Woodcroft Stud win on Baileys!
Baileys first met Trakhener Stallion, Woodcroft Garuda, when he was sponsored by Baileys with Malcom Holtshausen. So we were delighted to hear that, after moving to new rider and BEF evaluator Lesley Peyton-Gilbert’s yard, Garuda was still enjoying his Baileys feed!He is currently competing at PSG level and his owners, Bernadette O’Sullivan & Tim Harris of Woodcroft Stud, hope that he will move up to Inter 1 next year. Garuda’s breeding credentials are equally impressive and he gained the Champion BEF Stallion accolade, based on his progeny results in 2008.
Woodcroft’s progeny have all gained first or elite
premiums at the Futurity Evaluations and Garuda’s foal ‘Woodcroft Hirtensonne' also took Champion Foal & Supreme Champion at this year’s Trakehner Show. Further successes include last year’s Supreme Champion Mare 'Woodcroft Galadriel', this year’s Supreme Champion Hanoverian 'Woodcroft Dancing Queen' and producing Supreme Champion British Warmblood Stallion 'Dark De Niro' for the Louella Stud.
premiums at the Futurity Evaluations and Garuda’s foal ‘Woodcroft Hirtensonne' also took Champion Foal & Supreme Champion at this year’s Trakehner Show. Further successes include last year’s Supreme Champion Mare 'Woodcroft Galadriel', this year’s Supreme Champion Hanoverian 'Woodcroft Dancing Queen' and producing Supreme Champion British Warmblood Stallion 'Dark De Niro' for the Louella Stud. Bernadette & Tim breed around 5 foals a year, regularly import from Germany and compete in BD and young horse classes. Baileys feed is fed to all the horses at Woodcroft Stud with Bernadette’s favourite product being Baileys Outshine high oil supplement! When selling around 20 horses a year, all are sent to their new home with their current Baileys diet.
Obviously we are delighted to hear how Garuda is getting on and that the Woodcroft progeny are continuing to prove themselves on evaluation! To find out more about Woodcroft Stud, visit their website here, or read their new breeding column in Horse Deals!
Can English go Western? Laura Cohen thinks so!
Laura has had her horse Harry M for 15 years, competing up to Fox Hunter level show jumping in his younger days and winning many affiliated classes! Later, when looking for a change, Laura decided to do some showing and working hunter classes and went on to compete county level! However, after about 8 years of many successful wins Harry was diagnosed with coffin joint and was lame for about 6 months. Laura had to turn him away for a year with the vet warning he may never become sound again. Luckily Laura was able to bring him back into light work (light hacking and pleasure rides).
Laura first got the western bug after a year out in Australia where she was involved in breaking and training western horses and was inspired by the natural horsemanship involved. So naturally when she returned to the UK Laura started to train Harry in the basics of western riding. Initially Laura had “no idea western riding existed in the UK, until she got chatting to an old horsey friend who was a member of WES”. She was then put in touch with the top western trainers and went to many of the clinics up and down the country!
Throughout 2011 Laura competed at all of the championship shows, saying her “first western show riding one handed was the hardest thing I ever did, especially on an English horse!” However, despite being up against all the top quarter horses in the country at the AQHA show Laura gained two second places out of 8 entries and one third out of 11 entries!Laura says that many people were amazed that she had trained an English horse to do western and acknowledges that it “takes a lot longer and a lot of patience” but says it was an “amazing challenge and great feeling to beat the best quarter horses and top trainers”.
Laura’s next challenge for 2012 is to buy a young horse and break and train it for western shows as Harry is now 19 and getting a bit old for the western classes, despite looking great on his Baileys No.4 Top Line Conditioning Cubes! Ultimately, Laura then hopes to become a professional and go on to compete in reining classes.
Peter Charles flies the Baileys Flag!
Baileys are thrilled to announce a new addition to the Baileys Team – prolific show jumper Peter Charles!Born in Liverpool but with an Irish mother, Peter was a member of the Irish show jumping team for many years after taking up Irish nationality prior to the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. However, in 2006 Peter suffered a serious fall where he ruptured his spinal sheath, shattered three ribs and broke a vertebra. After his recovery, reasoning that he had British owners and lived in Britain, he was given clearance by the International Equestrian Federation (FEI) to change his nationality and he has ridden under the union flag in the Nations Cup ever since.
With an impressive catalogue of successes throughout his career, including individual gold at the European Championships in 1995 and individual 8th at the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996, Peter played an integral part in the Irish Team. He is still the only rider to have won the two richest Grand Prix’s in Great Britain and, more recently, added the Derby Trophy to his 2011 Hickstead silverware collection with a superb display on Great Britain Nations Cup regular Murka's Nevada.
Since switching to Baileys Horse Feed Peter has "noticed a real difference in the horses” saying they are “gaining top line and looking great without going off their heads. The Nutritional support has also been second-to-none, which is important when you’re dealing with top performance horses on a busy schedule.”
Obviously we can’t wait to see Peter’s horses in action in 2012 so expect more updates soon! Remember that the Nutritional Advice offered to Peter is also offered to all our customers so if you have want to know more about our products, or just want to talk about your horses diet, just call our Nutrition Line on 01371 850247 (option 2).
The British Breeder Awards Dinner 2011!
The Baileys Horse Feeds / BEF Futurity Young Horse Evaluation series was developed to encourage breeders, owners and trainers of eligible young horses from foals through to 3 years to bring their horses forward into the public eye for evaluation.After a total of 16 assessment days throughout 2011, the results were counted and the best horse in each category was listed for an award at the 2011 Breeders Awards Dinner! A fantastic evening was had by all and Baileys Marketing Manager, Jane Buchan, who presented the awards, was pleased to see some familiar faces!
Baileys sponsored rider, Nick Gauntlett, won the Leading Eventing Foal Award with Early Morning, by Chilli morning and from Tenderfoot - an award winner in her own right taking the Mare Award! We've listed the top scoring horses below but a comprehensive list of all the futurity results, including category winners for each discipline, can be found at here. To see all the photos of the evening, simply visit the Baileys facebook page!
Foal Award – Woodlander Wild Child (BHHS) – Lynne Crowden, Woodlander Stud
Yearling Award – Lets Dance (IDHS) – Vienna Bayles
2 Year Old Award – Gold Rush (SHBGN) – Karen Neild
3 Year Old Award – Danny Kannan (KWPN) – Jonathan Parrot
Stallion Award – Woodlander Wavavoom – Lynne Crowden, Woodlander Stud
Mare Award – Tenderfoot (Weatherbys) – Breeder: JR Furlong, Owner: Grance Muir (HEROS), homed by Kyrle Arscott
A Meeting of Minds: At Your Horse Live 2011!
Baileys first came across Sheer Bliss,a Part Bred Arab, at the Baileys BEF Futurity Evaluations, but were delighted to see her recently at Your Horse Live taking part in a demonstration with Jason Webb (Australian Horse Training) all grown up!
Bliss’s owner, Sallie Dudley, initially decided to breed from her Endurance competition horse, Pharach Samantha (Sam) when she damaged a suspensory ligament. This produced Kiwi (now 9) and, six years down the line when Sam retired, Kiwi’s half sister Bliss appeared! Although, Bliss is registered as a Part Bred Arab, she is also a first cross Australian Stock Horse. Her dam was mostly Anglo Arab, with a splash of Trakehner, whilst her sire (Risebridge Diesel) is a pure Australian Stock Horse, by Rosebrook Falute.
Sallie first heard of the Futurity Scheme back when Kiwi was a 2 year old but, at the time, you had to join the scheme from foal to 6 year old which she was unable to commit to. Luckily, Sallie looked again at the scheme when Sam was in foal with Bliss, and although at this point Endurance was not an option, she took the risk of entering Bliss as a potential eventer! Bliss was 7 weeks old at her evaluation, and Sallie was delighted to get a second premium for her. Considering she was bred specifically as an Endurance horse, this was a great result! When speaking to Jan Rogers at the evaluation about the inclusion of Endurance into the scheme, Sallie learnt that talks were on-going between Endurance GB and BEF and was consequently able support EGB in the inclusion of Endurance into the scheme. This meant that she was able to put Bliss forward in the Endurance category as yearling where she rightly claimed a First premium!
Sallie now recommends the scheme to other Endurance Breeders as, despite the fact most Endurance breeders aren’t commercial, it is important to know what they are breeding, and how well the foal does in the future, so those wishing to breed with a limited budget can get the best possible foal for their money. Although Endurance is very much an amateur sport and the vast majority of riders start with a horse they already have, Sallie believes it is still important that Britain proves it’s capable of breeding top class sports horses from grassroots to bigger studs in all FEI disciplines.
Prior to the Your Horse Live demo, Sallie first came across Jason Webb (Australian Horse Training) having seen a remarkable change in a friend’s horse that had been sent to him. Having seen him working with young horses, Sallie decided to let him start with Kiwi, who was somewhat challenging at the time, and it was whilst she was there that Sallie spotted Bliss’s future sire, Diesel in a paddock! Following her appearance at the Futurity as a yearling, Bliss had been handled routinely, trimmed up and introduced to a trailer. Bliss began her own training with Jason on 31st October 2011 and spent a week getting used to the place before Jason started working with her on Tuesday 8th November. He spent time desensitising her to a plastic bag on the end of a stick, which she was not impressed with, and reverted to her normal response, which was to stand up on her hind legs! However, Jason was amazing and fairly shortly was rubbing her all over with the bag. He also introduced her to a roller and was able to back her up and move her where he wanted her.
On Wednesday, he taught her to long-rein, including a change of rein, before repeating all the exercises on Thursday in a different round pen (which she was also not happy about). On Friday, she was bathed, groomed, trimmed, loaded onto Jason’s lorry and taken to Your Horse Live, ready for Saturday’s demonstration!The actual title for the demonstration was a Meeting of Minds – where Jason and Charlie Unwin, a sports psychologist, used Bliss to show how to build trust between horse and human, with the aim of actually sitting on her for the first time on Saturday (in the round pen), and then riding her out into the Arena on Sunday. Despite being classed as “grumpy” by Jason she coped well with the atmosphere and ended up going round the arena with Jason like a real pro!
After Your Horse, Bliss spent another week with Jason before being collected by Sallie. She will now have the winter off before heading back in March to get the basics re-established ready to start hacking with Sallie. With some nice, short NCRs planned for the end of the season, Bliss will hopefully go on to do longer NCRs in 2013, or possibly some Novice CRs. Sallie’s ultimate goal will be to celebrate her 60th birthday in 2018 by completing a 160km ER on her homebred Endurance legend!
Both Bliss and Kiwi are currently fed a combination of Baileys Stud Balancer and No.14 Lo-Cal Balancer, alongside adlib fibre. Clearly Bliss looks amazing and we were delighted to hear of her latest achievements!
Just click to find our more about the Futurity Scheme and Australian Horse Training.
Just click to find our more about the Futurity Scheme and Australian Horse Training.