Issue 24 – September 2011 A must for all breeders Hors Horse Breeders Magazine Page 1 Issue Contents: Front Cover: Copyright MFS Studfarm Scotland Page 3 Welcome to our new format, from the HBM Team Page 4 Boyd Martin on : Neville Bardos, his first Burghley, and the Australian Thoroughbred, by Ginny Smith Page 8 Stars of the Future? The Winners of the Dubarry Burghley Young Event Horse Finals by Ginny Smith Page 11 A Little Method and a Little Madness, William Micklem’s recipe for event horse breeding Page 16 The Backing Diary for Crofts Hill Selene, by Canda Atkinson Page 20 Hormone of the Month, Equine Chorionic Gonadotropin, by Amanda Bliss Page 21 Afrika, Blog 10 –“ Final Prep”, by Sarah Cooper Page 24 Southern Cross Stud Blog, “Premiums All Round” by Jill Walker Page 27 Larkshill Stud Blog, “100% Premium at the Oldenburg Verband Inspection”, by Heather Stack Page 31 Five Go To Lanaken, 2011, by Shirley Light of Brendon Stud Page 34 James Hart, “A Breeder’s Profile”, by Anna Bruce Page 38 Emile Faurie Opens A New Facility At Mount Mascal Stables by Jill Walker Page 43 Contact details for the team Hors Horse Breeders Magazine Page 2 Welcome To Our New Format From the HBM Team Whilst we have enjoyed having a completely web based magazine, it has also been obvious that a printable and downloadable copy would be helpful to our readers. Many have asked how to subscribe, good news though…it is still free! Also, it has been mentioned that in future more and more electronic devices will be unable to read flash content. Whilst the hosts we use for the magazine make their software easy to use, it is flash based. We are looking forward to improving and adding to the content in the coming months and welcome ideas and suggestions, letters to the editor and question and answer pages where you can send in your questions for other breeders to answer. So please do email [email protected] with any content suggestions. If you have suggestions for articles and would like to submit your own story, please email [email protected] For all advertising enquiries, email [email protected] We will be keeping the website and all our previous issues, stallion and business ads will continue to run as will latest news and other web based content. So please do join in with the magazine and keep us up to date with your competition results and breeding successes. Alas, we are all employed elsewhere in full time jobs so sadly cannot follow up all results we see, but would love to include them in the magazine. We also have some wonderful news! A Television Production Company in Canada contacted us recently requesting to use the magazine as the backdrop for one of their shows. It involves an agent going undercover as a journalist, but until the show airs in November, we can say no more…..however prior to airing, we can divulge the name of the show. Sadly it has only just been purchased by a UK company so will not be on our screens for some time, but it is possible to view online. Needless to say we were very pleased to be asked – though are hoping they do not show the issue they made up with “Cleveland Bray” emboldened on the front page! Thank you HBM Team Hors Horse Breeders Magazine Page 3 Boyd Martin on : Neville Bardos, his first Burghley, and the Australian Thoroughbred by Ginny Smith I met Boyd Martin immediately after the prize-giving in the main arena at Burghley, where he was seventh in the winning line-up – an impressive achievement for his first Burghley (and his first visit to the UK). His slightly glazed look of exhaustion was a reminder of the physically punishing nature of a 4-star event for horse and rider. To compete at this level both need to be at maximum fitness. All the more astonishing then that it was three months earlier to the day that Boyd’s horse, Neville Bardos, had been rescued from a horrific fire at the barn that Boyd rented from Phillip Dutton. Neville was suffering so badly from smoke inhalation that he had to be rushed to the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine’s New Bolton Centre. Here he spent three weeks in a hyperbaric chamber breathing pure oxygen to aid the healing of his trachea and lungs. No-one had previous experience of treating a horse that had smoke inhalation problems, so the vets relied on researching cases involving humans and hoped that a similar approach would work with horses. In June, Boyd was still unsure whether Neville would ever be able to compete again “but the horse has come back so strongly”, he said, “it’s just amazing. It’s such a positive to set against the experience of the fire”. This was not Neville’s first escape from a near-fatal experience. Boyd bought him from his trainer in Australia when he was about to be sent to the knackers, having proved too slow for the track; Boyd acquired him for the princely sum of A$800, which the horse must have repaid many times over, given his subsequent performance! Neville’s pedigree carries many of the names seen so often in the breeding of eventers; his sire Muhayaa carries the blood of Neartic through Northern Dancer on his topline, and Princequillo and Tom Fool through his damline. Through his dam Zambia, Neville has Exbury as his great-grandsire, an outstanding French TB who won the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, the Coronation Cup, the Prix Ganay and the Prix Henri Foy. Exbury’s Hors Horse Breeders Magazine Page 4 damsire was the great Mossborough, a son of Nearco; on the bottom line Son in Law links back to Dark Ronald. Exbury’s sire, Le Haar, a useful stakes winner, carries Blandford on the topline of his pedigree, one of the sires that William Micklem identifies as being “hugely beneficial in the production of the event horse”. Whilst he was competing in his native Australia, Boyd also ran a small breeding enterprise which he handed over to his parents when he left for the US in 2006. Whilst both his parents had been highly successful sports Above: Zamazaan, Neville's damsire people in their own right, (his mother was an American speed skater who competed in the Olympics, and his father Ross was an Olympic skier), they were less comfortable dealing with some of the youngsters in the breeding barn. “They didn’t like taking the weanlings into a trailer” said Boyd, so the breeding operation has been run down. Where he would previously have imported his own horses from Australia, he now buys unbroken youngsters from contacts in the States. “I got a nice Irish 3 year old from Bruce Davidson the other day” he said. He does, however, continue his interest by breeding dressage horses for his wife, GP dressage rider Silva Martin. Boyd has an enormous respect for the Australian and New Zealand Thoroughbred: “They are all bred as stayers, in contrast to the US Thoroughbred, and that’s why they are so desirable. They are more robust and have the stamina that you want for eventing”, but the option of importing has been almost closed down, he explained, through the massively increased costs, which now amount to about $17,000. The escalation in charges was caused by a change of flight rules, with the result that there is no longer a direct route to the US, as Boyd says, “The horses have to go halfway around the world before arriving in the States.” Apart from Remington, who Boyd describes as “a freak”, all the eleven 4-star horses that he has owned have been full TBs. He says that he feels uneasy if the horse that he is sitting on carries less than 60% TB blood, but does have what he calls a “two stage” plan, choosing TB x WBs for his 2- and 3-star horses and full TBs for Advanced and 4- star competitions. He regrets the loss of the long format in eventing, but says “that’s why it’s still so important to have the Burghleys, Badmintons and Adelaides, which still really test the best horses in the world. You have to have the best to succeed in these competitions – and that means not only the horse, but the rider and the trainer. Boyd on Neville Bardos at Lexington 2010 The role of the trainer is so important”. Boyd arrived in the US in 2006, having already built an impressive reputation as an eventer in Australia. He was taken on as an assistant trainer by Phillip Dutton, who has been his mentor, coach and friend over the last five years, “the ultimate guide in preparing a horse for a four-star” Boyd says of him. His own passion for the sport and Hors Horse Breeders Magazine Page 5 determination to succeed was rewarded in 2010 by gaining a place on the US team at the Alltech FEI WEG with Neville Bardos, coming 10th (the top US placement); he was in the ribbons at Rolex Kentucky CCI****, and at Pau CCI****, achieving 5th place in the FEI World Rider Rankings. We will certainly be seeing him back in the UK in 2012. Boyd says of his first experience of Burghley, “I’ve loved the experience, met some amazing people, in fact, I’ve loved every minute of it!” Some background facts on Neville Bardos : 12 year old chestnut TB gelding by Muhayaa out of Zambia, bred by Woodlands Stud, Scone, NSW, Australia Trained and raced at Kembla Grange racetrack, with no success Bought by Boyd Martin as a 3 year-old off the track for A$800 Boyd imported him into the US a year after his own arrival in 2006 “Nev” is named after a notorious Australian gangster called Neville Bartos – Boyd made the one letter change in case, as he confided on the online site Horse Junkies, the “real” Neville got out of prison and came looking for him, angry about a horse being named after him.