ALL over until Los Angeles and now that the final medals have been decided at Paris Olympics, which studbooks, bloodlines and sires came to the fore at Versailles?

From a sport horse breeding perspective, the big news from Paris was three German individual medals and all courtesy of three German-bred horses.

In last week’s article, we saw that Michael Jung won individual gold on the Hannoverian-bred Chipmunk FRH in eventing, the first of the equestrian sports held at Paris. Recapping the overall eventing team results, the Selle Français were best represented with four team medal horses. Three - Triton Fontaine, Ride For Thais Chaman Dumontceau and Diabolo Menthe - were on the silver medal home team and the fourth: Vinci de la Vigne was on Japan’s bronze medal team.

The sole Irish Sport Horse (ISH) in the team medals at these Games was also on that Japanese team: MGH Grafton Street (O.B.O.S Quality 004. Breeder: Martin J. Collins).

Two-thirds of the gold medal team for Great Britain - traditionally the largest market for ISH exports - were Holsteiners: London 52 and JL Dublin. The third horse, the Sport Horse Breeding (GB)-registered Lordships Graffalo is by the Trakehner sire Grafenstolz.

Dressage

On to dressage. The Trakehner studbook - a virtual minnow amongst its German counterparts - had another shining hour, thanks to its superstar TSF Dalera BB as she won the next individual gold medal decided at Paris with Jessica von Bredow-Werndl. This combination was part of the German winning team too.

Sometimes, aside from the statistics and facts of sport horse breeding, the stories stand out too.

For example, 80 years after the Trakehner State Stud was evacuated from eastern Germany and just over 1,000 Trakehner horses survived the infamous ‘Great Trek’ westward, the small but mighty studbook won double gold at Paris.

Or that, sadly, the breeders don’t always get to see ‘their horse’ at an Olympics, as Dalera’s back-to-back Tokyo and Paris achievement is a posthumous honour for her breeder Silke Druckenmüller, who passed away last September. And that with dressage and all equestrian sports at the Olympics under public scrutiny, there were other great stories at Versailles. Such as last minute-reserve Becky Moody competing there on a home-bred horse, just as Ireland’s Heike Holstein had done at Tokyo with Sambuca.

“It was class”

Wendy, Isabell Werth’s silver medal horse, was the sole DWB-bred in the top-10, dominated by KWPN (four horses). 50% of those top-10 dressage horses were from assorted German studbooks, headed by ‘Queen’ Dalera’s Trakehner studbook; then one apiece for Hanoverian and Westfalian and two from the Oldenburg studbook.

Next to show jumping, the big business end of the sport horse world. Christian Kukuk completed the German hat-trick at Paris and also became the country’s sixth gold medal winner in the history of Olympic show jumping individual medalists.

His win with the Westfalian 14-year-old gelding Checker 47, bred by Wolfgang Kipp, bridged a 28-year gap since Ulrich Kirchoff last won individual gold at Atlanta with Jus de Pomme (BWP).

Germany's Christian Kukuk won individual gold at the Paris Olympic Games with the German-bred Checker 47 \ Tomas Holcbecher

Selle Français horses were the most numerous amongst the team medal horses with four on various teams: Dallas Vegas Batilly (gold medal team), Caracole de la Roque (silver) and two-thirds of the host nation team horses were French-breds: Dorai d’Aguilly and Dubai du Cedre.

In the individual final, it was one apiece for the Westfalian, Selle Français and BWP after Checker 47, Dynamix de Belheme and the BWP-bred Beauville.

How did Irish Sport Horses fare? Three competed at Paris, although unfortunately Kinmar Agalux (eliminated) and BBS McGregor (retired) did not progress beyond the first individual qualifying round.

That left James Kann Cruz as the sole ISH flagbearer in the final and there to watch the unmistakably Irish horse were Shane and Brian Connolly from Cummer near Tuam. Their father Patrick bred the Kannan grey, named after Brian’s son James.

It was straight back to work for Shane, busy in his farrier trade before Dublin and Clifden but the elation of the Paris trip continues.

“Horse Sport Ireland provided us with tickets for the team final and Lisa [Lourie, part of the Gizmo Syndicate that owns James Kann Cruz] gave us tickets for the team preliminary final.

“Sure it was what you dream of. It was unbelievable to get out there and to actually see the fences and size of the course they were jumping. It was class,” Shane told The Irish Field this week.

The family have three frozen embryos in reserve from James Kann Cruz’s Cruising x Clover Hill dam CSF Telly Cruz, by Emerald, Kannan and Tyson. James Kann Cruz is just an 11-year-old, Los Angeles is four years away and Irish horses, like the finest French wine, get better with age.

The Olympic dream lives on for breeders and connections.

At Paris though, it was Deutschland Uber Alles in the form of Chipmunk FRH, TSF Dalera BB and Checker 47.

Olivier Perreau and Dorai D'Aiguilly celebrate after winning team bronze at the Paris Olympic Games \ Tomas Holcbecher

Did you know?

  • High jump, long jump, hacks and hunters and ‘mail coaches’ (four-in-hand carriage driving) are some of the since-discontinued equestrian events held at the earlier Olympics.
  • The intriguingly-named Clonmore won individual bronze at the 1912 Games in Stockholm for Belgium’s Emmanuel de Bloemmart. Calvary horse import turned show jumper, who knows?
  • Whereabouts in the pre-Olympics World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses (WBFSH) rankings are the three Paris individual gold medal winners? TSF Dalera BB is in 11th place and Checker 47 ranks 15th amongst the show jumping horses.
  • What impact will the Olympic results have on the dressage and show jumping studbook rankings? The pre-Olympics leaderboard saw the KWPN, Westfalian and Oldenburg studbooks at the top in dressage. In show jumping, could currently second-placed Selle Français overtake the BWP leaders? Meanwhile, the Zangersheide studbook is close behind this pair in third. Expect another reshuffle in the post-Paris WBFSH rankings.
  • All three gold medal horses - Chipmunk FRH, TSF Dalera BB and Checker 47 represent German studbooks: the Westfalian, Trakehner and Hanoverian Verbands.
  • Easy Game is the sole sire with two horses in the dressage individual top-10; Dalera and fourth-placed Hermes N.O.P. Another David vs Goliath result for the Trakehner studbook and for a stallion that covered a comparatively small book of mares compared to more fashionable dressage sires.
  • TSF Dalera BB’s fourth dam Daniela IV bred the 1.40m showjumper Der Dürer TSF, competed by a certain Michael Jung.
  • Dalera is the sole mare amongst the individual gold medal horses at these Games. Jessica von Bredow-Werndl announced this would be the dual individual gold medal winner’s final Olympics as the mare will retired to stud next year.
  • Paul Schockemöhle won team silver and bronze Olympic medals in his competition years with Agent (Montreal) and Deister (Los Angeles). He now appears in the Paris medallist breeders’ results as the German gold medal team horse Bluetooth OLD, was bred at his Gestüt Lewitz.
  • All three horses on the German show jumping team at Paris are Westfalians.
  • There is some Olympic greats in Checker 47’s pedigree. His sire Comme Il Faut is a son of Ratina Z (team gold and individual silver at Barcelona) and his second dam Piruett is by Athens gold medal individual champion: Baloubet du Rouet.
  • Breeding runs in two-legged gold medal Olympians: Harry Charles’ father Peter was also on the victorious British team in London (2012).
  • Jagerbomb isn’t the sole home-bred medallist story. Olivier Perreau’s Dorai Daiguilly, a Kannan daughter, is another. This French team bronze medallist mare is also a half-sister to Willem Greve’s Nations Cup horse Eldorado van de Zeshoek.
  • Dubai du Cedre is by the aforementioned Baloubet du Rouet and another Olympic link in her damline is Rio Olympics horse Quickly de Kreisker, competed by Abdelkebir Quaddar.
  • Finally, there is the smallest sliver of an ISH link to one of the British show jumping medal horses. Hovis, the SHB(GB) dam of Scott Brash’s Hello Jefferson, is by Irco Mena, bred by Lars and Ann Gustavii. His dam - Ballymena Park, a Menelek x Battleburn mare - was one of several Irish mares the couple imported to Sweden.

    • Shane Sweetnam and James Kann Cruz (ISH) at the Paris Olympic Games. The Patrick Connolly-bred gelding was the only Irish horse to complete the Games \ Tomas Holcbecher

    What they said

    Shane Connolly: “If, five years ago, someone told you you’d have bred a horse at the Olympics, could you have believed it? Of course you’d hope but this was an unbelievable experience. We were delighted to have the horse [James Kann Cruz] selected for Paris, anything else was a bonus. It just wasn’t his and Shane’s day but to be at the Olympics was all we’d dreamed of. They jumped class at Aachen and there’s plenty more big days ahead for them. We started off hoping James Kann Cruz would jump in Dublin one day, then in the Dublin Grand Prix, then he got to the Europeans and now, the Olympics. He and Shane [Sweetnam] have done everything for us as breeders.”

    By the numbers

    3x3 A trio of German-bred individual gold medal horses and three Westfalian-breds on the German show jumping team.

    2x2 Back-to-back individual gold and bronze from Tokyo and Paris for TSF Dalera BB (TRAK) and Beauville Z NOP (BWP).

    1 Horse completed the Tokyo-Paris individual gold medal double: TSF Dalera BB.

    0 Prize money at the Olympics.