Pics - At Horsley Park, Matt Ryan, Kibah Sandstone, and his proud breeder, Bud Hyem.
(bottom left) Bud and Drift competing at Melbourne Royal back in 61.
(bottom right) Bud wins a Garryowen with Alpine

There are very few breeders who produce even one Olympic horse, let alone an Olympic gold medal horse. Australia’s Bud Hyem is doubtless the only breeder in the world to have produced two gold medal Olympic eventers!
Bud Hyem is one of those breeders who became a horse breeder first-and-foremost because she was a rider.
“I rode my pony to school as a child, and that’s where I got my love of riding. I was hooked on horses from then.”
“I did a lot of show riding, I won the Garryowen at Melbourne Royal and won champion hack and lady rider quite a few times. I showjumped a lot, and went to the Tokyo Olympic Games as a member of our showjumping team with John Fahey and Kevin Bacon - it was fabulous.”
“Breeding horses has only ever been a hobby. When we came home from Tokyo, my husband and I decided we wanted to breed horses for jumping and eventing. He bought a lovely stallion, Judicate, who was by Hyperion (the famous Bay Ronald line again - CH). I had a lot of very good mares.”
“Drift was the original one who was so brilliant, she went back to a horse that won the Melbourne Cup, Marabou (out of Vivandiere a grand-daughter of Son In Law - Bay Ronald again) . Drift was the mother of Sandrift, who is the mother of Kibah Tic Toc and Kibah Sandstone. Drift was one of the most brilliant mares Australia has seen, you could do anything on her, at Sydney Royal alone, she won hack classes, stock horse classes, she was in the Three Day Event and played international polo... and showjumped. She was basically Thoroughbred. When you get five generations away from Tic Toc and Sandstone, we are not quite so sure, because my father bought Drift’s grandmother from a drover going past for £3, she was a lovely jet black mare with a couple of socks and a blaze.”
“I’ve got two stallions now, both bred from the Tic Toc family. Kibah Distinction, five years old, jet black with a couple of little socks, he’s by the Hanoverian, Dynamit, and the other Sensation, is an Australian bred Warmblood. Distinction has just gone out on a little showjumping tour with Tim Fahey, John Fahey’s son, and he is very happy with the way he is going. The other fellow, Sensation, won’t be going out until next year because I refuse to let them jump until they are five years old - I like their minds to be set, and their bones to be set and not hassled too early in life.”
“I’ve got two mare lines. As well as the Drift line, there was a horse that I rode at the Tokyo Games, Coronation, and when I came home, I bought the full-sister and gave her to my husband as a wedding present, and we have another line from that mare. Kibah Medallion, who was on the long list with Derek Piper, came from that line.”
“At the moment I’ve got about ten active broodmares - there’s a few younger ones that I’ll breed from eventually.”
“My daughter, Lisa did all the work on Tic Toc and Sandstone, got them up to Advanced and then married and had two children - that’s why Matt Ryan got them, I didn’t want them sitting in the paddock doing nothing. She told me at the Sydney Olympics that she was bitten by the bug again that she is going to start riding again. I’m just so happy that I’ve got help again.”
“In the past I have used live cover and AI, but I am going to use artificial insemination with the two young stallions because they are going to compete, and I don’t believe in having stallions that are competing serving mares.”
“The sire of Sandstone is Bamborough Sunny Souvenir, he was bred by the Haydons. He is out of Bamborough Suntan by Gemborough, who goes back to Gainsborough, as does Big Hat the sire of Sandstone’s dam, Sandrift. On the top side Sunny Souvenir is by Souvenir - they can be a bit hot, it shows in Sandstone, he is not an easy horse to ride, Matt has done a very good job with him. One Day eventing with my daughter he was never hot but once the he gets stirred up on the steeplechase, then he is very hard to get back for the cross country.”
You are not worried that by introducing the Warmblood you are going to lose the speed and the stamina?
“No, because I think I proved that with Tic Toc. My original mares were hot and Karl de Jurenak, who trained the Australian team, said he was going to send out a German Warmblood stallion for my hot mares. He sent out Domherr to Edenglassie Stud, and I sent my mares down there, and Tic Toc was the first one born! Tic Toc is so calm and so brilliant, the other day - at the age of 23 - I took him hunting with the hounds at Scone for four solid hours. It was the most brilliant feeling, up and down the gullies and the mountains, he just wanted to keep going on and on, even at 23.”
“Unfortunately I didn’t get any mares by Domherr, so my brood mares are basically Thoroughbred.”
“Judicate, who was by Hyperion, bred lovely types, and they could all jump well. There was a really good one we sold to Vicki Roycroft that got her going in showjumping, called Arrest and Trial. I’ve sold quite a few horses but it is hard to keep tabs on them, lots of riders - like Matt - don’t write and let you know how the horse is going. You have to ring them because they are hopeless correspondents. I have no real idea of how well the horses have gone.”
Do you have any rules when it comes to selecting mares for your breeding program?
“I won’t breed from a mare with bad conformation. I look for conformation and temperament. You can have 17 hand horses and 15 hand horses, if they are good enough, they are big enough. I don’t worry about size. I don’t like horses that are too heavy. Across country I like the really Thoroughbred types, but they have got to have good bone. And a good brain.”
“I have my favourite bloodlines, but if a stallion starts to produce a few good offspring, then I try to get a mare to him, as I did with Brilliant Invader.”
“I bought a lovely mare just before Atlanta called Skipcello Loam, bred by a great friend of mine, Esther Bellis, a wonderful lady. The mare had the most beautiful foal on her - and that was Gershwin, who recently came second at Burghley. Unfortunately I lost the most beautiful three year old filly foal from that mare, because of a lightening strike. It was one of the saddest moments in my life, I went over the paddock, to check the mares, and there were two down under a tree. We’d seen lightening just the day before - that was it. But the mare is now in foal to Brilliant Invader who is the sire of Ready Teddy, I hope that is a filly too so I can carry that line on.”

Bud and Tic Toc carry the Olympic flame on its way to the Sydney Games;

Watch out for Torch - carrying the Kibah flag in the next generation!

Would you describe yourself as an instinctive breeder - or a scientific breeder?
“I wouldn’t describe myself as scientific at all. I know what I like, and I try to aim for that. I’m cutting down now, I’m getting too old to do it, and my family is unfortunately not keen enough to carry the program on. Our horses are all naturally raised. We have a 6000 acre place, with the lovely Namor river running right through it, lovely feed, lovely grass paddocks. I keep most of the horses I breed, that’s why my family gets so angry. I give quite a few of them away, lend them to people. I find it very hard to sell them because I love watching them compete as mine later on. I’ve got too many at home now, I’ll have to sell a few I suppose.”
Is it still as much of a thrill, coming into a new season, new foals being born?
“It certainly is. Just before I came down to the Sydney Games, Tic Toc’s half-sister had a most beautiful foal by Brilliant Invader. Chestnut, two long socks in front, and two tiny ones behind, and I’ve called her, Torch, because only two days before I carried the Olympic torch through Gunnedah on Tic Toc. Watch out for her in five or six years time...”

			Desire
		Request
			Relation
	Souvenir ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
			Carra Rice
		Nenna
			Rubenette
Bamborough Sunny Souvenir -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
					Bayardo
				Gainsborough
					Rosedrop
			Emborough
					Phalaris
				Embarras de Richesse
					Enrichment
		Gemborough
					Sunstar
				Saltash
					Hamoaze
			Sea Pearl
					Tressady
				Pearl Necklace
					Waianui
	Bamborough Suntan -------------------------------------------------------------------------
				Wedge
			Bobbled Steel
				Gooia
		Sunny
				Cremalto
			Valto
				Vaginette
KIBAH SANDSTONE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
				Gainsborough
			Hyperion
				Selene
		High Hat
				Donatello
			Madonna
				WomenÕs Legion
	Big Hat -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
				Prince Rose
			Prince Chevalier
				Chevelerie
		Gay Natasha
				Bobsleigh
			First Blush
				First Flight
Kibah Sandrift -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
					Abbots Trace
				Marconigram
					Marcia Blanche
			Marabou
					Bucks Hussar
				Vivandiere
					Spondee
		Beau Gift
			Forlorn
	Drift ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
			Glen Rego
		Dinah bred at Hunter Spring Station, Scone, NSW

Bud Hyem
All round horsewoman...
by Fran Cleland

Bud & Drift competing at the Melbourne 3DE
where they were second to Bud and her other mount Alpine...

Few people realise the extent of Bud Hyem’s talents. Yes, she is the breeder of two gold medal winning Olympic eventers, a rare enough feat, but there’s a lot more to this elegant woman than that.
In 1960, she won the famous Garryowen event with her grey Thoroughbred, Alpine, and earned a carpeting from the wallahs of the RASV for missing the traditional celebratory luncheon because she went off to compete in a showjumping competition instead. Could you imagine today’s winners doing this?
Bud said that decided her against further Garryowen competition as jumping was for more important to her, and as she ripped her good Garryowen breeches in a jumping fall shortly after, it put paid to any change of mind!
The Melbourne Three Day Event was held six weeks later, and against a field which included riders such as Ern Barker, Judith Ritchie and Jock McArthur, Bud was first and second, with her Garryowen mount Alpine in first place, after a six weeks ‘get fit’ program to change him from hack to eventer and Drift (pictured left), the bay mare who was to become the grand dam of the current Kibah champions placed second.
A trip to New Zealand with an Australian showjumping team followed with the brown, Lookout. Then came the partnership with the great, baldy-faced, chestnut Coronation. Trained by the great Franz Mairinger as a potential eventer, Coronation was more suited to showjumping, and was twice winner of the EFA Cup at Sydney Royal show.
Bud and Coronation were selected in the showjumping team to go to the Tokyo Olympics, along with Kevin Bacon and Ocean Foam, and John Fahey with Bonvale. The team ended the Games in seventh position after John Fahey missed out on the bronze medal in a jump off. Bud jumped two good Olympic rounds in Tokyo on Coronation to finish in 28th place just in front of Kevin Bacon and Ocean Foam. Her selection in that team makes Bud Hyem the first woman rider to represent Australia at an Olympic Games.
A Garryowen winner, a Melbourne 3DE Open class winner, an Olympian in showjumping, and a breeder of Olympic champion eventers... some woman!