A new arrival at Knockrath Stud is the Harthill Stud-owned Honour Cruise. Now an eight-year-old, the Cruising grey was originally sourced at the Cavan elite sale as a youngster by Nina Barbour and Oliver Townend. Barbour, now preparing to host the Bolesworth CSI*** International in June, and the 2009 Badminton-Burghley winner, Townend, both regard Honour Cruise as a modern event horse model.

The stallion’s all-round education began with UK-based Anthony Condon and the consistent pair clocked up double clears show jumping before the switch to Honour Cruise’s intended eventing career. In his first outing in 2012, he completed on his dressage score of 25 and had moved up to novice level by last season when the Barbara McGreal-bred recorded five top-10 placings with Townend.

The decision to stand Honour Cruise at stud full-time this year was made while the stallion recuperates from an accidental injury sustained on a horse walker and his move here will provide easier access for Irish breeders.

Licensed by the Anglo European Studbook, he has already produced a number of very promising youngstock at Harthill with connections pleased with his early crop’s jump and temperament. Potential customers will also be attracted to Honour Cruise’s commercial pedigree.

His sire Cruising won 18 Grand Prix classes, including one of the toughest of all, Aachen, during his own competition career. He has since produced show jumping progeny of the calibre of the 2012 World Cup final winner, Flexible, one of three Cruising offspring at the London Olympic Games. His other London contenders were Mr Medicott (individual ninth) and the Irish team horse, Electric Cruise, who incidentally is another Cruising-Clover Hill cross.

Cruising stood fifth in last year’s World Breeding Federation for sport horse event sire rankings and his main winner was Mr Cruise Control, the WBFSH highest-ranked Irish-bred last year. Andrew Nicholson’s Luhmühlen winner also led the Irish Sport Horse Studbook team to retain the eventing studbook title.

Another London Olympics competitor, Lenamore, is by Honour Cruise’s grandsire, Sea Crest, while the appearance of Big Idea in Cruising’s pedigree is an interesting link. She was by the famous Water Serpent, the sire of Jimmy Wofford’s three-time Olympic mount, Kilkenny and her full-brother was the sport horse stallion, Ideal Water, who stood at Honour Cruise’s new Knockrath Stud base. When Patricia Nicholson crossed the prolific Ideal Water daughter, Stream Lion, with another Knockrath resident sire, Gipfel, the resultant Eagle Lion wrote Bruce Davidson’s name into the history books in 1995 as the first American rider to win Badminton.

Clover Hill’s influence continues as both the grandsire of Lanaken winner Arraghbeg Clover and through his broodmare daughters. Honour Cruise has also inherited the refinement of the Croker Cup winner, Sky Boy, the sire of Mary King’s Sky Sport and another prodigious broodmare sire. His stallion son, Kiltealy Spring produced a number of medal-winning eventers, including Piggy French’s 2009 European silver medallist Some Day Soon and the brilliant pony, Noble Springbok. Patricia Ryan’s Hong Kong Olympic and 2010 World Equestrian Games partner, Fernhill Clover Mist, again out of a Clover Hill dam, was another of Kiltealy Spring’s too-few offspring.