FRANK and Paula Cullen lost their foundation broodmare Calendar Girl, the dam of Badminton winner Paulank Brockagh, this week. The Triggerero 29-year-old was spotted at Fairyhouse sport horse sales in 1992.

In a feature in this newspaper back in 2014 about Paulank Brockagh’s rise to fame, Paula explained how the Fairyhouse impulse buy happened, saying: “This lovely yearling, who had won in the showring in the west, left the ring unsold. I phoned Frank and his first question was ‘What do you want a yearling filly for?’ My answer was ‘I just like her and we can breed from her for a year and then break her’. I got the okay and ran out to find her being loaded into a trailer. I did a deal with the owners and she was reversed out.”