THE Hughes brothers team of Niall and Andrew have taken their family’s sport horse breeding enterprise at Ennisnag Stud in Stoneyford, Co Kilkenny to the next level.

Here, Andrew Hughes tells us about their system of mare selection and plans for ESI Star Struck, the horse that achieved a special family ambition at Dublin Horse Show last year.

How did it all start at Ennisnag Stud?

My father Andy rode all the horses for his brother Seamus before [now Irish international show jumper] Marion came along. I was at Ballylinch Stud for 18 years and then I set up in my own place with a Scottish guy from Dubai, James Long.

In reality Dad always had one mare at home and Niall and I decided to expand on that. Like anything, the only way to do things properly is to get in at the top so we started with researching pedigrees.

Then we sourced them on the continent, we sourced them in Ireland too – one of the first mares we bought was a sister of Going Global, he was only a three-year-old at that stage.

We went to the continent and bought a couple of nice mares. Halona De La Vie we bought as a filly foal and she bred the four-year-old champion at Dublin last year [ESI Star Struck] by Lamm De Fetan. She was one of the first we bought.

It’s a long process. We bought about seven of them, all really well bred. One of them, Hanna Vd Bischop is a full-sister to Vigo d’Arsouilles.

We bought another who is out of a sister to Eurocommerce New Orleans, who was fourth in the European Championships and we bought numerous offspring from some of the best lines in Europe.

Then we brought them on until they were three, jumped them and any of them that weren’t good enough to jump, we sold. The rest we kept and put in foal.

How do you research the best bloodlines?

I use Horse Telex quite a bit because that gives you names and then you can research the name back to the stud farms and check what they have for sale. Niall does a lot of that, he’s very techie.

We sit down and go through the pedigrees. If we think this one looks good, we’ll see if we can source a mother or a sister, so we try and work back from there. Niall looks up where they are, then we try to get four or five together and we’ll go for a day to Holland or Belgium to look at them.

How willing are Dutch or Belgian owners to sell them?

They’re stallion-orientated. The fillies aren’t as valuable to them as the colts. Even the difference in prices between colts and fillies is huge. Everything over there, in my opinion, is related to getting stallion approval, which is huge out there. Here at stallion approvals, in reality, there wouldn’t be 50 people at [stallion inspections] but over in s’Hertogenbosch, there’s a full house with thousands and thousands of people.

Over there, breeders will take a chance with a young horse. He could get 100 mares if he shows himself off that day whereas here, a young horse might be very difficult to move itself because people don’t use him.

What do you look for in mare families? Is it a 1.60m performer(s) in immediate generations?

We need more than one and in the first, second and third dam preferably. It’s got to have that consistency the whole way through the line. I’d like that 1.60m horse in each dam.

How many mares do you have and what are they in foal to?

We have 19 mares. We have used all European-based [stallions], all abroad except for one, Quidam Junior. Going Global’s half-sister was in foal to him but she slipped the foal there before Christmas so unfortunately we won’t have that one this year. But we’ll go back again, I was already on to Tom [Meagher, who stands Quidam Junior at Kedrah House Stud].

These things happen. She was one out of 15 that we had in foal. With 15 mares, if you lose only one, you’re going well.

What do you think of AI and embryo transfer?

“They’re fantastic. I can order semen at night and you can go to Dublin Airport to collect it the following morning because it’s in the air by nine o’clock in the morning.

Your mare bloodlines, are they all European or traditional Irish?

I have no traditional-breds. What I would consider traditional and what everyone else would consider traditional are two different things. I would have eight mares that I consider traditional, in that they have some warmblood in them but are from old Irish families. Whereas traditional in the Traditional Irish Horse (TIH) sense of the word means no warmblood in them at all.

I would consider Arabella, Echo Beach, another one who is out of a sister to Flo Jo, to be traditional.

What are your thoughts on traditional breeding?

In my father’s time, we were so lucky to have so many thoroughbred stallions that you were able to cross with these traditional mares that gave them that extra blood, that Irish mind, that carefulness and soundness.

You had Water Serpent, Nordlys, you had a load of thoroughbred stallions around and unfortunately we just haven’t produced any more thoroughbred stallions. It’s very hard to go to a thoroughbred stallion now hoping to breed something for show jumping.

Arabella, did you take embryos from her when she retired?

We did, we had three from her by embryo transfer. She’ll go to Lamm De Fetan this year, she’s had two very nice three-year-olds by Callahan and they look very good. Her oldest is a five-year-old, ESI Tiger Lily. She was very good when she was with Ger O’Neill but I decided to put her in foal. Ger was very excited about her and very disappointed that she’s going in foal! But you just have to keep the best. She’s the one mare I haven’t decided what stallion she’s going to yet.

Will she go back competing after breeding a foal?

I don’t think so, she’ll be a broodmare. She’s just too valuable to me. If you brought her on and sold her – even if you got €100,000 for her – she would be gone. Hopefully she’ll leave me multiples of that in time.

And Echo Beach?

She has a three-year-old by Pino who looks a very nice prospect. She had another colt, a Toulon two-year-old and then didn’t go in foal. She’s difficult to get in foal but now she’s due to foal to Indoctro on April 8th. I’d love a filly to keep.

What about Flo Jo? She didn’t breed any foals?

No, but I have one out of a half-sister to her called Inspiration.

How do you raise your youngstock?

We have about 15 each year. They’re all in sheds for the winter, all in their age groups. I don’t keep any stallions here, they’re all in my father’s place.

Do you loose jump your youngsters to assess them?

I never loose jump them, they can go too fast, so I always lunge them. Nothing big, just small and wide to see what they can do and you can make a judgement call on them then at that stage.

What would your advice be to anyone starting off breeding sport horses?

It depends on what they want to do, whether they want to breed an international show jumper, a leisure horse or an eventer, whatever. First of all, they’ve got to decide what they want to do and if they want to make money out of it. And if they do, you’ve got to get in at the top end and be very selective.

You’ve been breeding for 10 years, how would you rate your results so far?

We’ve been breeding horses for years, it’s only in the past 10 years that myself and Niall said we’d do this joint venture between us. We always had one mare, the dam of Arabella, [Lady Kilkenny Cavalier] who was a full-sister to Diamond Exchange and the same family as Special Envoy, Harley, Radar... I could go back donkeys years with them. The first produce of our continental venture was ESI Star Struck, the winner of the four-year-old championship in Dublin last year. Niall does most of the work with the half-breds. I could be away racing four days of the week so it’s very difficult for me to do it. We think-tank a bit and I help him out as much as I can but he does the most.

Dublin and Lanaken are busman’s holidays for the family then?

Dublin is the be-all and end-all. The four-year-old championship trophy is the Seamus Hughes Perpetual Challenge Trophy and myself, Niall and Dad were sitting in Dublin looking at the four-year-olds about five years ago and he said: “‘I’d love to win Seamus’ trophy.” And Niall turned round and said: “‘I’ll win it for you one day” so he got a great kick out of that win.

What are the plans this year for that winner, ESI Star Struck?

“He’s in the best yard in Ireland [Greg Broderick’s Ballypatrick Stables], so I’ll take a back step there and leave it totally up to Greg what he does. I think this year if he makes Dublin, great, but if not, it’s not the end of the world. He’s a horse with a future and the five-year-old is difficult to qualify for. Number one, there’s so many of them and two, the fences aren’t quite big enough to sort out the men from the boys. And they can’t do anything about it, the standards are just getting better and better.

I saw the first of the five-year-old qualifiers at Dublin last year and it was like a Grand Prix jump-off, they went so fast I couldn’t believe it. So it’s not conducive to bring a horse on because you want to bring a horse on to jump, rather than flatten. But there’s no more professional yard than Greg’s so from here on in, he’ll decide his future. He’s a horse for the very top in time so we’re looking forward to following him.