Born 1933 - breeder Lady Zia Wernher

			Marco
		Marcovil	Lady Villikins
	Hurry On		Sainfoin
		Tout Suite	Star
Precipitation			Tredennis
		Bachelors Double	Lady Dawn
	Double Life		Willbrook
		Saint Joan	Flo Desmond

Winner of seven races out of 10 starts. According to 'Thoroughbred-Breeding of the World' edited by Rainer L. Ahnert: "Hurry On sired the three Derby winners Captain Cuttle, Coronach, Call Boy and the excellent stayer Preciptitation, to name his most oustanding male prgeny. The last-named was not entered for the early classics, and he was not fit to run in the St Leger, whose winner Boswell he beat most readily three weeks after the great Doncaster event. Precipitation did not come to hand when two years old, and in his third year he required the patience of his very fine trainer. He then won many long-distance races against the best in the land, crowning his distinguished career wiht a triumph in the Gold Cup at Ascot. It fell to Precipitation to maintain and continue the great Matchem's influence on the breed, and this big and well-balanced son of the unbeaten Hurry On did not disappoint his many admirers. His son Chamossaire was leading sire in 1964, the year Santa Claus won the Derby. His grand-son Larkspur, winner of the Derby, went to Japan. Precipitation's dam was a very good racehorse, she won the Cambridgeshire and £5,647 and became one of the great brood-mares of our post-war era. Her great-grand-daughter Meld foaled Charlottown after one of the most outstanding race-course careers ever accomplished by a filly, winning three classics. Bred to Bahram, Double Life foaled Persian Gulf who was a very good race-horse and, later at stud, of great influence in the preservation of his great sire's diminishing importance."

 

The real difficulty in assessing the influence of the Thoroughbred sire, Precipitation is that his effect on the performance horse world has been so profound that it is hard to know where to start - or finish.

He is perhaps the most influential sire of all, and while his influence on jumping horses has long been recognised, some of the most exciting dressage horses in the world today trace their ancestry to this great sire.

As with most great horses, the story starts with an exceptional mare, in this case Double Life, the foundation mare of one of Britain's most famous studs, Someries Stud near Newmarket. Double Life was a wiry, insignificant looking, washy chestnut with a plain head, and she never measured more than 15.3 hands. She was a good racehorse, an even better broodmare. She had eight foals, the second of which was the chestnut colt, Precipitation, born in 1933. Precipitation's sire, Hurry On, was coming to the end of his life, but in the 1920s he had sired three English Derby winners. Precipitation won seven races for £18,419 in stakes. At stud, he was a huge success as a sire of racehorses but more importantly for our story, several of his sons became enormously influential performance horse sires.

Consider the career of Furioso. Born in 1937, out of the Thoroughbred mare, Maureen by Son-In-Law by another of those stallions that keeps cropping up on performance pedigrees, Dark Ronald. Unlike his sire, Furioso was a failure on the track - zero wins in 21 starts - but became a fabulous sire of jumping horses in France, with his son, Lutteur B, winning the showjumping individual gold medal at the 1964 Olympics. German breeders rushed to France to buy horses like Furioso 11, Futuro and Cor de la Bryère (out of Lurioso by Furioso). Furioso 11 sired an amazing total of 10 horses that competed at the Tokyo Olympics. His daughter, Pomone B, won the 1966 World Showjumping Championship at the age of seven. Furioso 11's son, Voltaire is still one of Holland's leading sires. Mexico, a full brother to Furioso 11, sired Jexico du Parc, 6th at the 1984 Olympics as well as Le Mexico, a famous producer of showjumping horses in the Netherlands. A Furioso 11 daughter, Tanagra, produced the international showjumper, Jalisco B (by Almé). The Jalisco B son, Quito de Baussy won the World Showjumping title in 1990.

But it is not just in the jumping world that the Precipitation blood comes through. The Oldenburg stallion, Welt As - sire of World Champion, Olympic Bonfire - is out of Elfene, by Furioso 11, and Anky van Grunsven's other great dressage horse, Olympic Cocktail, is by Purioso, by Furioso xx. Purioso is also the sire of the Showjumper, Henderson Gammon, and the French dressage team horse, Arnoldo Thor.

In the Southern hemisphere, Precipitation has mainly exerted his influence on the racetrack. His three New Zealand based sons, Count Rendered, Summertime and Agricola were all top racing sires - and the Agricola son, Apache, showed that the stallion could produce international level showjumpers. .