Happy Days For ISH Breeders

rebel mountain said:
if we can't get the horses themselves what about their sons
if a WEALTHY stallion owner went out and bought colts by the likes of presenting etc.if and horse can sire a cheltenham gold cup winner then couldn't his son sire a horse to jump grand prix
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Tried that! What was the EFU in Newmarket had a extremely well bred colt by Green Desert (Darley), when they packed up they sold him on. I bought a couple of CRACKING fillies from the EFU by him, I recently rang up the new owners to find out about using him on 3 of our mares (TB,ISH & AID) and was told they would only cover the TB!! Find it stupid as I would have paid good money and wasn't asking for natural cover so no chance of injury from the mares. Went for Primo Pageant in the end and am glad I haven't lined the other stallion owners pockets!:rolleyes:
 
Sorry about the whole "Cruising story" thing.
It turns out, I can't tell it. The person who had the task of bringing Mullacrew to stud won't give me permission. He said that some people know Cruising is by the pony and no matter what you tell them, they will still believe he's by the pony.
Sorry for going AWOL for so long, I know the story has moved on, I just thought I should say why I can't tell.
 
On the Coolmore, Darley etc. thread.

You're right, they wouldn't use thier stallions on a non-TB. Two main reasons - 1) The vast majority of the stallions do two seasons shuttling between the hemi-spheres already with the added stress of AI collections. When you reckon on a minimum book of 100 or perhaps 150 (and some are *much* bigger) mares in both seasons and say 1.5 coverings per mare.....that's *alot* of coverings to be asking of a stallion.... 2) Economically viable it ain't. The facilities needed for AI - dummy, AVs etc. aren't available....and at TB stud fees why would you bother for the few SH mares at 10% of the price or less??

Ruby1 - Kayf Tara was available to selected sport horse mares early in his career for 2.5k. Not cheap

AdAblurr - Hawk Wing is/was standing at the KRA's JeJu in Korea
 
Reb, the Presentings and Old Vics of this world would be better off breeding Sport Horse fillies for us. It's a big difference between breeding a horse who can brush through steeplechase fences and a horse who can explode off the floor to not leave a hoof on a pole.

There's no thoroughbred stallion in the WBFSH top 30 sire rankings but if you look at the dam side of some of the top International horses you'll see where the thoroughbred comes into Sport Horse breeding. Shutterfly is just one example of a super star out of a mare by a thoroughbred.

Here's a link to a photo of one of my competition horses. His dam is by a thoroughbred and the grandam is a Draught mare but his sire is KWPN.

http://www.jumpinaction.net/gallery...mping/7/lg/LD4_0168Ballivor1mSun13Jun2010.htm

I think the foreign stallion crossed with a mare by a thoroughbred is a good cross and yes, it would surely work to replace the KWPN blood with ISH blood if you can find a horse of the right quality. Fact is the foreign blood is almost a necessity somewhere along the line. I repeat, almost!!! But thoroughbred stallions are unlikely to produce the horses we're looking for. Their daughters are what we're looking for.

If Presenting is ever made available to ISH breeders, then we can only cross our fingers that every foal will be a filly!

Here's a link to the Jan Greve interview I spoke of earlier:

http://www.horsemagazine.com/ARTICLES/G/Greve/TwJG.html
 
i hear what your saying eothain about the fillies

but as a die presenting fan i taped cheltenham this year .i know it was a while ago but can anyone remember weapon's amnesty's last fence in the RSA chase or the 2006-2008 gold cups

If his sons progeny could be half the athletes his were i don't think they will do to bad because when all is said and done where is the TB horse how is getting jumpers
 
There is a new video of Harlequin Du Carel on the ballymureen Stud website. This horse, in my opinion, is a perfect Selle Francais specimen.

There is also a video Beowulf by the great Cruising. Just for you Eothain!

I agree with where this conversation is going. There are Thoroughbred stallions in Ireland that could be invaluable to sport horse breeding. The question is how can you get access to them? Where would breeders like you or I get a Euro for the stud fee?
 
Isn't there some IHB/HSI scheme whic will pay x amount of a stud fee to an approved "eilte" TB?
 
What about this boy, I'm on the look out now.................

Azamour.jpg


Think I might be dreaming though unless one of you kind H&HO's want to help with the stud fee????:D:D:D:D:rolleyes:
 
How about Sirillio? He has just moved to Bridge House Stud, co. Westmeath, from the Guinness' Biddesden Stud in the UK, as there was not enough interest in him over here ... but he's available AI, at a reasonable stud fee, and looks a very nice boy from his photos. Even better, he's by Dashing Blade :) out of a Formidable mare. If anyone goes to view him, I would be very interested in your thoughts!
 
I covered my Classic Vision/Duca Di Busted mare with him. He's a smashing horse. Big powerful back side and a dainty little head. Good model of a horse and has a lovely attitude to everything.

If it's a filly, it'll be a keeper!!! See above for reasons why!!!
 
Eothain said:
Here's a link to a photo of one of my competition horses. His dam is by a thoroughbred and the grandam is a Draught mare but his sire is KWPN.

I think the foreign stallion crossed with a mare by a thoroughbred is a good cross and yes, it would surely work to replace the KWPN blood with ISH blood if you can find a horse of the right quality.
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He looks a cracking sort - but is his KWPN sire REALLY a KWPN? Seems every second KWPN stallion I see the tree of is actually something else - but graded into the KWPN stud book.

I have a fab ISH gelding here - if he doesn't get to Badminton it won't be HIS fault. He's a a horse graded KWPN (Lombardo) - but look at Lombardo's pedigree - virtually pure Selle Francais! http://www.allbreedpedigree.com/lombardo7

But my chap's dam is 'real' ISH - by Errigal Flight - with a fair smattering of TB and no 'foreign' blood. He moves like a dressage horse, jumps as a grandson of Quidam deRevel should, gallops like a slightly lazy racehorse and does laidback for England! That little bit of ID makes all the difference.

This is him at his first outing.
Sapey-SJ.jpg


As for TB stallions: well if I could bring myself to use a TB on one of my RID mares, this is the stallion I'd use!

hightension.jpg


I had a fantastic TB mare by him to my RID stallion last year - and the foal is to die for!! And a friend sent her RID filly (by my stallion) to him last year - and THAT filly is something very special! He's a race winning son of Sadler's Wells - but his stud fee is less than a lot of Warmbloods! You don't NEED fashionable TB sires with stud fees into 5 figures to breed great sport horses - just the basics - conformation, movement, temperament!!:D
 
Grasshorse I do believe that stallion is High Tension who belongs to Groomsbridge on here, a very nice boy! I do believe that he is out for this season at the minute though:(.
 
Simsar said:
Grasshorse I do believe that stallion is High Tension who belongs to Groomsbridge on here, a very nice boy! I do believe that he is out for this season at the minute though:(.
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Yep - it's High Tension. I LOVE that stallion (and before TFC comes down on me like a ton of bricks,I am in NO way connected with the stallion or the stud. I just think he's one of the best put together TB stallions I've seen in a long time!! And yes, Simsar is right - he's had an accident so having this year off - hell of a shame!
 
http://www.allbreedpedigree.com/ramon4

There's some SF, KWPN, Holst (Landgraf :D), Westphalian, Anglo Arab and TB in his pedigree.

Yeah, I knew that was High Tension. I used the same technique to see who Azamour was. Right click the photo, click properties and hope the stallion is named in the url.

Yes ... I cheated.

Nice horse Janet. Has to be said ... Errigal Flight, what a legend.

I hope to buy a colt foal by him this year. He has no stallion sons so we need to do something about that.

I know of a Clover Brigade x Ballinvella mare in foal to him. Hopefully she'll spring a colt. I'd kill for a traditionally bred colt like that. It may be traditional breeding but it's all performance breeding.

In my mind, performance comes before all else so if a stallion jumps in a Super League Nations Cup or the Olympics and it has 7 legs, 2 heads, 6 eyes and the foetus of it's stillborn twin stuck on it's back end I'd happily use him.

Performance, performance, performance!!!
 
Eothain said:
Nice horse Janet. Has to be said ... Errigal Flight, what a legend.

I hope to buy a colt foal by him this year. He has no stallion sons so we need to do something about that.
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It's surprising that he has produced no stallions although I suppose many people might consider his qualities would be watered down if he was put to a TB/RID mare - or if to an ISH mare, the colt might inherit the less successful grandparent's traits! I certainly wouldn't say no to a nice mare by him!


In my mind, performance comes before all else so if a stallion jumps in a Super League Nations Cup or the Olympics and it has 7 legs, 2 heads, 6 eyes and the foetus of it's stillborn twin stuck on it's back end I'd happily use him.
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:D Interesting way of putting it!! I certainly wouldn't go that far! The problem with a stallion who is a 'freak' performer (with or without 2 heads, 7 legs etc.) is that they tend NOT to reproduce the performance (although they may well produce the 2 heads, 7 legs etc.)

I want conformation (for soundness), temperament (for trainability), movement, AND a performance pedigree. Which is why I like my chestnut chap so much - he has the best of French performance blood on the sire's side, and the best of Irish on the dam's. And he's got conformation and temperament as well!

There are any number of stallions that didn't - for one reason or another - perform themselves, but which produced performers. Flagmount Diamond springs to mind amongst the RIDs - I think he's actually produced MORE jumpers than full brother Flagmount King who did go Grade A.
 
hi all,

I believe that when covering mare to any stallions we have to look at the product in a years time and the product that the foal will produce if it goes to the breeding side of thigs.
I know that while the tb/ish crosses are proven eventers, they can sometimes be that little bit hot. I have a horses that i polital merger X Kings servent dam and she is a nasty piece of work, If you gave me all the money in the world i would not sell her, she has thought me so much she has developed my seat hugely by me trying to stay on her when she rears and trying to get her into a contact which took 2 years of hard work. But this cross is not good. How will a mare like this benifit the breeding. trying to harness the energy to do work and what will a mare like this produce.

In respect to crossing to wb's i really dont like this mix. I believe that in olden days anything and everything was crosses and look at the horses that we had. They went hunting worked the land and they could jump. We recently had a cobra X chairmaker born And when i compare this cross to the Near dock X chairmaker filly that i had last year I prefer the Near dock X chairmaker. So much easyer to work with. What have warmbloods done for us. They have been in Ireland since the 70's and we have yet to see the results.

Eothion i have one question for you! Were are you going to get these young irish sport horse stallions that you hope to cover your mares to in a couple of years time, When the irish will have lost their identy and will have mainly warmbloods here...

Have we as a nation become to advananced in breeding and look to much ahead. We no longer breed for hardeness soundness, We mainly breed for movement and looks....
 
brianreid said:
hi all,

I believe that when covering mare to any stallions we have to look at the product in a years time and the product that the foal will produce if it goes to the breeding side of thigs.
.....

Have we as a nation become to advananced in breeding and look to much ahead. We no longer breed for hardeness soundness, We mainly breed for movement and looks....
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I don't think that's just an Irish trait! I think the looks/movement obsession - often almost ignoring temperament/trainability and soundness - is rife everywhere! It's seen in MANY Warmbloods - far too many are a 'professional ride'! Which is ok if they're talented enough to be of interest to a professional! But the also-rans are a glut on the market! They're bought by amateurs who are blinded by the flashy paces - and who then find out they can't ride one side of them! It's particularly common in the lower levels of dressage here - riders who have no real ambition to get beyond Elementary think they need something that moves like Totilas to do well! When most of them would do FAR better with a good old IDxTB that moves well enough and will stay in the arena!
 
*Cracks knuckles* This will be fun ...

Too advanced in breeding? *Rubs eyes* Too advanced in breeding? Brian ... we are far from advanced in breeding. Plus, there's no such thing as being too advanced in breeding. You can never be too advanced!!! If the ISH was as advanced as you seem to believe, then I can assure you we wouldn't be where we are today as a showjumping breed! We still breed the worlds best eventers, only just however. The French and Hannovarians are breeding down our necks.

Breeding for soundness? Now, I'm going to go out on a limb here and dare to suggest that no one wants to breed a lame horse or a horse prone to lameness. Twould be folly. Having said that, soundness alone a horse does not make.
There's no point in having an 8 year old horse who has never been lame a day in it's life but can't jump out of your way. The two go hand in hand. The Puissance sired mare I ride, went through the floor of the horsebox last summer and despite having a piece of timber stuck into her fetlock at the time, she was never lame once on it. Funny that her mother is by Furisto, a "dirty" warmblood.

Folks, the idea of this thread was to highlight the high class stallions whom are fully approved and now available to Irish breeders to use. The idea being we'll get back to the top of the jumping rankings in a few years. Wake up and smell the coffee folks, we're simply not breeding enough top class horses. No one is saying we should stop breeding good saleable all rounders. That too is a ridiculous notion. Almost as ridiculous as the sport of showjumping reverting back to the format it had in the 70s and 80s with big heavy poles, deep cups and very little technicality in the courses so that our superstars could gallop around and fire themselves in the air over the fences.
For the love of whatever it is you believe in, come out of the fog!

We don't need to work the land with horses anymore, there's these amazing things called tractors that do that now. We don't need to hook the horse up a cart to go to town and then hack him down the road to the local hunt meet. Those days are dead and buried. Get over them.
We need quick developing, explosive power off the floor with bucketloads of carefulness to ensure the modern horses can cut it in the modern sport.

As for the young ISHs we'll be using in the future, well as I've said before, horses like Samjemgee, Oldtown KC, Cara Touche, Cruisings Mickey Finn are some of the horses I hope to use in the future but by the time I have developed the mares for them, they'll be in their early 20s.
Yes, the mares I send to them will have horses like Mermus R, Vdl Arkansas, Cavalier, Vechta, Lancelot, Luidam, Riverland Roi, Ars Vivendi, Heritage Fortunus and Condios amongst others in their pedigrees but once the resulting progeny get the ISH back into the showjumping top 5, then I really don't care. People can criticise their polluted pedigrees all they want, but they will merely be "haters". The Irish opposition to Warmblood stallions is completely out dated.

Go and look at the breeding of the top 10 showjumping horses from last year and tell me then honestly that warmbloods are of no use to us. Is the traditional Irish cross going to magically improve in leaps and bounds? I think not.
Is it a pity? Yes!
Should we moan about it as the Irish constantly do? Hell no! We should adapt and stay relevant.
Will the Irish showjumping horse of the future be tinted with so much foreign blood that it becomes "just another warmblood"? More than likely.
Does it bother me? Hell no
Should people stop breeding nice quality id crosses for the common market? Not on your life.
Do I want to be involved in such a breeding program? Absolutely not.

The KWPN stallion, Hickstead, who holds the distinction of being one of the worlds best horses along with current Olympic team silver and individual gold medallist, had a career threatening colic surgery in early 2008. Yet he showed enough toughness, soundness and courage to return better than ever and whoop tail at the Olympics.

Toughness, soundness and courage are not an Irish exclusive trait. We talk about them so much because without them, we have nothing!!!

Speaking of the 2008 Olympics, did you know 19 ISHs contested the games? 18 of them were 3 Day Eventers, 1 was a showjumper and she was by a certain Holstein stallion called Cavalier Royale.

The modern Warmblood may be able to trace their roots back to a handful of good thoroughbred stallions from Ireland and Britain but that was 40 years ago. It's time for all of us to let that go! We are where we are and it's not the fault of anybody but ourselves.

The question was asked, what have warmbloods done for us? They've stopped us from being a complete laughing stock!
 
Firstly,
Eothain, you must never sleep.

Just wrote a long post about how Irish breeders need to improve their profile and marketing to stop UK horse importers cashing in on the ISH name without any regard to breeding or production, but the damn computer booted me out before I could post.

Now I remeber why I never write anything on this machine!
 
doonrocket said:
Firstly,
Eothain, you must never sleep.

Just wrote a long post about how Irish breeders need to improve their profile and marketing to stop UK horse importers cashing in on the ISH name without any regard to breeding or production, but the damn computer booted me out before I could post.
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I normally DO sleep but ruddy foaling alarm woke me - got to the stable just BEFORE she was irrevocably committed so she crossed her legs!

I don'tunderstand what you're saying doonrocket. Who are all these UK horse importers "cashing in on the ISH name without any regard to breeding or production"? Judging by recent sales reports I've seen from Cavan, Gorebridge etc. I would THINK that Irish breeders would welcome a lot MORE UK horse importers with no regard for anything - as long as they bought horses and paid at least production cost for them. But UK buyers are being very tight with their cash at present - there are a hell of a lot of cheap horses around- many of them very decent sorts - but fetching barely half the price they'd have made 2-3 years ago.

But with the UK market so depressed, it seems than many of the middle/low end dealers here are now looking to mainland Europe for imports, with horses coming in from the French fattening farms, Romania, and goodness knows where else!
 
Eothain said:
Breeding for soundness? Now, I'm going to go out on a limb here and dare to suggest that no one wants to breed a lame horse or a horse prone to lameness. Twould be folly. Having said that, soundness alone a horse does not make.
There's no point in having an 8 year old horse who has never been lame a day in it's life but can't jump out of your way. The two go hand in hand.
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It would be nice if soundness and brilliance DID go hand in hand, but it ain't necessarily so! I've seen it mainly in racehorses - but it happens in all disciplines - the potentially 'brilliant' individual who doesn't QUITE fulfil his potential because he spends too much time on box rest! So he's retired to stud due to an 'accident' - to produce more potentially brilliant horses who may or may not be as brilliant - and may or may not stay sounder depending on what's on the other side of the mix!

No one is saying we should stop breeding good saleable all rounders. That too is a ridiculous notion. ...

We don't need to work the land with horses anymore, there's these amazing things called tractors that do that now. We don't need to hook the horse up a cart to go to town and then hack him down the road to the local hunt meet. .....
We need quick developing, explosive power off the floor with bucketloads of carefulness to ensure the modern horses can cut it in the modern sport.
.......
Should people stop breeding nice quality id crosses for the common market? Not on your life.
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But good saleable allrounders are NOT horses with 'quick developing explosiveness off the floor'.

I actually quite like the Irish move to far more use of Warmbloods because the people who used to go to Ireland for their good, sensible middle-heavyweight hunters are now more often looking in the UK because they struggle to FIND that sort of horse in Ireland anymore. Or that's what my buyers are telling me. :D

And it's not JUST because of the increased use of Warmblood sires (which IS the way to go to produce the top competition horses - I wouldn't argue with that for a moment!) It's because of the loss of bone in the Irish Draught in Ireland - a loss that's set to continue looking at the horses graded RID a few weeks ago.

RIDs with 8.5" of bone are NOT - put to a TB - going to produce those nice ISH-types that the UK hunting fields used to be full of. And possibly not even the mares which - put to a top Warmblood - will produce a top International horse. Wouldn't ANY Irish breeder like a couple of full sisters to Errigal Flight, for example - to put to one of the top Warmblood stallions?? I sure would!
 
JanetGeorge said:
I don't think that's just an Irish trait! I think the looks/movement obsession - often almost ignoring temperament/trainability and soundness - is rife everywhere! It's seen in MANY Warmbloods - far too many are a 'professional ride'! Which is ok if they're talented enough to be of interest to a professional! But the also-rans are a glut on the market! They're bought by amateurs who are blinded by the flashy paces - and who then find out they can't ride one side of them! It's particularly common in the lower levels of dressage here - riders who have no real ambition to get beyond Elementary think they need something that moves like Totilas to do well! When most of them would do FAR better with a good old IDxTB that moves well enough and will stay in the arena!
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JanetGeorge - one of my favourite soap box topics - thank you for that x
 
JanetGeorge said:
But good saleable allrounders are NOT horses with 'quick developing explosiveness off the floor'!
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I know that. I'm saying there's room for both kinds of horses to be bred but people have to come to terms with the fact that our traditional cross, as lovely as they are can't cut it in the big International arenas anymore. You'll get the occasional one but they're few and far between.

Breeders must set out to breed a horse specifically for a market. No more of this putting a mare in foal to an average stallion and hoping for the next Milton.

Bread and butter horses must always continue to be bred but superstar showjumpers are not bread and butter horses. We can't have it both ways
 
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