JOHN FITZHENRY

WHEN he was last profiled in The Irish Field, John predicted that Cooley SRS would be at Badminton one day.

“I certainly did predict that he’d be a Badminton horse!” John said about the horse that came so close to delivering the Rolex Grand Slam for Oliver Townend. “I’ve been speaking to Oliver since Badminton and he said the horse is in good order, not a bother on him. He always thought a lot of the horse and said he was exceptional, the way he jumped.”

A rider always quick to credit the breeder and breeding of his horses, Townend made a big impression on Fitzhenry when he first met the Yorkshire rider at Tattersalls. He was competing the young Cooley SRS there when Fitzhenry, hoping to get a quick photograph of the horse, introduced himself.

“When he heard I was the breeder, he said, ‘why don’t you hang around. He was a gentleman,” Fitzhenry said in the 2015 WBFSH breeders series that year.

“I still have that photograph of us up in the sitting room. I’d support Oliver Townend every step of the way, I have never rang him but that he hasn’t answered the phone.”

Although he lost the dam of Cooley SRS when he was a young foal “and she’d just been scanned back in foal to Ramiro B”, Fitzhenry has another breeding project lined up. “I’ve a friend Willie Whelan who lives in Marshallstown outside Enniscorthy. He’ll be 91 on the longest day of the year and he has a cracking mare Rosie, by Grange Bouncer going back to Samiel, and we have it in our heads that we might breed her to Ramiro B.”

MICHAEL WHITTY

THE news that Arctic Soul (fourth at Badminton) is rated as one of eventing’s speed merchants comes as no surprise to his breeder, Michael Whitty. What probably surprised the Whitechurch farmer more, as news filtered back about the horse’s growing success, was that he had bred an eventer instead of a racehorse.

“It would be mostly National Hunt for me, I wasn’t even trying to breed an eventer!” said the Wexford breeder.

“He was a nice foal, great temperament and very easy to do when we were getting him ready for the sales.” Rated by him as the nicest of the three Luso foals produced by his Roi Danzig dam, Dream Cocktail, he made €20,000 at the Tattersalls foal sales.

“We were happy with that! John Dinneen bought him for someone, then he came back as a three-year-old and didn’t get as much. He was no good on the racetrack, I think he ran about four times. Then a neighbour of mine said a Luso horse I’d bred was eventing over in England and that’s how I came to know about him.”

Thoroughbreds are still bred on his farm, with Whitty now breeding from four mares, compared to seven or eight in Arctic Soul’s time. “The speed would come from the thoroughbred alright,” says Whitty, who will tune in next September if the flying bay is selected for the World Equestrian Games in Tryon.

MICHAEL TIGHE

“SHE’S due to be scanned tomorrow to Vivant van de Heffinck, Kennedy’s horse. Hopefully she’s in foal,” Michael Tighe said this week about Kiltubrid Heather, the dam of Badminton sixth-placed Kiltubrid Rhapsody, ridden by New Zealand’s Mark Todd.

The Leitrim man and his wife Marian have been breeding horses for generations. “Even going back to my dad who had Draught mares by Mountain View and Diamond Lad.”

Cruising was the next step in the Kiltubrid family tree, followed by Lombardo. “He stood with Paddy Quirke. Shane Breen used to ride him, I just saw him jumping in Dublin and I liked him.” That cross produced the now 17-year-old Kiltubrid Heather.

“We always went to Martin Walsh too and that’s how we used Cascaletto St Ghyvan Z that year.” The resultant colt foal was sold at Cavan but returned to nearby Ballinamore with new owner Noel Dolan, who later sold him on as a four-year-old. “Nikki Ryan bought him in England and she rang to say he was a lovely horse, she’s brilliant for keeping in touch.”

Michael and his son David were among the Irish contingent at Badminton where a bonus was meeting the great Kiwi rider after his cross-country round. “He said the horse learned a lot from Pau.”

Maybe Todd will be picked for the World Equestrian Games with the big grey? “Anything could happen between now and then and after Badminton, anything else is a bonus,” remarked a pragmatic Tighe.

Kiltubrid Heather has produced four offspring by Sligo Candy Boy too, including the four-year-old Kiltubrid Candy, produced by the Mulligan family, who has clocked up five clear rounds. As her most recent foal was a July one, the Tighes held off from covering her last year.

And what about their placename - Kil-tub-rid - that proved a tongue twister for some of the Badminton commentators? “It’s the parish of Kiltubrid, I believe it means the church at the well.”

IMELDA CREIGHTON

“I only have two broodmares and to have three horses in Badminton... it’s amazing,” said Kildare breeder Imelda Creighton. She bred Fernhill Pimms in the four-star, plus Fernhill Mojito and Bansha Vendi in the young horse and Grassroots classes. Her cousin Marie bred Up Up And Away (31st), ridden by New Zealand’s Caroline Powell.

Imelda was yet another Irish breeder over at Badminton, where Carol Gee was on hand to introduce her to Fernhill Pimms rider, William Fox-Pitt.

“I’m only a tiny breeder so what I have she wants,” she said.

Fernhill Pimms, re-routed to Chatsworth where he finished fourth last weekend after an early run out on the Badminton cross-country course, was one sale and the Ard VDL Douglas 14-year-old is from the same dam line as Sugar Brown Babe, originally sourced from Norman Allen,