I think I am beginning to drive my wife Penny mad – I’m spending every night on the computer trawling through the internet looking at different stallions in Australia! It has taken a few years, but our homebred horses are starting to hit the mark, which is really exciting. However, breeding horses is such a long term and unpredictable game we have held off breeding from many mares over here as it is so expensive to keep horses in the UK. So we have decided to take the plunge and start to do things properly in Australia instead!
I consider my father one of the best judges of a horse. For example, a few years ago he picked out a little two year old filly called Doondi Sapphire at the biggest Australian Stock Horse sale (the Dalby Sales) and paid just AU$2,000 for her. She was out of a Thoroughbred mare (Dad is fairly obsessed with Thoroughbreds and racing) by a son of what is turning out to be the most influential Australian Stock Horse sire of all time, Warrenbri Romeo. I must admit that I didn’t think a lot of her as a young horse, but four years later she was crowned Champion Polocrosse Horse at the Australian National Championships when ridden by my sister, Sandra. It turns out this was no fluke as her full sister, Doondi Diamond, has turned out just as good. What a tragedy that both of the horses have recently suffered leg fractures in freak accidents that have ended their ridden careers (although both were saved).
However, it does present an opportunity to breed from the best… hence why I have been obsessing over stallions for the last couple of weeks! The idea is to take embryos from these mares and improve the existing breeding programme on the family property, Silver Hills. We are definitely aiming for the old saying "breed from the best to the best, and then hope for the best"! You never know, one day these little embryos may be playing in high goal polo and international polocrosse…
The photos are of some potential dads. Like my stallion over here, Risebridge Diesel, they are all Australian Stock Horses – my breed of choice for producing top class polocrosse horses, especially when crossed with Thoroughbreds. They are amazing little horses and make top athletes in any sphere – for example Ringwould Jaguar was part of the Australian Olympic silver medal winning eventing team in Beijing!