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Sky High at the World Cup final in Gothenburg<\/em><\/p>\n One interesting development in the 40 years since Flaneur arrived, has been the discovery by Australian showjumping riders that while every now and then an ex-racehorse would prove to be a super showjumper, there were hundreds, perhaps thousands of others that didn\u2019t make the grade. Australian jumping riders have realised that they need purpose-bred horses of established jumping lines, to be competitive on the international stage.<\/p>\n The stallion, Sky High was one of the first to make a mark. Sky High, along with his full-brother, Skies Above was imported from the UK by Chris Howe. He was eventually acquired by one of the early performance horse breeders, Bev Chugg \u2013 now Bev Edwards of Jaybee fame \u2013 and ridden by her son, Chris.<\/p>\n According to Bev: \u201cAbout 1977, I started to look at the Warmbloods. I decided I wanted a Hanoverian, and one with a Ferdinand background.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThen the phone rang one night and it was Vin Cummins from Shepparton who was a good friend of mine. He said do you want a Hanoverian stallion? What is it? By Ferdi by Ferdinand – there we go, the little fairy on Beverly\u2019s shoulder again. I\u2019m very lucky, I always seem to fall into exactly the horse I want.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cChris Howe had imported the horse and he was looking for somebody to take him on. Vin had broken him in – sort of – he could do a bit of this and a bit of that. They were old-fashioned gentlemen, Vin and Chris – you did business on a handshake. I took the horse home and my son Chris said, what is that? I said, I\u2019ll ride him, which I did, and frustrated myself for 12 months, because you had to hit it with a whip every stride to get it to trot. Finally I said to Chris, \u2018what does this horse need?\u2019 He said let me have a try, took the horse over and went from there\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n The chunky stallion was a tough competitor, and won the right to represent Australia at the World Cup final in 1987. The following year, Sky High won an Australian Showjumping Championship. As a sire, Sky High has been a more than respectable producer \u2013 with World Cup competitors: Heza Skyhawk, Diamond B Ego, OT Flying High and Jaybee Schultz. Add to that a few other handy progeny sold overseas: Sky High 2, and Albrudee High Star, and exported grand-children, Southern Jester and Penrose Park Witchetty Grub. Sky High was the inaugural THM Jumping Stallion of the Year in 2002.<\/p>\n Although Chugg\u2019s next World Cup Final ride was on an unraced Thoroughbred, Mr Currency (once again discovered by his mother), he and his wife, Helen \u2013 in partnership with Mike Barrera (whose daughter, Michelle, rode internationally for the Philippines) put together one of the most exciting jumping breeding programs in the country.<\/p>\n Their company, Australian Sporthorse Breeders between 1999 and 2006 imported 17 horses as part of their breeding program. One of the first was the Belgian stallion, Vivant (Fuego du Prelet out of a mare of Landgraf breeding) imported in 1999. Since then he has come through the ranks in spectacular fashion, and last year took out Australia\u2019s richest showjumping competition, the Grand Prix at Elysian Fields \u2013 and he is first reserve in the team for the Hong Kong Games. <\/p>\n Chris Chugg\u2019s travelling companion on that trip to the 1987 World Cup final was Vicki Roycroft who had always been one of the showjumping riders who proclaimed the superiority of the Thoroughbred over the \u2018Dumb-blood\u2019. After competing at the World Cup final riding her Australian Thoroughbred, Apache, Vicki went on to win the Grand Prix of Rome, but ten years later, her views were changing. In 1998 she took over the ride on the Noblewood stallion, Jadalco (Fabio \/ Landgraf \/ Cor de la Bry\u00e8re), and won a World Cup Qualifier on him. He was soon after exported to the USA but the Australian rider had got the message. Before too long Vicki was riding her own German import, Luna Luna (Oldenburg branded, by the Holsteiner, Landadel), the mare that took her to the WEG in Jerez in 2002.<\/p>\n Since then, Vicki\u2019s conversion to the Warmblood has been complete and all her team are European jumping bred.<\/p>\n Vicki competed successfully on the World Cup circuit with the stallion, Premier des Hayettes (imported in 1999) \u2013 a brilliantly bred horse, being by Concorde, the best son of Voltaire, and out of Calbonny (Nimmerdor \/ Alm\u00e9). Calbonny is also the dam of international jumping star, Mozart des Hayettes.<\/p>\n Vicki competed at World Cup level with Copabella Stud\u2019s spectacular coloured stallion, Copabella Visage. Of Belgian \/ German breeding, Visage (in Europe, Visage van de Olmenhoeve) was purchased in France in 2003, and continues to send his (frozen) semen back to mare owners in that country.<\/p>\n The Copabella Stud is owned by Lesley and Alan Hargreaves and their daughter, Julia has now taken the ride on Visage, with considerable success. The Hargreaves family also contributes to the current revival of the jumping scene by running a very very classy boutique jumping show, the Copabella Classic.<\/p>\n In January 2005, Copabella imported the Selle Fran\u00e7ais mare, Holland Rose, in foal to Chin Chin (it was a colt!) and later that year, the Holsteiner mare, Cascavel (by Cantus) who is being used in an embryo transplant program while continuing her competition career.<\/p>\n George Sanna took the first Australian bred Warmblood to an Olympic Games \u2013 EBA Schnapps (by Duellsch\u00fctz) to Seoul in 1988, before the horse was sold to the USA. Since then, despite his professed ignorance of the intricacies of European jumping breeding, George \u2013 along with his one-time EBA partners, Rod Brown and John MacMillan – has had quite a lot to do with the development of the jumping Warmblood in Australia.<\/p>\n Both Rod and George competed on EBA Spectre who was by one of the early imported stallions \u2013 Abel Tasman.<\/p>\n While partners, the three imported the Trakehner jumping stallion, Trak, from Poland in 1990. In the early days of EBA, they had employed a young Polish guy, Tom Umiatovski. \u201cTom the Pole, we called him. He knew his way around a horse, and he was with us for about six months,\u201d George remembers.<\/p>\n George was in Stockholm for the WEG in 1990 where he competed in the Australian showjumping team with Westend Evita. There he met up with Tom again and travelled with him to Poland to look at horses.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was after Stockholm I went to the Stud with Tom. I was pretty impressed and decided we should buy a stallion, there were 200 to 300 stallions, so I decided we\u2019d buy a five or six year old. The only trouble was that they were all dark brown and they had 10-15 stable riders, I was standing in the middle with these batches of ten going round and round in a circle popping over this one jump one after another – six strides apart. And I\u2019m trying to get a bloody handle on these horses!\u201d
\nSince then, Australian Sporthorse Breeders have imported the mares: Alondra, (Indorado \/ Emilion), Quintana (Heartbreaker \/ Randel Z) and Isis van Herikhave (Burggraaf \/ Paladin des Ifs), all arriving in 1999; Baluna (Kannan \/ Zeus), Briglace (Cardento \/ Heartbreaker), Colthaga (Colman \/ Barnaul), Galaxie Piereville (Jalisco \/ Grand Veneur), Miss Platiere (Verdi \/ Papillon Rouge), Altes van Beekveld (Darco \/ Voltaire), all arriving in 2004 and the 2005 arrivals: Chinaria (Chin Chin \/ Cassini I), Indira (Heartbreaker \/ Burggraaf), Sommerwind (Caretino \/ Ramiro Z) and the stallions: Conquistador (Clinton \/ Heartbreaker) in 2004, Quindoctro (Indoctro \/ Heartbreaker) in 2005 and Caracas (Cassell \/ Colman) who arrived in 2006.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/69.89.31.130\/~thehors5\/thm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Premier-des-Hayettes.jpg\" "\\"Premier")
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\nEventually he made his choice – Trak.<\/p>\n