Judgement or luck: finding the five-star freak
“THEY are freaks.” So says Richard Sheane describing the horses that will go on to be Badminton contenders. Richard, who is the mastermind behind Cooley, the leading Irish operation sourcing sports horses, spends his life searching and sifting – looking for the future stars.
Examine the breeding of the horses in the Badminton start list and you can see what he means. Very few stallions come up more than once, and all shapes and sizes are on view in the collecting ring.
Ex-racehorses, like Gemma Tattersall’s Arctic Soul, line up against the perfectly bred warmbloods such as Michael Jung’s La Biosthetique-Sam FBW. If there is no blueprint for the Badminton event horse, is it just a lottery?
“Well, certain people are luckier than others,” says Sir Mark Todd, fourtime Badminton and five-time Burghley winner.
It is true
