IN the year of UK negotiating its split from the European Union, the long-lasting winning partnership between British riders and Irish-bred horses has flourished again, as proved by the Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials results two weeks’ ago. And Kentucky and Badminton, too.

In fact, all three of eventing’s Grand Slam fixtures this year were won by Irish-breds: Cooley Master Class (Land Rover Kentucky Horse Trials); Vanir Kamira (Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Horse Trials) and now the Burghley (MGH Grafton Street).

For their riders – Oliver Townend, Piggy French and Pippa Funnell – their individual wins on board Irish-breds have propelled these riders back into the spotlight and placed them in the running for Tokyo next year.

Townend scored a Badminton-Burghley double 10 years ago with Flint Curtis and Carousel Quest and, in the same year, French won an individual silver medal at the 2009 European championships with the Irish-bred Some Day Soon.

MGH Grafton Street’s major win spans a 16-year gap since Funnell’s Grand Slam win, courtesy of Primmore’s Pride and the great Supreme Rock in 2003.

Five-star success for these three riders on Irish-breds, closely-packed at the top of the Hippomundo rankings is marketing gold. But what about the breeders? Is there a financial reward? Breeding a top five-star event horse is akin to attempting to breed a Cheltenham Gold Cup contender and success can sometimes come too late for the person at the start of the success story.

Undoubtedly delighted at having bred the Kentucky and Badminton winners Cooley Master Class and Vanir Kamira, John Hagan and Kate Jackson have since retired from horse breeding. Sadly, Noel Hickey, Myles Mahon and Martin J. Collins have all passed away before Ballaghmor Class (2017), Ringwood Sky Boy (2018) and MGH Grafton Street (2019) won Burghley.

“Martin would have been over the moon about breeding him,” said his partner Breda Stratford. “I had just come in from the garden that Sunday when I got a phonecall from [Horse Sport Ireland breeding director] Alison Corbally to tell me that the horse had won Burghley.”

Originally from Querrin in West Clare, Martin later made his home in the Golden Vale, first in Cahir and then, Mocklershill, where he bred his Bannerfarm prefix horses.

A noted Simmental cattle breeder and judge – he was also one of the first to introduce Limousin cattle to Ireland and judged at the World Congress hosted here in 2000 – Martin was also a keen fan of the Irish Draught horse.

According to Breda, he became interested in OBOS Quality after he acquired Bannerfarm Quality, by the same Oldenburg sire. Bred in 2002 by Ronan Tynan, Bannerfarm Quality was evented by Malachy Casement up to 2011 and in the meantime, Martin had bred Bannerfarm Rocket, as MGH Grafton Street was originally known as.

Unrecorded dam

Unfortunately, there are few clues to date about the Burghley winner’s unrecorded dam, believed to be a thoroughbred mare. “I was just the go-fer!” confessed Breda.

MGH Grafton Street not only became the first horse to win a five-star event at his first attempt but in the process, made OBOS Quality the sire of a rare five-star winner. Already known for his U.S-based event horse pair of Luckaun Quality and Ballingowan Pizazz, the Kennedy family’s Oldenburg stallion has produced the likes of Castlefield Eclipse, Mark Q and Lisona at international show jumping level too.

Castlefield Eclipse competed at Olympic level, at the London Games five years ago and MGH Grafton Street may well match that feat next year at Tokyo.

The Burghley results also bode well for stalwarts Courage II and Master Imp in the various global sire rankings, albeit, as is sometimes the case with breeders, it’s often a story of posthumous glory for these stallions too.

Reflecting breeding patterns, the top-four horses are by continental stallions in OBOS Quality (OLD), Camiro de Haar Z (ZANG), Courage II (HOLST) and Balou du Rouet (OLD), the sire of fourth-placed Reve du Rouet.

Garrison Royal, the Irish Sport Horse sire of fifth-placed Bango, is by Cavalier Royale, a close relative of Courage II and the highest-placed finisher by a thoroughbred sire was Ivar Gooden in sixth, one of four show jumping clear rounds amongst the top-10 horses.

Reve du Rouet, Bango and the Anglo-Arab Vermiculus (ninth for US rider Lauren Kieffer) recorded the other three clears.

Only one horse finished within the cross-country time and that was the runner-up Vanir Kamira. On paper, her TB percentage stands at 48.63%, which, as he outlined in his post-Badminton article in The Irish Field, was the reason her owner Trevor Dickens had initially turned her down at the sales.

Partial recorded pedigrees and white passports are still an issue and sifting through anecdotal evidence to fill in the blanks of successful Irish-breds has become part of piecing together breeding articles.

For studbooks, it’s a clear win for the Irish Sport Horse studbook at Burghley with seven of the top-10 bred here. Was it a vintage field compared to previous years, with Burghley so close to the European championships and with the absence of previous winners, such as Michael Jung, Andrew Nicholson and the now-retired Mark Todd, who first won Burghley back in 1987 with the Irish-bred Wilton Fair?

Possibly not, however there were some world-class performances witnessed, particularly at the top of the leaderboard.

Between Kentucky, Badminton, Luhmuhlen and Burghley, 18 Irish-breds have scored top-10 finishes in these five-star events since the springtime. That is a remarkable achievement by any studbook standard. And by these five-star horses’ breeders.

Next week: The class of 2018