EAMONN Murphy and Ger O’Neill’s Dutch shopping trips have paid off yet again as it was on one such visit that they spotted Gipsy III, the dam of their six-year-old young horse world champion Columbcille Gipsy.

“Ger and myself were in Holland and just came on this mare. She was 16 at the time and had bred two approved stallions by then so we bought her. She’s been good to us, all her foals have all been good quality,” Murphy told The Irish Field this week.

Although he wasn’t in Lanaken himself to see one of the first of that Dutch buy’s progeny gain another Irish gold medal at the World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses (WBFSH) young horse championships, Eamonn’s daughter Cynthia was there to report back to the family.

Her win is proof that Irish breeders can produce the goods if the right strategy is followed. “That’s what we decided to do, instead of having any old mare, get the better mare,” said Eamonn, who feels the tide is turning for show jumping breeders here.

BEST HORSES

“We’re starting to see it already. To use the best horses we could get our hands on, that was my intention. It’s starting to work,” added the Kilkenny breeder, who, since his retirement, spends more time on the family’s Columbcille Sport Horse enterprise. They currently have three broodmares and youngstock by top sires such as Plot Blue and For Pleasure.

The now-retired Gipsy III takes pride of place and another in the herd is Columbcille Gipsy’s two-year-old full-sister Columbcille Modell. “I’m looking out the window at her now. She’s very much the same, quality-wise, as her dam.” The breeder mainly used embryo transfer to produce Gipsy III’s six IHR-recorded offspring.

Another is the promising four-year-old Columbcille Don, by Murphy’s own show jumping stallion Dondoctro Ryal K. Bought privately in Holland as a rising three-year-old, the Indoctro stallion was produced through the ranks by O’Neill.

The nine-year-old has focussed on his show jumping career, where he is up to 1.50m level, to this point and will be available to breeders in 2018.

“He [Columbcille Don] is ready to start off now and will go to Ger shortly.”

Why select Toulon as the covering sire seven years ago?

“We were looking for a nice, quality sire and Toulon seemed to up and coming,” he said, explaining his decision to opt for the Swiss National Stud-based sire.

Summing up breeding a winner at the WBFSH young horse show jumping championships, Murphy does so with a succinct “it’s magic”.

FAMILY TREE

Toulon, like so many of today’s international show jumpers, was a globetrotter in his competition days with a variety of European riders, including Belgium’s Wilm Vermeir, Frenchman Hubert Bourdy and Italy’s Jonella Ligresti. Belfast International Horse Show visitors may remember him competing there while he also notched up a Grand Prix win at the Global Champions Tour round in Sao Paolo.

Now a 21-year-old, the Heartbreaker son has a number of international progeny including Fine Fleur du Marais (dam by Cento), who jumped for the Ukrainian team at the Rio Olympics and Toulago (dam by Carthago), ridden to good placings this summer by America’s Adrienne Sternlicht.

Toulago also won a World Cup qualifying round on home ground at Zurich for one of his previous rider Pius Schwizer.

Another of Toulon’s offspring to change riders was Elky Van Het Indihof HDC, campaigned by both Italy’s Lorenzo de Luca and France’s Kevin Staut.

Grundyman, Gipsy III’s British-bred thoroughbred sire, is bred in the purple. Racing fans will remember his sire, the distinctive flaxen-maned Grundy recording an Epsom-Irish Derby double back in 1975. Both Grundy and Shergar were by Great Nephew, while Wild Risk and Crepello also star in his pedigree.