Isabel Hurley

FLOWERS, telephone calls and emails inundated Hartwell Stud this week as Cruising’s legion of fans worldwide supported the McCann family following the sudden loss of their legendary Irish Sport Horse stallion Cruising.

Cruising spent his final day last Saturday enjoying life as normal at his Naas home, turned out in his usual field and then back to his stable before suddenly suffering a fatal heart attack.

“I was going with the buckets and heard a clatter and a bang from his stable. He died in the same stable he was born in. There’s not many horses can say that,’’ said Mary McCann. David and Mary McCann’s children – Gina, Jenny and Jonathan – have all grown up alongside the famous stallion who truly was one of the family.

Gina told The Irish Field: “People have sent flowers for Cruising, we’ve got so many emails and calls, messages on Facebook, from people all over the world. Cruising was in great form right up to the very last, super form, he never suffered which is a relief but it was still a terrible shock. He’s been here since I was four. We all grew up with Cruising, me and Jenny and Jonathan, who travelled a lot with him on the continent.

“Cruising never spent a day without his lucky beads – green, white and gold - he’s been buried with them in his mane along with his leather headcollar with his nameplate on it and his green wool Hartwell Stud rug. It’s different without him but we still have Cruising on the walls and in the fields,’’ said Gina, who showed the stallion when he was paraded in the RDS this year.

“As always, he was in such good form in the RDS that day, he still loved a crowd, still posing for the cameras,” she added.

Tissue biopsies were taken from the great stallion in recent years which would allow the great show jumper to be cloned, although there are no current plans to do so.

Turn to pages A68-69 for a full tribute to Cruising