue doesn’t affect its win. It just came close to a near-perfect top-20 result for the six Irish representatives, a result normally the preserve of dressage studbook rankings.

In racing parlance, this year’s group was full of classic and Group 1 winners. Ballaghmor Class and Quarrycrest Echo, both in the ISH top-six in 2018, were joined this year by Vanir Kamira, then the traditional-bred pair of Ivar Gooden and Brookpark Vikenti, plus Rioghan Rua.

While, sadly, Noel Hickey and Martin J. Collins have passed away, and Kate Jackson has since given up horse breeding, John Dooley is still actively breeding sport horses. Quarrycrest Echo’s owner Jayne McGivern referred to how she made it her mission to put Piggy French back on top of the eventing world and French’s comeback year was chiefly owed to the Irish-bred pair of Vanir Kamira, owned by Trevor Dickens, and ‘Red’, as the Donegal-bred Quarrycrest Echo is known as.

“A wonderful owner who keeps in contact and Piggy is a world-class rider. It’s a privilege to have bred Quarrycrest Echo and it’s great to see him competing at the highest level,” Dooley told The Irish Field last weekend, while watching online for show jumping results from Oslo’s five-star show where Echo’s full-brother Quarrycrest Reflection notched up two top-10 placings.

While the other Irish Sport Horses have featured throughout the 2019 eventing season, Brookpark Vikenti has flown under the radar until the 11-year-old’s appearance in these top six. Tristan Kingston’s story will strike a chord with other breeders on the long, hard road to breeding a five-star event horse.

Road to Dunmanway

“I came to horse breeding late. I didn’t know anything about it until I met my wife Zoe (Allen) from Mount Pleasant, when I was 18. Her family are steeped in horses,” said the West Cork auctioneer.

“I took a very thoroughbred view to breeding sport horses, in that they’d have to have something done or be related to a performer.” Did that approach work? “It did and it didn’t!”

It worked when he crossed the Ballysimon mare Tullineaskey Butler’s Simon, bred by Willie Santry, with Master Imp in 2007. Incidentally that was the same year that Sally Corscadden, now Horse Sport Ireland’s Senior High Performance director, competed at the European Championships at Pratoni del Vivaro with the Rineen Clover gelding Millridge Kalmar, who was out of Brookpark Vikenti’s Rhett Butler grandam, Tullineaskey Butler.

Vikenti’s stable name as a youngster was ‘Lofty’, a nod to Slyguff Stud’s Loftus O’Neill. “He loved to see a young fellow coming with mares and took such a great interest in what you bred. Loftus was mad about Balda Beaus and we had one, Brookpark Jazz, that evented with Trish Donegan.”

The perfect horse

It was Trish’s husband Michael Ryan who campaigned the young Lofty. “As a three and four-year-old, I couldn’t give him away!” Kingston remarked on modern day buyers holding out for the ‘perfect horse’.

“They don’t exist,” he added. “Mike and Trish were friends with the Japanese rider Kazumo Tomoto and that’s how he was sold.”

Now owned by the Japanese Racing Association, Brookpark Vikenti won at Chatsworth in May, following a second place back on home turf at Ballindenisk the previous month. Their second place at Blenheim in September sealed the traditional-bred’s first time inclusion in the top-six ranked Irish Sport Horses.

Inclusion is something many breeders, at the start of the chain, feel strongly about and the Kingstons closely follow Brookpark Vikenti’s career. “We went to Camphire to see him and was my name mentioned once? Now, I’m not one going out looking for publicity or anything like that but it would have been nice to have heard who bred the horses.

“I believe 100% that a horse’s prefix shouldn’t be changed, that’s the only way I could follow them,” he added, explaining that Brookpark is the name of his home place.

“I’m done”

At 26, Kingston became the youngest Irish Horse Board member and served a four year-term. A constant turnover is an issue he feels strongly about, saying: “Everyone should keep moving on after four years, otherwise, there’ll be no fresh faces or ideas.”

He still owns horses but of another variety now. Ivar Gooden’s breeder Pat Coffey has scaled back breeding sport horses to focus on thoroughbreds, while Tristan made a full switch. He had a ‘road to Damascus’ experience, except in his case, it was on the journey back to Dunmanway, while returning from the Goresbridge foal sales.

“It was about four or five years ago, I had a Future Trend foal out of a Laughtons Flight mare that has bred some good jumpers and didn’t get a single bid. So I put my foal in the trailer and on the way home, thought ‘I’m done’. I got on the phone and by the time I got to Dunmanway, I didn’t own a single horse.

“I grew up in a supermarket where you have to have the right product. I thought I had the right product but just couldn’t sell it! As well as that, we had three very young kids and life took over.”

He now buys flat-bred foals to sell as yearlings and finds pinhooking is a quicker return. “I’d always come home with the trailer empty!”

The magnificent six (seven)

3rd – Ballaghmor Class (Courage II – Kilderry Place, by Young Convinced. Breeder: Noel Hickey).

4th – Vanir Kamira (Camiro de Haar Z – Fair Caledonian, by Dixi. Breeder: Kate Jackson).

10th – Ivar Gooden (Young Convinced – Ballybrohan Beauty, by Coevers Diamond Boy. Breeder: Pat Coffey).

11th – Quarrycrest Echo (Clover Echo – Royal China, by Cavalier Royale. Breeder: John Dooley).

14th – Brookpark Vikenti (Master Imp – Tullineaskey’s Butler’s Simon, by Ballysimon. Breeder: Trevor Kingston).

21st – Rioghan Rua (Jack of Diamonds – Highland Destiny, by Flagmount King. Breeder: Margaret Kinsella).

*18th – MGH Grafton Street (O.B.O.S Quality 004. Breeder: Martin J. Collins).