THE pioneering collaboration between the World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses (WBFSH) and International Stud Book Committee (ISBC) is a welcome development for thoroughbred fans worldwide.
One of the agreement’s aims is to recognise and promote the contribution of the thoroughbred to sport and sport horse breeding; another is second career options for retired racehorses. Similar to the work already carried out here by Treo Eile.
Historically, thoroughbreds were a feature of international sport, and in practically every Irish parish, which contributes to the great affection many hold for the breed.
However, where are the thoroughbreds in top level sport today? Current rankings and results offer sparse sightings.
Not always so. Historically, ex-racehorses and off-the-track-thoroughbreds were found in abundance in sport, as has been chronicled by one of the breed’s greatest fans: William Micklem.
An inimitable equine heritage curator, he welcomes the recent WBFSH/ISBC announcement as the latest page in the breed’s colourful history.
“The current world record was set in 1949, by the thoroughbred stallion Huaso with Captain Alberto Larraguibel. They cleared 2.47 metres (8 ft 1 in) high,” he said of the Chilean officer’s longstanding feat at Viña del Mar.
“When the thoroughbred was ruling the show jumping world at championship level in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, the fences were both higher and wider than is allowed today.
“Although the tracks then were not as technical as they now face, they were bigger, with oxers that were up to 20cm wider and verticals 10cm higher than permitted now, and distances in the combinations that would not be allowed today.
“I have the names of over 100 thoroughbred horses, who won show jumping Grands Prix. People say that the thoroughbred horses today are different, but look at the top National Hunt steeplechasers today - they are wonderful jumpers and exceptional athletes.”
Micklem continued: “A standard National Hunt steeplechase fence is a minimum of 1.30m high with a 2m apron, which means that the average take-off point is three metres away from the maximum height, with a further 3m before landing - a total distance of six metres, and many cover eight metres when standing off. This is twice the distance of an open water in international show jumping.”
Eventing angle
Traditionally, thoroughbreds and high percentage-thoroughbred sport horses have ruled in eventing. If we have to track back to 1984 to find the most ‘recent’ thoroughbred individual gold medallist show jumper in Touch Of Class, eventing has held the Olympics front line longer for the breed.
“In eventing, the three-quarter-bred is king. Therefore, we need thoroughbred mares and stallions and the most practical solution is often a thoroughbred mare,” said Micklem.
He should know, having bred the Master Imp full-brothers Mandiba and High Kingdom that competed with Karen O’Connor and Zara Tindall at the Hong Kong and London Olympics respectively.
Their point-to-point dam High Dolly, was by Chair Lift out of a Prefairy dam, giving her offspring a thoroughbred percentage of 87.5%.
Biko, one more of O’Connor’s successful string, was a thoroughbred sourced by Micklem, “as a three-year-old with my brother John, so I know well the superb athleticism and especially the brain of these elite performers.”
William Micklem with Zara Tindall and High Kingdom, one of two Olympic event horses bred by him out of the point-to-point dam High Dolly / Susan Finnerty
Back to that interesting angle about the thoroughbred dam. Contemporary examples include Mark McAuley’s 2024 Rolex Grand Prix runner-up at Dublin, GRS Lady Amaro and Cooley Rosalent, Oliver Townend’s Defender Kentucky Three-Day Event winner last year.
Both mares, bred by McAuley’s uncle Denis Hickey and Woods Rosbotham respectively, are out of thoroughbred dams - Legal Lady (Over The River) and Bellaney Jewel (Roselier).
A possible market there for sport horse breeders to specialise in breeding from thoroughbred mares. Otherwise, thoroughbred sires for the sport horse field appears to be a shrinking market.
Hickey’s fellow Model County stallion master Michael Murphy sounded a note of realism for the lonely lot of the country stallion owner, when saying: “You wouldn’t be encouraged to buy a [thoroughbred] stallion or stand one. Most mare owners don’t want thoroughbred horses, they’re going to be a rare commodity in a while. The day is gone for the thoroughbred horse [for the sport horse market].”
The Clohamon Stud owner bred last year’s unnamed Goresbridge Go For Gold sales-topper, consigned by Dermot Considine’s Trade Horses Ltd and sold for €57,000. By Murphy’s late traditionally-bred stallion Crusing With Diamonds, the sales-topper is out of Windmill Cross, a thoroughbred mare by Insatiable (another Clohamon sire) and going back to Biko’s sire, Beau Charmeur.
Mark McAuley and the Denis Hickey-bred GRS Lady Amaro, who is out of the thoroughbred dam Legal Lady, at theDublin Horse Show 2024 \ Claire Nash
Thoroughbreds with medals
Historically, thoroughbred horses competing at FEI and Olympics level were listed as “breeding unknown”, as they were not originally registered by a WBFSH member studbook. Now that amendment has been made, with the TB breed code suffix appearing for the first time at the Paris Olympics.
Not an over-taxed measure though, as the only thoroughbred competing at Versailles was the Australian travelling reserve, Bold Venture.
The 14-year-old (bought after an inauspicious racing career for AUS$1,000), and Shenae Lowings got their call-up on show jumping day, after a cross-country injury ruled out Kevin McNab’s Don Quidam.
Firstly, thoroughbred entries in Olympics dressage dried up, followed by show jumping (Atlanta had a handful of thoroughbreds competing in show jumping, including fellow Aussie Olympian Vicki Roycroft’s Coalminer) and then eventing.
Hong Kong was the most recent Games for a thoroughbred individual medal winner - Miners Frolic (bronze). He and Tina Cook were back at London on the silver medal home team, while another thoroughbred - Clifton Promise - was part of the Kiwi bronze medal team with Jonathan Paget.
These Olympic horses are joined by a lengthy list of thoroughbreds that have performed at FEI five-star level, including Badminton winner Moonfleet, Kentucky winner Parklane Hawk, then thoroughbreds of the calibre of Andromaque, Arctic Soul, Kilpatrick River, Over To You and Sleep Late.
A second career
Another element of the latest WBFSH news is to promote second careers for thoroughbreds, an aim of various thoroughbred organisations. These include the American Jockey Club’s Find Your Thoroughbred’s Next Career directory, its British counterpart’s Retraining of Racehorses (ROR) scheme and closer to home, Treo Eile with its mission statement of assisting “in the transition of racehorses to their new pursuits”.
“As an organisation that firmly believes the thoroughbred to be one of the most athletic, versatile and trainable in the stud book, we are delighted to see the WBFSH include the thoroughbred as one of its recognised breeds,” Treo Eile director and co-founder Caoimhe Doherty commented.
“These traits that make the thoroughbred so suitable for a second career are often the foundations for so many wonderful sport horses.”
Treo Eile’s shopwindows are wide-ranging and include the Tattersalls Ireland Treo Eile Showing Pathway Series and a thoroughbred section in the Stepping Stones to Success league.
Comparing ‘Then and Now’ numbers often emphasises the lack of current flagbearers. Will we ever see thoroughbreds back again in the same numbers at the Olympics as 20th century icons? Most likely not.
For starters though, we’re seeing more recognition for thoroughbreds and plenty of ex-racehorses enjoying second careers in racehorse to riding horse classes, riding club, eventing and show jumping.
And for those thoroughbreds competing in future at FEI and Olympics level, their long-awaited TB suffix now awaits.
Joe Fargis - a different era
Two Olympic show jumping gold medals on home ground with an ex-racehorse - Joe Fargis is the ideal person to ask for his thoughts about thoroughbreds at the Games.
He won team and individual gold at Los Angeles with the thoroughbred Touch Of Class and then team silver at Seoul with the Noel C. Duggan-bred Mill Pearl, by King of Diamonds out of the thoroughbred mare Carran.
“Touch Of Class was slow on the track, so she was sold again and again and again! She was a freak though. She just happened to do what humans wanted very readily, she said ‘okay’ to everything,” he told The Irish Field about his gold medal mare.
“She came up through the ranks as a jumper and finally she got to the Olympic level. I mean, it’s that simple. I don’t think there was any magic about it. She was just an athlete, a good, good athlete.
“Mill Pearl was a lot bigger, but they both had the same temperament - very, very willing and they were both athletic. What united them was just that willingness that they wanted to do the job.”
The Trakehner stallion Abdullah (Conrad Homfeld) and the Dutch-bred Calypso (Melanie Smith) - widely-regarded as the horse that opened the European imports floodgates - were two of Touch Of Class and Joe’s Los Angeles teammates.
“Yes, for sure,” Fargis said about Calypso’s role in the switch from thoroughbred to warmblood on the American circuits, although there was another thoroughbred on that Los Angeles team: Albany [Leslie Burr Howard].
Joe Fargis, third from right, being inducted into the WIHS Hall of Fame in 2018 / Shawn McMillan
“We try to have thoroughbred classes and they do a good job of having jumper and hunter finals in Lexington, Kentucky in the fall. Maybe 20 or 30 show up from all over the country, but they don’t jump very high, maybe a metre. We don’t ask much of them any more.”
Fargis, who was also inducted into the Washington International Horse Show (WIHS) Hall of Fame in 2018, is currently based in Wellington.
“Well, it’s grown immensely, grown, grown, grown. They have another circuit in Ocala and there’s enough interest to fill both shows. It’s thriving,” he remarked about the winter circuit.
“People just aren’t using thoroughbreds any more. That’s just a fact. Here on the Florida circuit, I think there were five entries in the thoroughbred jumper class.
“I don’t know the answer, except there is a group here trying to promote thoroughbreds.”
The benefit of hindsight, whether it’s preserving native and traditional Irish bloodlines or promoting the versatile thoroughbred, often applies but could more efforts to promote thoroughbreds, to capitalise on Touch Of Class’s win, have ideally started after her gold medal?
“We should have started then, but we didn’t. But it’s never too late. It’s too little, but it’s never too late.”
WHAT THEY SAID:
“We are excited to see the benefit of this inclusion for the thoroughbred breeders and look forward to seeing many more thoroughbreds on the world stage in the future.” - Caoimhe Doherty. Treo Eile
“I think it’s easier to get a horse from Europe than it is to reclaim a thoroughbred. That’s my sense. We are in a different era, there’s no question.” - Joe Fargis
“The TB is the supreme equine athlete. Whether it is in international show jumping, where speed is the deciding factor in the majority of occasions, or in the cross-country phase of eventing, TB blood is vitally important.” - William Micklem
“Without the thoroughbred, there would be no modern sport horse. It is thanks to the vision and intuition of those pioneering breeders recognising the athleticism, speed and light-footedness, but also the sheer beauty and elegance that the thoroughbred brings to our breeding population, that we have the performance horses we love today.” - WBFSH president Jan Pedersen
“America is the home of the thoroughbred as well.” - Chris Ryan
BY THE NUMBERS
£45,000 - First place prize money for the new Cornbury Racehorses Eventing Challenge ex-racehorse class at Cornbury House Horse Trials this summer.
40,333 - thoroughbred foals were registered in North America in 1990. According to the American Jockey Club statistics, numbers dropped to an estimated 17,200 foals by 2023.
8,887 - thoroughbred foals registered last year in Ireland (Dec. 31st, 2024).
83rd - place for the TB studbook in Hippomundo’s show jumping rankings (2024).
80th - place for the TB studbook in the dressage rankings (2024).
70 - Lorna Johnstone’s age when the British dressage rider, the oldest woman to compete at the Olympics, rode the thoroughbred El Farucco at the Munich Olympics.
16th - Boyd Martin (USA) and the ex-racehorse Blackfoot Mystery’s result at the Rio Olympics. Blackfoot Mystery (Out Of Place) was bred by Tipperary native John O’Meara at his Milestone Farm in Kentucky.
7 - starts and last place finishes for Touch Of Class during her race career.
6 - where the TB studbook finished in Hippomundo’s eventing rankings (2024), boosted by Buck Davidson’s Kentucky CCI5* horse Sorocaima. Sixth at Kentucky, Sorocaima was the highest-placed thoroughbred (16th) in Hippomundo’s rankings last year.
5 - thoroughbreds at the London Olympics (eventing), including the two team medallist horses: Miners Frolic and Clifton Promise, plus an Irish-bred in Carraig Dubh (Gothland. Breeder: Desmond Pettitt).
4 - thoroughbreds competed in the Defender Kentucky CCI5*-L last year: Sorocaima, Twilightslastgleam, Wabbit and Harbin.
3 - other thoroughbreds at the Rio Olympics: Onfire (Felix Vogg) Switzerland, ACSI Peter Parker (Alice Naber-Lozeman) The Netherlands and Summon Up The Blood (Carlos Eduardo Parro) for host nation Brazil.
2 - Olympic appearances for the thoroughbred The Yellow Earl (Duky. Breeder: Sue Doyle) and Virginia McGrath. This combination were on the fifth-placed Irish team at Sydney and made another Games appearance four years later at Atlanta.
1 - thoroughbred at the Paris Olympics: Bold Venture, ridden by Shenae Lowings for Australia.
DID YOU KNOW?