IT’s only a few months since Ita received two Horse Sport Ireland awards for breeding the Irish show jumping team horse of the year MHS Going Global and the leading Irish horse at theLanakenWBFSH world championships MHS Washington and also picked up a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Showjumpers Club.

Ita grew up on a family farm in Kilkenny, where the breeding of quality horses was always a priority. Her father Tom Hughes was judge of the broodmare class at the Dublin Horse Show for years. It was from him that she learned the vital importance of the quality of the broodmare to any breeding enterprise. Her brother Seamus as breeder, working with his other brother Andy as rider, were some of the country’s leading producers of young show jumpers for several decades.

Like all her family, Ita was a keen rider and competitor as a girl and one of her proudest memories of that time was a victory in the pairs relay at Kilkenny show with neighbour, friend and future Olympian Tommy Brennan as partner.

Her love of show jumping and the passion for breeding she acquired in her youth stayed with her for life. She married another Tom Brennan, also a farmer from Gowran, who bred the odd horse but who had more interest in National Hunt. For a while, they bred both show jumpers and racehorses but as their family grew, their children’s desire to ride and compete on ponies pushed the emphasis in the house firmly towards show jumping.

The family became heavily involved in the Kilkenny Pony Club and Ita set about finding ponies to match their ambitions. She succeeded in unearthing a string of good ponies that regularly got the kids into the ribbons at Dublin Horse Show and further afield.

One of those ponies she found, Silver Wonder, dominated the 13.2hh jumper division for years and won Dublin in 1977 with her eldest son John. Another she spotted as an unbroken three-year-old in a Gowran village field - Bright Ruby won a European show jumping team gold for Ireland with Marion Hughes in the saddle.

Her own breeding career began when she received a “nice young filly” as a wedding present from her father Tom.

The filly, by Water Serpent out of a Battleburn dam, was kept for breeding and became the matriarch of a superb equine show jumping dynasty.

When crossed with top stallions like Nordlys, King of Diamonds, Imperius and Cavalier Royale, this breeding line produced top horses like Royal Charmer, multiple Grand Prix winner for Switzerland’s Marcus Fuchs, Two Mills Showtime, the UK Showjumper of the Year under Robert McGuire, Lora Pianna Have A Go, an Italian team horse for Filippo Moyerson, Splendido, ridden on the Irish team by Harry Marshall and the Hickstead Derby-placed Rolo Tomasi under Peter Smyth and Marble City.

The same line produced Marion Hughes’ first Grand Prix mare and last year’s five-year-old Irish Sport Horse Studbook champion mare MHS Attraction.

That eye for a good one Ita displayed when buying ponies she then put to use in the search for good young horses and broodmares.

At a Bord na gCapall special sale in Gowran she saw a lovely quality three -year-old gelding by Bahrain out of an Ozymandias dam that she tried to buy. Having been outbid on the gelding, she traced his origins to a broodmare line of Jim Whitty from outside Borris in Carlow and from him bought a few relations to add to the quality of her own broodmare herd.

The three-year-old Ita missed out on buying turned out to be Kilcoltrim, who jumped so well on Irish teams with John Ledingham.

That Bahrain line, when crossed with stallions like King Of Diamonds, Cavalier Royale and Quidam Junior produced top jumpers like Royal Athlete, the Swiss champion jumper and European junior and young rider individual medalist under Marcus Hauri. It also produced for Greg Broderick the horses Ballypatrick Flight, placed at World Young Horse Jumper Championships in Lanaken, multiple international winner last year MHS Automatic, and the hero of last year’s Aga Khan Cup win and current Irish show jumper of the year MHS Going Global.

Ita’s strong belief in the primary importance of good broodmare lines encouraged her to search out a mare from an old breeding line of Mrs Tobin in Kells, Co Kilkenny that she’d always admired.

She found an old mare from the family by Clareman ex Battleburn ex Water Serpent who hadn’t been going in foal for a few years, took a chance on her and was lucky enough to breed a few fillies.

This Kells breed, when crossed with the likes of Imperius, Diamond Serpent, Cavalier Royale and OBOS Quality, has produced MHS Washington, second in the Lanaken seven-year-old world championships last year and now jumping on the Global Champions Tour with Laura Renwick. It also produced Ballypatrick Mystique, Lanaken bronze medal winner for as a seven-year-old for Greg Broderick, MHS Primetime, seven-year-old champion at Dublin Horse Show for Eddie Moloney, Irish Breeders Classic winner Bens Lux Lady for Harry Marshall and Shane Breen’s early Grand Prix horse Sculptured.

Another Clover Hill family crossed with OBOS Quality and Cruising produced New York Grand Prix winner for Andrew Bourns, Gowran Park and the Lanaken championships-placed Badgerhill Cruise.

Event horses from Ita’s breeding lines or produced by her include Mary King’s Imperial Cavalier, fifth individually and a team silver medallist at the London 2012 Olympics and sixth individually and team gold at the World Championships in Kentucky. Bright Imp was a silver medallist on the Irish team at the European Championships for Sonya Duke, while Rolex Kentucky conqueror UN, ridden by Jane Sleeper was another to be traced back to Ita.