British Breeder Magazine November 2019

BRITISH BREEDING FUTURITY
WRITTLE
1st August
Writtle University College was the venue for the Baileys
Horse Feeds/ British Breeding Futurity foals to two-year-old
evaluations on August 1st, 2019. Writtle hosted a great day
for all participants involved and it was a superb showcase
for their own breeding programme. The university runs their
own stud and the students were involved in the showing their
mares and foals.
There was a strong entry of dressage horses, with twelve
horses forward for evaluation. The highest score of the day
went to Liz Ball of Bramble Stud, who achieved an Elite
premium with her six-week-old colt, Ravello. The colt is by
premium Danish Warmblood dressage stallion, Revolution,
who broke the record for all German stallion auctions at
the Hanoverian licensing in Verden in 2015 with a winning
bid of 1.2 million euros. Ravello is out of Liz’s 15 year
old mare, Limoncello, by Londonderry. “She has had a
number of good quality foals and last year we decided to
try ‘Revolution’ as he had done very well at the World Young
Horse Championships. We looked at the conformation of the
stallion and we looked at the confirmation of Limoncello and
we felt the pair would make a good foal”, said Liz. “Ravello is
very ‘quirky’ but once he understands what is being asked of
him he is always well behaved. I knew as soon as he was born
he was going to be a special one.”
Bramble Stud work very closely with Baileys Horse Feeds.
“Baileys visit the yard every three months to ensure that we
are on the right track. Every season is different for the mares
and the foals and we use Baileys guidance as each foal grows
at a different rate”, explained Liz. “It doesn’t just stop with
the nutrition. We sometimes have the farrier every two weeks
for the foals. Often, their feet can need micro-management
so the vet, the farrier and the nutritionists at Baileys all work
together to help us produce the foals to this standard.”
Henrietta Edwards from the nutrition team at Baileys was
present as every horse was vetted during the day at Writtle.
“My first impressions of this foal at the vetting today was
that he has a perfect body score. Just the right amount of
weight whilst still being able to see the ribs very slightly. He
is growing very evenly. This is what we like to see in a foal of
his age”, she explained.
The highest score in the eventing section was Judy Savage’s
six-week-old colt, Charlie, by the renowned eventing stallion,
Chilli Morning, formerly competed at top level by William
Fox-Pitt, out of a mare by ‘Oscar’. The colt earned a score of
7.975 achieving a silver premium.
In the Showjumping section it was an exciting day for Writtle
University College as their own 12-week-old Lordships Bear
Necessities, by the stallion, Balou For Pleasure, and out of a
Now Or Never M mare, took the second Elite score of the day
with an impressive score of 9.2. Emily Southwick, Assistant
Stud Manager at Writtle, said “Balou has bags of personality
as you could see on the livestream but he is extremely good
to do in every way. It is great for the students at the college
to see what you can achieve with British Breeding; it really
helps their education. All of the students play a small part
in the foals’ care so it is great that we can all celebrate the
success as a team.”
Ravello - Photo Horse Power Creative
Caroline Farr, Equine lecturer at Writtle told us a little bit
about the breeding programme. “We try to breed two or
three of our own every year. We have a dressage mare, a
showjumping mare and an eventing mare so we are trying
to breed across the board on each discipline. Most of the
students are studying here for three years so they get to
experience every part of the breeding process from selection
of the stallion up to the foals starting their early days of
work. All of the foals bred at Writtle are for sale as this helps
us fund our breeding activities, but we are very much ‘intouch’
with all the current owners or riders of the youngstock
we have bred here.”
Megan Carlton’s ten-week-old Arko’s King Of Hearts also
scored highly in the showjumping section. The colt is by
the legendary stallion, Arko III, who was the number 1
showjumper in Europe in 2004, 2005 and 2006, with earnings
over £1.2 million. The dam, Warovola, is by the KWPN
stallion, Heartbreaker. Arko’s King Of Hearts achieved a score
of 8.95, earning a gold premium at their first futurity event.
Megan plans to keep the foal to compete for herself.
A single entry in the Endurance section achieved a high score
of 8.8, earning a gold premium for the 2 year old colt from
Jane Marson’s Heritage Coast Stud. Heritage Valentino, owned
by Jane and her mother, Hannah Skepper, is by former Arab
racing stallion, Vadeer, whose progeny includes numerous FEI
endurance winners, out of their homebred mare, Heritage
Silver Delaney.
“This is a very promising colt. His full brother was also
awarded a higher first under the previous scoring system of
the Futurity and is currently in training to run in Arab races
in 2020. The plan with Heritage Valentino is for him to be
backed and then attend the Futurity as a three-year-old.
Eventually he will be a dual-purpose horse for my daughter
who is currently competing in British Eventing.”
The day at Writtle also included an opportunity to view the
latest models of yard machinery from sponsors, Avant, and
they were on hand to answer any enquiries or questions.
British Equestrian Federation Director, Lottie Olsen, also
attended the day. “We at the BEF are very keen to support
British Breeding. It is great to see such high quality
youngstock coming through. The Futurity series provides
excellent feedback to breeders and it shows that with the
right management from the beginning and with responsible
breeding there is no reason that Britain cannot produce top
quality sports horses”, she said.
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