BALLYPATRICK has been in our family for five generations now, starting off as a cattle farm but horses were always in the family blood. Our grandad and great-grandad had work horses.

Austin, my father, loved hunting, point-to-pointing and racing but since Greg has taken over the reins, he has bought it to a whole new level.

Everything was under the one roof at Ballypatrick. Then, as the yard got bigger and the breeding programme developed, a farm came up for sale over the road, so when we acquired Fortwilliam, the breeding end moved over there.

Super Chilled would be one of the most successful horses bred to date. He won in Dublin as a six-year-old and shortly after that, was sold to Kevin Babington, a very good friend of ours in America and went on to win some very big classes for Kevin.

BP Pocahontas (Ollie Fletcher), BP Wakita (Klee Hellerman), BP Khantastic, BP Limitless, BP Goodfellas and BP First Editions are making headlines show jumping while SRS Ballypatrick was selected for the World Championships in eventing.

Horse breeding is a work in progress as it takes a while to know what crosses work and see what a mare is producing. Pedigrees have improved a lot in Ireland and not only have we a great environment to rear young horses but the best riders to develop these horses. The cream always rises to the top, that’s why you can bring two gold medals home from Lanaken.

We have the facilities and very good classes here in Ireland now - the Horse Sport Ireland series, Dublin, the Breeders’ Classic - to get these young horses started. MHS Going Global [Greg’s Rio Olympic mount] never left Ireland until he was at international level.

1. Congratulations on a memorable summer, from the Dublin leading breeder award to BP Goodfellas’ Lanaken gold medal. Some of your proudest moments as a breeder?

Both of those would be, for sure. Breeding horses can be very hard work, its long hours, a lot of dedication but I think what makes those wins special is that it’s a family-run operation with the horses bred and produced here in Ballypatrick.

2. Tell us about Fortwilliam farm.

It’s 220 acres and less than five minutes from Ballypatrick, so it’s on our doorstep. The breeding work is done there, the foals are born there and the young horses stay at Fortwilliam until they’re three and then go to Ballypatrick for training.

We have five stallions breeding here: Jorado, Jericho, Rock And Roll Ter Putte, Cariati and the pony stallion Gilton.

BP Goodfellas was the five-year-old champion at the FEI/WBFSH World Breeding Jumping Championship for Young Horses, ridden by Ger O'Neill \ www.sportfotos-lafrentz.de/Stefan Lafrentz

3. Picks from your broodmare herd?

We’ve a very big herd of mares, both mares that foal their own foals and then a herd of recipient mares. We breed most of the year, we’d do embryo transfer (ET) after the mares would come back from Lanaken and Dublin.

Arraghbeg Clover and Shorapour just did ET this year, they have foals by our own five-year-old stallion Rock And Roll Ter Putte and Mylord Carthago. Rock And Roll is a full-brother to Elvis Ter Putte who crossed very well with our Laughtons Flight mares, Mrs Quinn and Ballypatrick Flight.

Ballypatrick Flight is a sister to Greg’s Olympic horse MHS Going Global and is a broodmare that has been lucky for us. She jumped 1.50m, was a six-year-old national champion and is producing some really nice stock, including BP Limitless, who has been very successful in the age classes with Max O’Reilly Hyland. Her four-year-old Fionn McCool made the RDS final this year too. Ballypatrick Flight is in foal to our Cornet stallion Cariati.

Goodwins Loyalty, the mother of BP Goodfellas, is also here and she will do ICSI for the winter months. Mrs Quinn and Rock Star, a sister to Emerald, are also very exciting broodmares to have on the farm.

4. Describe the regime for managing broodmares/youngstock.

They’re all housed for the winter. We just have planning permission gone in for a shed to house 150 horses which will be at our Fortwilliam farm. We like to house them in pens that can fit eight comfortably and they have homegrown haylage ad-lib. We have woodchip pads that they go out to every day, which is very handy for them rolling and running around.

5. What’s the year-by-year plan for youngstock?

Greg sees them in the field as youngsters, he likes to look at the canter, look at the balance, can they do flying changes easily by themselves? When they get to about two, we start to loose jump them; at three, they’re X-rayed and loose jumped. We keep some, we do sell them at home privately and some at the sales as well.

6. How do you think the Irish breeding scene has changed?

It definitely has improved. You have access to good stallions, both at home and abroad, you have ClipMyHorse videos to watch so you can see what crosses are working well. That’s really important for breeders.

Breeders need to be more connected to the riders and to know what the rider wants. Breeders have to talk to the riders and they will tell you what they like. Riders are always open to talk to breeders.

I know for myself as I work very closely with Greg. He has ridden most of our broodmares so he can advise me on what characteristics each mare needs to improve on and which stallions would cross well with them.

7. If you could have bred any horse in history, which one?

Sapphire. Obviously she’s a superb mare, what she’s achieved is unbelievable and also, we love the family. We’ve a three-parts sister to Sapphire, we also have a two-year-old colt that’s related and he looks very promising.

8. Cloning, embryo transfer, ICSI, etc. – what are your thoughts?

I think for sure they’re becoming more and more popular and hopefully won’t flood the market. Saying that, it’s very good for the business. Also, I think ICSI is very good for mares that are finding it hard to produce in other ways. We’ve done ICSI last year and are very open to that.

9. “It takes a team” - who’s on the Ballypatrick team?

We’re very lucky here in that, even though we’re two separate entities, everyone pulls together. Kevin Gallagher, he’s the national champion, will come over and foal a mare. They’re brilliant.

10. Horse breeding, would you do it all over again?

For sure. I’m lucky in life in that I get to do my hobby as a job. I always like to set a target for myself; to breed a winner at Dublin, then a winner at Lanaken. When I was walking out of the arena after the breeders’ award, they had the Grand Prix track up and I looked around and thought ‘My God, this is what I need to be breeding for.”

I think for any breeder, to walk that track, they see what type of horse the rider needs to jump around that five-star track. I definitely think breeding an Aga Khan horse is my next target!