PERHAPS few could have foreseen the changes in show jumping over the past 38 years, when Ireland first tasted European team success in Rotterdam.
Army Equitation School officers Gerry Mullins, Con Power and John Roche made up 75% of that bronze medal winning team on the Discover Ireland theme-named Ballinderry, Rockbarton and Maigh Cullin, together with Eddie Macken, on another traditional-bred, Boomerang.
Less than four equine generations later, it was the turn of the Benelux studbooks to rule at Gothenburg, where French foundation bloodlines also boomeranged back in force.
And in another intriguing development, the Irish golden four of Bertram Allen, Denis Lynch, Cian O’Connor and Shane Sweetnam made their own piece of show jumping history with the stallions Hector van d’Abdijhoeve, All Star 5, Good Luck and Chaqui Z.
Stallions competing at top level is not a new phenomenon. James Kernan’s pioneering Touchdown was part of a vintage group of stallions competing at the Barcelona Olympic Games that have since proven themselves as sires.
Touchdown himself set that ball rolling when he produced Liscalgot, one of two Irish Sport Horses on the victorious gold medal team at Arnhem 16 years ago with Dermott Lennon. The other was the Kevin Babington-ridden Carling King, alongside Jessica Kürten on the Rheinlander grey Bonita and Peter Charles with the third mare in the pack, the Holsteiner Corrada.
Last week’s article on the European eventing championship bloodlines looked at Irish-bred medal winners since 1997, a 20-year timeframe that had produced 10 Irish-bred individual medal winners and three individual gold medal winners.
Show jumping championships breeding does not fare so well as Michael Whitaker’s silver medallist Mon Santa, bred by S.R Martin, was the last Irish-bred to win an individual medal, when the Hard Study gelding did so back in 1989 at Rotterdam.
Another significant change is the switchover to the artificial surface, with several riders mentioning their horses ability to adapt to this.
TRIUMPh FOR BELGIUM
The 2017 final results proved to be a triumph for Belgian breeding. Take for example H&M All In who followed up on his individual silver medal at the Rio Olympics with gold last Sunday for Swedish rider Peder Fredericson.
His is a classic story of studbook branding often revealing different bloodlines, as while the 11-year-old has predominantly Selle Français breeding, the Kashmir Van Schutterhof gelding is the new poster child for Belgium’s sBs studbook.
By Nabab de Rêve, Kashmir Van Schutterhof was on the Belgian team with Philippe Le Jeune when they were second in the Nations Cup at Dublin back in 2004, when the latest individual bronze medallist Cian O’Connor and FEI commentator at Gothenburg Jessica Kurten were on the winning Irish team.
And while H&M All In’s damline is an eclectic mix of Selle Français, Anglo-Arabian, thoroughbred and Dutch foundation lines, it clicked with Kashmir Van Schutterhof to produce the Swedish team horse who didn’t knock a single fence at last year’s Rio Olympic Games.
Taking the best performance lines and rebranding their registered offspring with its sBs stamp has worked well for this Belgian success story.
The avant-garde Zangersheide studbook took it to another level and coincidentally, the European silver medal-winning horse Don VHP Z competed in their Lanaken backyard at the World Breeding Young Horse Championships.
A winner of the Horse of the Year Show six-year-old championship before his international career with Saer Coulter and Harrie Smolders, his classic French-laden bloodlines boast the WBFSH’s top show jumping sire Diamant de Semilly and a Voltaire dam, who has also produced his 1.60m half-brother Carlos VHP.
STALLION DUTIES
Show jumping breeders, already tuned into Good Luck’s successful performance career, will have to wait before the brilliant Canturo stallion is available for the breeding shed. Cian O’Connor confirmed to The Irish Field this week that there are no plans to combine the 11-year-old’s competition career with stud duties.
Registered with the BWP, (this Belgian studbook led its KWPN and Holsteiner Verband rivals in the WBFSH July rankings) Good Luck has a double cross of Cor de la Bryere through his Caletto I line sire Canturo.
His Hanoverian dam Famosa Z is from the very last crop of the French National Stud’s brilliant Furioso II, with several of the usual German household names such as Ramiro Z and Gotthard also standing out in his pedigree.
One of the most thought-provoking comments heard this spring from a long-time stallion owner, contemplating adding to his stallion roster, was “How do I compete with the likes of Hector?”
The popularity of headline-making stallions is one that any stallion owner has to face, yet one of the benefits of the expense and risk of competing stallions is the eventual income from their stud career.
Both the 10-year-old Hector Van D’Abdijhoeve (BWP) from the Capitol I line and eighth-placed Chaqui Z (ZANG) are two more Benelux flagbearers and the powerhouse All Star 5, by Argentinus, is registered with the Hanoverian Verband.
The guard is constantly changing in sport horse breeding with even Cornet Obolensky (three offspring at this year’s European championships) overtaken by Chaqui Z’s sire Chacco-Blue.
However many more changes take place in sport horse breeding, one hope is it won’t be another 16 years before the feat recorded in Gothenburg by the Irish quartet is matched.