CUFFESGRANGE is home for us: my husband Miguel Bravo and our girls Molly, Marta and Matilde, where we breed and produce horses at Hughes Horse Stud (HHS).

A lot of our current success is due to my late parents, Seamus and Anne; uncle John Hughes had Cavalier Royale at his Williamstown Stud and then, of course, there’s the Hughes and Brennan cousins also breeding horses and my sister Clare and nephew Seamus Hughes Kennedy.

We’re on the road a lot of the time, but we have a great team at home to keep things on track. It’s a busy life, but you wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m also a director of the Irish Horse Board, just because I feel it’s important to give something back to the industry.

1. Congratulations, a great run for HHS in recent months?

We focused more on the internationals this year, so Mikey Pender doing a double clear with Calais at Spruce Meadows and winning a class there with Cornetta too was huge.

He was the leading international rider at Dublin, which sort of says it all. We’re very proud of those two mares - Los Angeles in the Grand Prix and Cornetta - jumping there.

Then he shared first in the puissance class. When you go down to Kilkenny, you meet the postman, the butcher and the ‘big wall’ is the thing they talk about, so it’s fun to win that class too.

More recently, Calais, bred by my aunt Ita Brennan, won the five-star Grand Prix at the Longines League of Nations final at Barcelona. Calais is by Cavalier Royale, brought to Ireland by my father and Max Hauri, so that just made it extra special.

2. Back-to-back Lanaken gold medal winners with HHS Ocala (2023) and HHS Mercedes (2024) is some record?

It’s really cool to have won again at Lanaken. Over 1,000 horses go there and there’s only nine happy people at the end. In my mind, Mikey was always a five-star rider, but now he’s proven that he is, with all his 1.60m results worldwide.

He’s a master on a young horse too, because they can do it without really thinking they’ve done anything against the clock. He’s able to instil the confidence in the horse and take the shortest route because he has a clock in his head. He just sees how he can win a class.

It’s important for the country that Mikey stays in Ireland.

Marion and Hughes during a Teagasc young breeder training day

3. Both yourself and mother Anne have bred five Lanaken medal winners. Good mare lines built up, picking out the right stallion, the Mikey Pender factor... what is it that has made your family one of the most succesful breeders at the WBFSH championships?

I suppose a bit of everything. Like, in 2010, everything was crashing, and I was thinking, ‘We either need to improve our breeding by 200% or get out’. A lot of people just got out of it. And I just said, ‘No, I’m going to put my head down and make it better and better.’

We’re so far away from the likes of Schockemöhles [Gestüt Lewitz], where they have up to 1,000 mares; there’s lots of people in Europe that would have 60 mares.

We, in Ireland, have to take on the world, but you don’t need as much quantity as quality.

As well as breeding, you’re looking for the right way to produce them, as horses can get lost in space otherwise. The whole production of young horses is so important, to get them going nicely and having them confident.

Also, I’ve been brave enough to keep them for a bit and put my neck on the line to develop them. It’s a big risk when you keep a horse for 10 years to try to win a Grand Prix, because so many things can go wrong with the horse, there’s so many expenses on the way.

My best horses... you could always sell, but you sell and then you don’t have a horse. And the fact that I have Mikey now to jump at top level, it’s been great to be in the top sport.

Also, I think it’s a great help for the girls and my students. When someone is at the top, it pulls everybody else forward. Everybody’s expectations are high.

I produce young riders, like Kevin Gallagher, as much as horses, so many successful young riders over the years.

4. Proudest breeder moment?

This year it would be the Lanaken seven-year-old class that Mercedes won. That’s a very hard class to win. So that was a big thrill and definitely up there with the good moments. And HHS Los Angeles placing in the Dublin Grand Prix.

Michael Pender and HHS Cornetta at the Dublin Horse Show 2024 \ Laurence Dunne jumpinaction.net

5. Favourite bloodlines?

Brendan Doyle is very good at picking a stallion and, I must say from being at Lanaken, there’s a few Comme Il Fauts that looked super-talented, careful, competitive and looked really special. And Ermitage Kalone, I’ve used him a good bit, lovely temperament and, if you don’t get your ‘freak’, you should still have a nice commercial horse.

Anything about Comme Il Faut is very careful, so maybe that’s not for all the riders. Your balance is between having a super, top professional’s horse or the 90% of horses, with a nice temperament, that are going more to young girls all over the world.

6. What’s your aim as a breeder?

I’m trying to breed horses that I can sell, but you’re also trying to breed that freak superstar.

If you have a nice blood horse that’s brave and honest, you have the eventing market as well, because the crossover now is getting so close. There’s always a market for that type in eventing, which is really important.

So, it’s a balancing act to make it all work and pay.

7. How many broodmares do you have?

Around 20 and then I do embryo transfers, so I could end up with more or less.

8. HHS is yours, views on prefixes?

It’s easy to follow horses when the prefixes are kept. If somebody buys your horse and they go FEI with them and change the name, that can happen. They can change them if they want, but some owners are happy to keep the name, because it’s a bit of a cool thing to have an HHS horse now. That’s something we’ve created.

It’s a marketing tool and, with the whole marketing side now, I have to spend quite a lot of money on marketing, so I have to make it all work.

9. If you could have bred any famous horse, which one?

Libertina.

10. It takes a team, who’s on yours?

As well as Mikey, we have a great team at home: Brendan, Maria Vozone, the three girls, of course, Max Foley, the staff namely Bruna, Nicola, Amanda, Gwen, Kyle, James, Carl, Lucas, Romana, Niamh, Siobhan and our students, Isabel and Niamh. There’s so many more people and friends too, who are always there at the end of the phone to help out.