AN unprecedented treble win by a studbook. That was last Sunday’s result in the FEI World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses five-year-old show jumping championship at Lanaken when Irish riders and Irish-breds took gold, silver and bronze. In tandem with the magnificent results delivered by three young stars of Irish show jumping, Richard Howley, Darragh Ryan and Mikey Pender was their Irish-bred horsepower.
The Irish Sport Horse trio became a talking point in international circles by taking on the major breeding operations and show jumping studbooks and leaving Lanaken, the Olympics for young horses, with a complete medal haul.
Irish breeding fortunes have steadily improved at the championships and the record result last weekend will certainly have given Irish show jumping breeding a boost.
So who bred Uppercourt Cappuccino, CSF Sir George and HHS Vancouver?
UPPERCOURT CAPPUCINO
(Pacino – Uppercourt Posh, by O.B.O.S Quality 004. Breeder: Paul O’Byrne).
Sadly, as is often the case in the long road to breeding champions, the success story sometimes involves a late breeder. This was the bittersweet case recently at the Burghley Horse Trials for the Courage II-sired pair of winner Ringwood Sky Boy and second-placed Ballaghmor Class, bred by Myles Mahon and Noel Hickey respectively.
Uppercourt Cappuccino, owned by HK Horses, was bred by the late Galway man Paul O’Byrne. Before the consultant surgeon’s move to Limerick, he had also stood Kroongraaf at his former stud farm in Freshford, Co Kilkenny.
One of a half-dozen recorded foals out of Uppercourt Posh, the Lanaken champion has some interesting siblings. These include event horse Uppercourt Cooley, the oldest of the O.B.O.S Quality 004 mare’s offspring and this Warrenstown You Two 10-year-old, fourth in the CCI* class at Tattersalls in 2014, is now competing at three-star level with British rider Emily Baldwin.
Another half-sibling is Chantilly Bojangles, the 2015 small hunter champion at Dublin for then-owners Paul O’Shaughnessy and Lynn Turley. Sold on then to Kim Colosso, the Kroongraaf son went on to win the Irish Horse Gateway-sponsored small hunter title at the Horse of the Year Show the following year with his producer Robert Walker in the saddle.
Uppercourt Posh’s only covering by the Belgian warmblood sire Pacino produced Cappucino in 2013. That was the same year that Maureen McMahon’s young Diamant de Semilly stallion was lost to both the Irish show jumping team and breeders after a glittering record in 2012. Back then, he and Clem McMahon were part of the victorious Irish team at Hickstead’s Nations Cup show, followed four weeks later by a memorable Aga Khan win on home turf at Dublin.
Interestingly, Pacino himself jumped at the World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses (WBFSH) championships at Lanaken as six-year-old, when he was unplaced in the 2010 six-year-old final.
Uppercourt Posh was sold to Pat Hutchinson, who retains a three-year-old filly by Metropole, that he may keep on as a potential broodmare and a year-younger Capri Van Overis Z gelding. Their late dam was sold to Paul O’Shaughnessy, following Chantilly Bojangles successes, and O’Shaughnessy has retained her last foal; a Nazar colt.
Foaled in 2001, Uppercourt Posh’s dam is not officially recorded, nor does she appear to have any performance record – not that it prevented her from breeding a Lanaken gold medallist.
CSF SIR GEORGE
(Sir Shutterfly – Norrira, by Cavalier Royale. Breeder: Shane Connolly).
Co Galway is the country’s largest producer of foals in recent years. The Connolly family, near Tuam, produce both quantity and quality with their annual foal crop, recording an average of 20 foals per annum under their CSF (Connolly Stud Farm) banner. Some 18 mares are due to foal in 2019 and amongst them is Norrira, the dam of the Lanaken silver medallist: CSF Sir George.
Busy preparing foals for this year’s sales, Shane Connolly didn’t have an opportunity to go to Lanaken to watch the Sir Shutterfly gelding come within .17 seconds of winning gold. His Cavalier Royale mare Norrira has a Carrera VDL colt at foot this year and is back in foal again to the same Cardento stallion. Unsold at the recent Barnadown foal sale, her 2018 colt CSF Casco will be back up for grabs at the upcoming Goresbridge foal sales.
CSF Sir George was sold as a foal at the Cavan Elite Foal sale for €5,700 and was later resold as a three-year-old at the Goresbridge Supreme Sale of Showjumpers for €42,000 to his current owner Molly Tracy, from California.
He is by the Silvio sire Sir Shutterfly, a full-brother to Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum’s great Shutterfly. CSF Sir George’s dam Norrira was bred in Co Donegal by John McLaughlin and show jumped for one summer (2004) with D.J O’Sullivan, recording five SJI points. The Cavalier Royale daughter has since produced 11 foals by a variety of stallions, including two apiece by Kroongraaf and the late Harlequin du Carel, plus an interesting three-year-old, CSF Rock DJ, by Rich Feller’s 2012 World Cup champion Flexible.
Her oldest progeny include the Harlequin du Carel mare Sera Que, competed by Swedish rider Anneka Gustafsson and the American export CSF Royal Cruz, by Cruising.
Undoubtedly her best-known offspring before her Lanaken silver medallist was CSF Mr Kroon. He was selected on the Irish Sport Horse team as a six-year-old with Declan Egan in 2015. The same horse returned the following year, this time with Bulgarian rider Rossen Raitchev, when they placed second in the opening seven-year-old qualifier at Lanaken. Now a nine-year-old, he is currently competing at 1.40m level on the Continent with Italy’s Emanuele Camilli. Norrira has a traditional Irish dam line going back to the King of Diamonds son, Diamond Lad and one generation further back to the thoroughbred sire Red Field.
HHS VANCOUVER
(Indoctro – La Juanita, by Don Juan de la Bouverie. Breeder: Marion Hughes)
Completing the Irish clean sweep in the five-year-old final was the Kilkenny-bred HHS Vancouver, one of nine recorded offspring of his Don Juan de la Bouverie dam.
All of this year’s five-year-old medallists are by continental sires, including VDL Stud’s great servant, the Capitol I x Caletto II-bred Indoctro. The use of European-based performance stallions, through artificial insemination, continues to grow here and much of that practice was initially led by Marion’s uncle, John Hughes.
In fact, the home-bred and owned HHS Vancouver’s dam line traces back to both of his Williamstown Stud’s stallions, Cavalier Royale and Don Juan de la Bouverie. Registered with the sBs, the then little-known Belgian studbook, and classified as NA2 here, the 1987-foaled Don Juan de la Bouverie had a stout Selle Français pedigree, extending back to the brilliant Furioso.
Standing alongside Hughes’s popular Cavalier Royale was always going to impact Don Juan’s books of mares, although he produced a number of international performers, mainly eventers. These included Carol and Tom Henry’s 2015 European eventing championships team horse Ballylynch Adventure, ridden by Michael Ryan and Clayton Fredericks’s useful three-star performer Walterstown Don.
La Juanita’s dam, La Dona, was competed by Irish Horse Board member Marion, whose father Seamus had introduced Cavalier Royale to Ireland and whose broodmare daughters have the best strike rate in producing Irish Sport Horse medallists at Lanaken. Cavalier Royale features again in two of this year’s three medallist’s pedigrees and is the sire of this Grade A mare. La Dona continued her later show jumping career on America’s West Coast and the first of her five recorded foals was La Juanita. She subsequently produced nine foals.
HHS Dasset Appeal is the first of La Juanita’s performance progeny and this Ghareeb gelding evented up to three-star level, as did MGH Annaghmore, competed by Tryon hero Padraig McCarthy. This pair’s most recent outing was at Cappoquin in July, when the son of the Hughes team’s HHS Fortunus, placed fifth.
Another of her offspring is the Army Equitation School recruit Templetuohy, runner-up in last year’s Millstreet Derby with Captain Geoff Curran and a full-sister to MGH Annaghmore.
This is the second Lanaken medallist bred by Marion herself, following Z Seven Caretina’s silver medal two years ago. Her mother Anne (Z Seven Canya Dance in 2016) and aunt Ita Brennan (Ballypatrick Mystique in 2014) were two more breeders to have produced a medal-winning Irish Sport Horse at the World championships in Lanaken.
Long may the Lanaken showcase success continue.
(*The Burrgraaf son Kroongraf now stands with Susan Malee at her Carrabeg Stud in Swinford and just last Saturday produced the reserve champion in the warmblood foal championship at Mountbellew Show. Owned by Malee, the colt is out of a three-parts sister to Gelvin Clover.)
NEXT WEEK: WEG 2018 breeding analysis - the top bloodlines and studbooks
LANAKEN ROLL OF HONOUR
GOLD
2010 – NLS Coole Al Clover (Aladatus Z – Laural Lodge, by Clover Hill. Breeder: Brian Kenny).
2013 – Arraghbeg Clover (Captain Clover – Blidsworth Lion Queen, by Bonnie Prince. Breeder: Agata Leonard).
2016 – Killossery Kaiden (Lux Z – Killossery Kruisette, by Cruising. Breeder: Frank and Laura Glynn).
2017 – Columbcille Gipsy (Toulon – Gipsy III, by Grundyman. Breeder: Eamonn Murphy).
SILVER
2001 – Master Ballinteskin (Master Imp– Cushinstown Glory, by Hail Titan. Breeder: Simon McCarthy).
2009 – Drumiller Lough (Heartbreaker – Pearl Diver, by Mountain Pearl. Breeder: Paul Dillon).
2014 – Ard Ginger Pop (Luidam – Derrylea Grey Lady, by Cruising. Breeder: Heather Dean-Wright).
2016 – Z Seven Caretina (Coltaire Z – Caretina, by Caretino. Breeder: Marion Hughes).
BRONZE
2010 – Ballypatrick Mystique (Heritage Fortunus – Lady Ligustra, by Cavalier Royale. Breeder: Ita Brennan).
2016 – Z Seven Canya Dance (Canya Makan – HHS Chantilly Lace, by Cavalier Royale. Breeder: Anne Hughes).
CUFFESGRANGE CAVADORA
There was so nearly a fourth medal for Irish Sport Horses at Lanaken last Sunday when Cuffesgrange Cavadora finished fourth with Ger O’Neill in the six-year-old final. By the Stal Roelofs-bred Z Wellie 72, a Celano son standing with Raheen-Na-Gun’s Gerard O’Brien, she has an intriguing damline.
Not many Lanaken finalists dams can claim to have jumped in the European pony show jumping championships, however that was the case with the diminutive Cuffesgrange Caviladam.
As reported earlier this year in The Irish Field, the Luidam mare was spotted in a nearby field by newly-appointed Horse Sport Ireland board member Clare Hughes and bought from Eamon Sheehan of Cuffesgrange Sport Horses in November 2014.
The then-unbroken nine-year-old and Clare’s son, Seamus had a meteoric rise to success, including earning a place on the Irish gold medal winning team at the European championships last summer, when they were individual seventh and then winning the FEI Pony Jumping league final at Mechelen last December.
In fact, Clare’s late father Seamus had gifted Cuffesgrange Cavalidam’s grandam Cuffesgrange Millennium to his sister Ita Brennan. The Cavalier Royale mare was sold to Sheehan and her Luidam daughter then later returned back to the Hughes-Kennedy family.
An apparent paperwork glitch has now been corrected with Eamon recognised as her breeder and he was in touch with The Irish Field this week to fill in the background story.
“We sold Cuffesgrange Cavadora to Clare [Hughes] as a three-year-old. Cavadora was the last of the foals that we bred from Cuffesgrange Cavalidam before we produced and sold her to Clare to start her showjumping career.
“Needless to say, she turned out pretty okay and Cavadora, by Z Wellie 72, was sold to Clare on the strength of this. She is also a half-sister to Air Display, a 13.2 grade A pony, by Thornberry Lord Admiral, our resident Welsh section B stallion and a half-brother to Cuffesgrange Qualidam, by OBOS Quality, a 1.40m showjumper in Germany with Laura Klaphake.
“This whole family goes back to our top mare Cuffesgrange Millennium, by Cavalier Royale out of Kells Mill Lady, by Diamond Serpent. We are lucky to have a great family of broodmares from this line, including a full-sister to Cavalidam,” added Eamon.