IT’S over a week since Austin O’Connor’s second top-three result at Badminton with the striking grey Colorado Blue, although there’s no time in any professional rider’s busy schedule to rest on their laurels.

“It’s almost a distant memory now and I was actually saying the other day, when do you actually enjoy it? November maybe! It was all very good and yes, I think that goes without saying that he’s a horse of a lifetime.”

Two Olympic Games, a world championship appearance, three top-10 Badminton results and a spectacular win in the five-star Maryland International are part of the Mallow-born O’Connor and the Jaguar Mail grey’s partnership.

Which all began when breeder Kate Jarvey sent the young Colorado Blue to Austin for breaking.

“I think the first inkling that he could be a great horse... obviously, he was always a very nice horse but you know, you don’t sit back and think about winning five-stars or going to Badminton three or four times at that stage. Nine times out of 10, you’re on a hiding to nothing if you think that about every horse.

“I suppose when he jumped around Blenheim as a nine-year-old and that’s when I first said ‘this is just unbelievable’. It was so easy for him, 30 seconds inside the time without coming off the bridle. It was just a completely different feel and I’ve been very lucky, ridden an awful lot of very good horses, but this was just another level.”

Austin O'Connor and Colorado Blue at the Defender Burghley Horse Trials in 2024 \ Nigel Goddard

Massive influx

The number of horses that make it to five-star level are few and far between.

“Even in Badminton, there’s himself, Lordships Graffalo, Cooley Rosalent. Like they’re all at the forefront but they’re pretty rare, that sort of consistency. There’s no flash in the pan here. This horse has done the Olympics very successfully, he’s done seven five-stars unbelievably consistently and there aren’t many riders, including the Oli Townend’s of this world that have horses at that level for a period of time.”

Austin’s two other Olympic horses - Horseware Fabio (Sydney) and Hobby Du Mee (Hong Kong) – as well as Pocket Rocket, Ringwood Mississippi, Kilpatrick Knight and Simply Knight all competed at five-star level. And there was the Ronan Tynan-bred Balham Houdini, his European championships horse 10 years ago.

Plenty of choices there, however it’s clear that ‘Salty’ is the one.

“Actually, he’s lovely. He is just a lovely blood type, a very rare, hard-to-find horse. And he’s 83% thoroughbred and, sadly, those horses don’t quite cut it nowadays.”

In any particular phase? “In every phase, to be fair. The way the sport has gone at five-star level, it’s a very modern sport. It’s changed. And so that’s why you’re seeing the massive influx of foreign blood, to use the term, there.”

Colorado Blue is by Jaguar Mail, the Selle Français stallion that competed in show jumping at the Hong Kong Olympics and a sire that had already produced Michael Jung’s 2015 European individual champion horse fischerTakinou.

Salty’s damline is laced with thoroughbred lines from the hugely successful eventing damsire Rock King to the Hunter Improvement Society (H.I.S) thoroughbred stallion Shaab.

“He thinks he’s Irish though, he’s fluent in Irish!” Austin quipped.

Where next? “At this point, we’re literally looking after him. He’s on letdown but he’s hacking out, mixing it up and going in the field for two or three weeks. So, until we sit down with the owners, there’s no real plan but he’s well and very, very fresh.

“It’s a tough sport, but I think the main thing with this horse and other great horses is there’s always a story, isn’t there? And his starts with Kate, who is passionate about breeding event horses.”

Austin O'Connor and Colorado Blue at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games \ Tomas Holcbecher

THERE is no algorithm for serendipity, however it seems no coincidence either that Carling King, another horse in this series, and Colorado Blue were bred by two quiet philanthropists in the late Dr Pat Geraghty and Kate Jarvey.

“He’s just beyond anything we ever thought we could do, he really is,” said Kate, reflecting on Colorado Blue, the most successful horse from her event horse breeding years in Limerick and north Cork.

Did she think that from the start about the Jaguar Mail colt foaled in Co Limerick, just miles away from another great grey in Ballaghmor Class?

“I’d love to say I did! I thought he was cheeky. I mean, his mother got so fed up with him because if she’d lay down, he’d jump on her back and gallop off, but I never thought ‘Oh, this is a superstar’ like I have with Diamond Mistress (Diarado x Master Imp). The minute she hit the floor, I thought this could be very special, but I didn’t feel like that about him.

“He was wonderful, he was an athlete and he was cheeky, but nothing about Colorado Blue screamed at me.”

Back at the Irish Horse Board marketing conference in November 2023, when both Kate and Austin were guest speakers, there was a charming video shown of a young near-black Colorado Blue as a foal in one of the Mellon Stud paddocks.

That day, Kate said she had wanted to prove to herself that it was possible to breed a five-star event horse, which she has since done.

“What I wanted to just prove, because back when I first came to Mellon Stud in 1997, I was already breeding horses and I had a mare in foal to Jumbo, which I bought when we moved there. And what I wanted to say to the wider public was you can breed event horses.”

Kate Jarvey with Charleville Show steward Siobhan Madden at Charleville in June 2022 \ Susan Finnerty

Worst horse competition

“In those days in the 1990s, people were buying event horses that were throw outs from other sports, show jumping mainly. But as for breeding a type of a horse to go eventing, it was a fairly new endeavour and I wanted to say to people, ‘Go for it. You can do it’.

“You can’t necessarily breed a five-star horse, but you can breed the type of horse that is likely to give a good account of itself in the eventing arena. You can breed this horse. You don’t have to buy.

“I bought lots of horses. My friend Wendy Foster and I have a competition, because we both think we sent Austin the worst horse he ever had! And they were horses that we bought in and I thought this is a mug’s game… I’m sure I can breed a nice, athletic, rideable horse that may not be a superstar, but will be competitive in the sport of eventing.

“I’m pretty sure that Colorado Blue was one of the first horses that Austin broke when he moved up to our farm in Oxfordshire. It’s a partnership between the two, because he broke the horse and he knows the horse better than anyone on this planet. When I watch them together, particularly cross-country, you can’t tell where Austin ends and the horse starts. They’re just one and the same.

“When Austin thinks ‘I need to shorten the stride’, he doesn’t have to move the rein. The horse thinks, ‘Oh yeah, right, Austin, you want to shorten the stride?’ They can read each other’s mind.”

Stamp of authority

Call it fate, serendipity or one of many such realities in the horse world, but the partnership between Colorado Blue and Austin almost ended before they started.

“You know the story that we sold him? That lasted about 10 days with the new owners and then the horse said ‘No, I want to get back to Austin, this won’t do.’”

Instead the Salty Syndicate was put together to keep the horse. He has rewarded his connections handsomely; selected twice for the Irish Olympic team and by that monumental win at Maryland International in 2023. This win at the second of America’s two five-star events bridged a 58-year gap since the last Irish five-star win when Major Eddie Boylan and Durlas Eile won Badminton in 1965.

60 years later, Austin and Colorado Blue came third at eventing’s ‘holy grail’, their second time to do so. Salty’s breeder was absent from the Badminton crowds. “I didn’t go but I watched every second obviously from home.

“Watching this cross-country round at Badminton and the cross-country round in Maryland... what I loved about this round was two things. One, when he jumped the first big water, I wasn’t nervous any more!

“Normally I have shaking kneecaps, dry mouth, but when I saw how he and Austin jumped the first water, I just thought, ‘You know what, enjoy this. You may never see a combination as great as this again - having fun at the top of their game.’ And I just enjoyed the rest of the round.

“But the other thing about the cross-country and the show jumping rounds was that he has now put a stamp of authority on who he is. It’s not a question. We don’t have to have a question mark about is he one of the best horses in the world. He stamped his authority on it. He is one of the best horses in the sport in the world of eventing.”

Kate also has high hopes for Colorado Blue’s Newmarket Venture half-sister Ventura Rock.

“She now looks more and more like Salty every minute. We think a lot of her. She ran at Thoresby and now she’s going to run at Bramham. I want to go and see her run there so that was kind of my battle plan, rather than going to Badminton.”

The 10-year-old mare is also in Austin’s yard, as is Diamond Mistress. “She is something a little bit special as well.”

To find the right rider

The most special of all is Colorado Blue and Kate takes great pride in his success story in her own delightful way.

“They’ve been on the journey together. They needed each other. The horse is nothing without Austin and Austin has gone on the journey to the top of his game because of this horse.

“It’s a great story. And you know, they met each other when they needed each other. I mean it proved it that day when we sold him and he came back 10 days later from the girl who bought him.

“Austin got up on him then and he jumped everything - corners, all kinds of fences - perfectly for him. It was like it was Austin or nobody for Colorado Blue. The horse of a lifetime becomes that horse of a lifetime because they have found the right rider.

“He is absolutely my horse of a lifetime too, but I have great hopes at the moment for the diva [Diamond Mistress] and also Ventura Rock, Colorado’s sister. Austin says in lots of ways she’s as good as Salty, maybe better. Now, the dam [Rock Me Baby] bred two horses that were no good, but that’s horses for you.”

Kate Jarvey’s perspective on her own philanthropic work is simply: “Love is service in action. It’s only in serving others and for breeding horses, if I did some small, small thing that turned the light on for people to say, you know, go out and breed the event horse of your dreams.

“Think about it, take your time, but you can do it.”

By the numbers

€232,080 – Colorado Blue’s prize money since 2015.

1,419 – British Eventing points.

787 – Colorado Blue’s ELO rating making him the most successful Irish event horse in EquiRatings rankings.

€57,976 – his prize money to date in 2025, placing him fifth in the current Hippomundo rankings behind Lordships Graffalo (first), Kentucky winner fischerChipmunk (second), Badminton runner-up Cooley Rosalent (third) and Kentucky runner-up Commando 3.

3 – top-10 Badminton placings: eighth in 2022 and third (2023, 2025).

2 – Colorado Blue provided the horse power for half of Austin’s four Olympics appearances (Tokyo, 2020, Paris 2024). Horseware Fabio (Sydney, 2000) and Hobby du Mee (Hong Kong, 2008) are the other two.

1 – spectacular CCI5* win by Colorado Blue and Austin O’Connor: Maryland International (2023).

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