MAX HAURI. Dick Jennings. If there were two characters of not ‘just’ the Clover Hill era but in Irish Sport Horse breeding history who I wish I could have met to hear their stories first-hand, it would be this pair.

There’s always a Plan B. By the most serendipitous chain of events, Max’s sister Heidi and son Thomas have their own store of intriguing stories and opinions to share across the sitting room table.

The cosy room is a showcase to the Hauri family business. Cups and trophies line the shelves and Max’s armchair sits opposite the television set and video he watched show jumping on. A gallery of black and white photos on the walls show his namesake father Max Hauri senior, wearing a suit and homburg hat, standing beside a couple of foals; there’s another of Max jumping Millview, the horse he finished 10th with at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

On other walls are two eyecatching paintings; the first of Max on one of his favourite horses, Shoeman, and another of an absolute model of a chesnut horse.

“That was a cavalry horse,” Heidi explains. Trading in cattle, cavalry and trooper horses is a bygone business but one that served the Hauri family well. And instilled good habits and horsemanship in its officers, including Max who was the first in the yard each morning.

“He’d be there before you, mucking out stables when you arrived at 6am,” recalls Ronnie Kelly, whose late uncle Michael bred Heidi’s Los Angeles Olympic bronze medallist mare Jessica V.

Ronnie was one of a legion of Irish riders who worked for Hauri. The list of Irish riders who did back then is probably shorter than the alternative. Olympic riders Jessica Kürten, Padraig McCarthy and Michael Ryan; Peter Leonard, Eddie Moloney, Joan Greene, Eddie Hickey and “Francis Connors!” are just some graduates.

Banner Equestrian Centre’s Noel Barry met his Swiss wife Simone at Hauri’s base and she revealed how Max had a postal subscription to The Irish Field to keep up to date on the Irish scene.

“Max was very strict but I got on the pure finest with him. I was there for two and a half years and I can’t say there was two cross words between us. If you worked hard, did your job and did what was expected of you, there was no problem whatsoever with Max,” Ronnie continues.

“You were paid very well. All your accommodation was provided, you were fed three times a day, your laundry done twice a week and if you were ever going out, you wouldn’t meet a nicer person. The week before he died, I was talking to him in that sitting room.”

Swiss Cavalier

Max Hauri passed away on December 6th, 2015. The many chapters of his packed life include winning the national show jumping championship as a young Swiss cavalry lieutenant on Przeclaw; two Olympic appearances at Tokyo and Munich, plus over 40 Nations Cup appearances for Switzerland.

As well as his top-10 Tokyo result, four years later at Munich, he joined the likes of Mark Todd by competing at the Olympic Games in both eventing (Red Baron) and show jumping (Haiti). Heidi’s Los Angeles Games appearance meant that the pair joined another elite group of siblings, which also includes the D’Inzeo and Wofford families, to have competed at Olympic level.

“I was five then but I remember the parade through Seon, the band marching by playing music,” her nephew says, recalling Heidi’s homecoming celebrations in 1984.

Przeclaw was a nod to the times when the Swiss cavalry bought Polish remounts before sourcing Irish horses. After the controversial decision in 1972 to abolish the cavalry regiment, Max and his father switched to buying Irish-breds for the show jumping and high-end amateur markets.

On average Max bought 100 horses from Ireland each year? “Yes, that’s true,” Thomas confirms.

“My father was going over already to Ireland to buy horses, Max started going with him and that’s how he first met Seamus Hughes,” Heidi says, explaining how their great friendship with the Hughes family began.

Amongst the top horses found by Max are Special Envoy (King of Diamonds) and Tomboy (Coevers), bred in Kilkenny and Clare by Mary Hughes and Sean O’Neill. Rodrigo Pessoa competed these Irish-breds at Barcelona and Atlanta, (where the Brazilian team won the bronze medal in 1996). His father Nico enjoyed much success with the Derby specialist Vivaldi (Imperius), another bred by Mary Hughes.

A feature of the Hauri-Hughes alliance was the importation of Cavalier Royale. Max believed that the Cor de la Bryère son would upgrade Irish mares through more power and movement and following his recommendation, Seamus bought him.

The stallion stood initially with Michael Quirke in Littleton, before moving to his brother John Hughes at his Williamstown Stud. There was an added bonus to the team gold medal won by Thomas at the 1998 European young riders championships at Lisbon as his horse was Dreaming, the first foal out of her breeder Eyleen Nugent’s first Clover Hill mare, Clover’s Lass. The sire? Cavalier Royale, the stallion Max sent to Ireland.

“Max loved something with King of Diamonds or Clover Hill breeding,” explains Jim Kavanagh, whose late father Ned was amongst the farmer-breeders the Swiss dealer called to.

Six degrees

Hauri’s liking for those two bloodlines meant buying Samantha IX. Both she and her lookalike Flo Jo (both by Clover Hill out of King of Diamonds dams) were bred by Seamus Hughes. Samantha IX was snapped up on arrival in Max’s yard by his relative Silvia Röösli-Merz, the same lady who built up a collection of Ringroe and Williamstown Stud stallion photos on her Irish travels.

There are dozens of yards dotted around Ireland that Max visited but by a ‘six degree of seperation’ coincidence it was through another of Jim’s Swiss customers Silvia Hofstetter that this latest story began as she provided Roosli-Merz’s contact details for an earlier chapter.

“Seamus would usually tip off Ned at a show that they would be around but on other times, they’d call on spec. Dad always brushed the horses first thing every morning in case the pair were on their rounds!”

“Usually four to six-year-olds with a few points, suitable for amateur riders in Europe but Max also bought Clover Hill three-year-olds here,” replied Jim when asked what type of horses were on the shopping list when Hauri called to their farm near Enniscorthy.

“He also bought Lady Ashfield out of the field as a barely-broken four-year-old. She was by a son of Ashfield Bobby Sparrow, out of our 138cm Grade A Alley Cracker, and she was ridden on winning Nations Cup teams for Switzerland by Markus Hauri before going to Sweden. My brother Tom [father of Wexbury Spirits young entrepreneur Mark] has pure Connemara mares while I keep sport horses.

“Max always did his own vetting. While riding he’d listen to the wind, then afterwards a circle test at the length of the reins and flexion test. As far as I remember, he even had his own stethoscope. If we didn’t have a suitable horse, Max was always in a big hurry, if we had a nice horse, then plenty of time for whiskey and chat to haggle!”

Some four decades on, Heidi remembers the Irish scene with great affection. “I remember whenever we would buy a horse in Ireland at nine o’clock in the morning, we would have to drink the whiskey!”

That became a Hauri tradition too after a sale at home in Seon. “Here you would always have to drink the whiskey and the handshake too after buying a horse from Max,” says Thomas, who is holding the fort at home while brother Markus is at the Sunshine Tour with a load of competition and sale horses.

There is no doubt that the brothers, who normally spend half the year on the road, have fond memories of their Irish-breds. “Shoeman was Irish, he won the bronze medal with Markus in the Swiss championship for three years and the individual bronze medal in the European junior championships in 1994.”

Three years later, Markus repeated his father and Przeclaw’s national title win, this time with the James Whitty-bred Royal Athlete (King of Diamonds). On the same horse he won an individual bronze medal at that summer’s European young riders championships in Moorsele.

That said, times have changed.

End of an era

“My father stopped going to Ireland. He couldn’t find any more horses and if he saw something, it was so much more expensive. It wasn’t the same thing after Seamus. Seamus and Max, they were like brothers and when Seamus died, it wasn’t the same anymore for Max. And the [Irish] breeding was so much on the ground, he said ‘Now, finished’.

“At that time, the good mares were gone. You sold a lot of the good mares abroad and that was a problem for the Irish horse. And the other problem was papers, they had no papers!” Heidi adds about the regretful end to an era.

“The real Irish type, I think, is gone. Actually the type we need for the big sport today is the modern horse, we have the French, we have the Dutch horses. Everybody likes a nice, modern, sound type, the amateur and the profi [professional] rider,” her nephew adds.

Where does he think the best horses are being bred in Europe now? “For me, it’s Belgium. They have a good mix between the French and the German horse for me. The French horses have a good brain and it’s a good mix between the two. I was just on the phone to [partner] Adelaïde who is in Oliva and she said there are so many incredible horses there that are Belgian-bred.

“The horse we want to buy, normally it’s not for sale. I heard it’s the same problem in Ireland, the good horses, they have no price and others … [average horses], where is the profit?”

Making a living out of horses means knowing the potential profit and loss scenarios, plus the salvage value option if a horse doesn’t live up to its potential.

“The risk is much higher today than years ago because now you have to really invest. If you buy a good four-year-old, it’s already expensive. If he’s not good enough, you’ve lost money.

“In Max’s time, you still had an amateur who would buy but today this price is already so high for a top-class four-year-old that the amateur won’t pay these prices anymore.”

How has the overall horse trading business been, despite a pandemic?

“Not bad but we still have to keep working at it! In 2020, I was afraid but we had a very good year. But it has changed a lot, the whole system. Like, Max Hauri bought 100 horses every year, this we would never do anymore.”

To counter both the scarcity of promising youngsters and increased costs, the brothers have changed tack. “Now we breed our own, we invest a lot. When Max had mares that were too old for sport but not for breeding, he gave them back to Seamus. And that’s what we do now in France – we try to keep the good pedigrees ourselves to build up good bloodlines. And you need luck to breed the top horses.”

Take your pick

Which current show jumping star would they hope to match amongst some 150 horses currently being reared on their French farm?

“For me, I really like the grey horse of Martin Fuchs, Leone Jei ... the power, the blood type. I like when the horse walks [with attitude], he walks like ‘Here I am!’”

His pick, just a 10-year-old by Baltic VDL, has already been on the Swiss gold medal team at last summer’s European championships and won the Rolex Grand Prix on home ground at Geneva International.

The Hauri-breds return to Seon to be produced on the Swiss scene. Opening up the national championships to non-Swiss-breds is a step forward to Thomas.

“Two years ago they started that so horses from other countries could compete in the Swiss championships and qualify for Avenches. It’s not the same level that we have in France, Holland, Germany ... how you have in Dublin ... but for me, it is an improvement in our sport because at the end, if you want to breed a good horse you want other good horses to compete against so that you can compare them with.”

Chasing young horse championships qualifiers doesn’t rank too high for him. “It’s important to have that feeling about a horse, if you should wait with your young horse or see what they can do. Sometimes I think what they have to do for the qualification can be a little much for young horses.

“If you already go direct against the clock and if it’s a lot more technical for young horses … that’s a bit of a problem here for the young horses in Switzerland.”

A major problem for international equestrianism is the team of three rule that overshadowed the sport at Tokyo. Thomas, like his European young riders teammate Steve Guerdat, vehemently opposes it.

“For me, it is absolutely against the sport what they did,” says Thomas. “Okay, you can try something but I don’t understand how they don’t change it [after Tokyo].

“We have a lot of people who are not horse people [who make these changes],” Heidi adds.

Animal rights activists, as distinct from animal welfare campaigners, are another challenge.

“We have to take care for our sport. If we continue like this, I don’t know if we will ride horses in 15 years?” he asks.

Although there could well be a couple more Hauris on the circuit by then. Marius Max, his five-year-old son with French show jumper Adelaïde Lautié, has just left for his riding lesson and his proud father produces a video of the youngster cantering round the arena on his pony.

“For me, when you have to ride a Grand Prix with a pony, you learn to ride a Grand Prix with a horse. How many good riders now learned in ponies? Plenty of good riders start with ponies.”

Again, there’s always a Plan B.

“I would like to buy a top class mare to breed pony show jumpers from, a Connemara to cross with the best continental stallion to get 148cms show jumping ponies. It’s crazy the prices you have to pay for a good pony now, unbelievable!”

A fourth generation Hauri competing on a part-Connemara? That’s something to look forward to.