IT took until Tuesday morning for an inkling of the fact that he has bred a Badminton winner to sink in for Michael Callery.

“Even getting up this morning, I still can’t quite believe it but it has sunk in, just a little bit. I was walking around the yard and I thought, ‘Well, imagine a Badminton winner coming out of the yard’. It’s just exciting.”

Greenacres Special Cavalier’s win with Caroline Powell makes for a back-to-back Kentucky/Badminton double, straight after the Woods Rosbotham-bred Cooley Rosalent’s win at the North American spring fixture.

From a breeding perspective, the Cavalier Royale mare’s win, 12 months after finishing 30th of 30 finishers at her first Badminton, is a great boost for Irish breeders. Just as Lucy Latta’s ‘National Velvet’-style result is for Irish equestrianism.

“You must remember, the mare was only a baby then,” said Michael about Greenacres Special Cavalier’s Badminton debut.

“I got a call from a good friend, Alison Corbally, saying ‘Congratulations Michael, your mare has just won Badminton’. Later that evening, a full-sister to Greenacres Special Cavalier, called Greenacres Touch, had a cracking colt by Pegase van’t Ruytershof, a lovely bay colt with a blaze and four white socks. What a day,” Michael told The Irish Field, recalling an eventful Sunday.

Michael has been breeding horses for over 30 years at his Kells farm.

“I have been lucky. I put a lot of work into breeding good foundation stock and it’s really paying off now. That takes a long number of years, but we keep dreaming on and hopefully we’ll produce many more in the future.

“I put a lot of thought into pedigrees, selecting the best sires and carefully matching them with the best mares.”

Caroline Powell (NZL) and Greenacres Special Cavalier (ISH) jumped clear to win Badminton Horse Trials 2024 \ Equus Pix

He has made it a policy to keep Cavalier Royale fillies, as he explains in his updated Breeders’ 10 (see page 91).

For his original Breeders’ 10 back in February 2022, Caroline Powell made the lovely gesture of buying a shot of Greenacres Special Cavalier, competing at Blenheim CCI4*-S from photographer William Carey to complete the feature.

It was back to business in the yard for the down-to-earth Kiwi on Tuesday evening.

“You’ve still got a yard full of horses. You get up the next day, muck out, ride and you just sort of carry on. You have people rolling into the yard to say, ‘Well done, isn’t it amazing!’ And you still muck out and you still ride. Tomorrow, we’ve got three horses going to Aston-le-Wells and on Friday and Saturday as well. We’ve had a good chance to have a bit of a blast though, a bit of a celebration.”

Caroline went to the Atlanta Olympics as Ian Stark’s groom and was herself a competitor at Hong Kong and London, where she and the famous Lenamore were on the bronze medal team in 2012. Any thoughts on competing another Irish-bred at Paris?

“Well, I don’t know. They have to be sound coming out of Badminton, everything has to be just right. I’ve been to enough Olympics to know that, if you’re not going well enough, you don’t want to go, but if you are going well enough, you certainly do want to go. So, a lot sort of lies on how she comes out of this, how she preps and how everybody feels.

“I know Chris and Michelle [co-owners] would absolutely love to go, I’m sure Michael [Callery] as well. But it comes down to how well she preps and out of what she’s done, but she’s certainly looking at the moment as though she’s got out of Badminton well.”

Lucy Latta (IRL) with RCA Patron Saint, pictured at the First Horse Inspection at Badminton Horse Trials 2024 \ Irish Eventing Times / Equus Pix

RCA Patron Saint

The Sport Horse Breeding (GB)-registered RCA Patron Saint very nearly completed a Badminton winners’ double for Birkhof’s Grafenstolz. By this Trakehner sire, the 13-year-old is out of Summers Mist, whose breeding is officially unrecorded. However, according to RCA Patron Saint, or ‘Paddy’s’, breeder Richard Ames, she is Irish-bred.

“Something that came out of the blue,” Richard said about Lucy Latta and Paddy’s sensational result. “I mean, I know he’s a lovely horse, but what a result. To be first would have been a fairytale, wouldn’t it, but an amateur rider, first time at Badminton, first five-star, what a rider to do that. It was just out of this world. Both those horses [Greenacres Special Cavalier and RCA Patron Saint] were actually in my yard in England, because Caroline [Powell] was based there for a while.”

The RCA prefix stands for Richard’s initials.

“Yes. So, the ones that were bred in England have got RCA, and all the ones over here have got Belline, of course. I’ve been in Kilkenny for nearly 10 years now. We brought Paddy over to Ireland when he was four. He was known as ‘Patrick’ with us, which is why he’s called RCA Patron Saint, but his stable name with Lucy is Paddy.

“The reason we chose Grafenstolz was basically because of his dressage and movement. Summers Mist was an Irish-bred mare I bought as a six-year-old for my daughter to show jump and she was a very, very good show jumper. And then Marianne turned to eventing and Sally - her stable name - was amazing, she would always go double clear. She was useless at dressage, hated it, absolutely hated it.

Lucy Latta (IRL) and RCA Patron Saint jump the final fence in the show jumping at Badminton Horse Trials 2024 \ Equus Pix

“But her ability was second to none. You could ride her exactly the way you saw Lucy ride Paddy at Badminton,” added Richard, who hopes to trace Summers Mist breeding through DNA testing.

“It’s a fairytale and, at the end of the day, there’s a lot of other horses around. She’s [Lucy] definitely put herself up for selection, without a shadow of a doubt. But, you know, there are unfortunately only three places on the team,” he responded when asked about the prospect of breeding a Paris Olympics horse.

Quindiva

At first glance, Quindiva’s breeding details merited a double take. According to her FEI record, the Quintender mare is registered with the Oldenburg Verband and is listed on the Badminton website as KWPN-registered. Yet her dam’s side lists the Sligo and north Mayo sires, High Roller and Hail Station.

Far from being foaled in Germany or the Netherlands, she was bred in Co Sligo.

“I’m absolutely delighted for Alex Bragg and the whole Team Bragg Eventing on Quindiva’s podium finish,” Cliodhna Carroll told The Irish Fieldthis week, when explaining the mare’s background.

“I bred her in Sligo, in the early stages of my breeding programme, I had gone to Germany on a four-day Teagasc breeders’ tour, which included Paul Schockmoehle’s stable, where I saw Quintender and Sandro Hit. Both myself and David Gray were in partnership at the time and decided that it would be a good idea to register both Quindiva and another colt with the Oldenburg Verband, something I am sorry about now, as she is not getting the recognition as an Irish Sport Horse.

“I bought her dam Ruby Roller from her breeder John Farrell out of a field. Richard Kerins, here in Sligo, show jumped her for me for a number of years before I started breeding from her.”

Another of Ruby Roller’s eventing offspring was competed stateside by Tim Bourke.

Alexander Bragg (GBR) and Quindiva placed third at Badminton Horse Trials 2024 \ Equus Pix

“That’s Lily, originally Kingsborough Guidamme, changed to Kingsborough Quality and then to Quality Time. She was injured unfortunately and they put her in foal. She had a beautiful colt - Quality Unleashed (aka Bear) by a young Contendro x Landprinz x Cobra stallion.”

Ruby Roller was later sold to Roy Armitage in Ballingarry, Co Offaly.

“I just spoke with Roy, he has a KMS Timeless two-year-old filly out of her and she’s in foal again, due later this month to Cornerado VDL.”

Cooley Rosalent and Greenacres Special Cavalier’s wins have given the Irish Sport Horse (ISH) studbook, plus these breeders and relevant sires an early lead in the Hippomundo studbook rankings, as we’ll see next week.