Thirty-four years ago Kevin Babington packed up his riding kit and left Tipperary for the US, still only a teenager.
He was to become a titan of the ring; with thousands of show jumping rounds, the Athens Olympics, European Championships and dozens of Nations Cups under his belt, many on his extraordinary mare Shorapur.
In 2019 at the Hampton Classic show in New York, while Kevin was aboard Shorapur and flying through another fast round, the trick of a shadow caused Shorapur to falter at the last of a triple combination.
The mare took off early, catching her front legs and the talented pair fell. In that split second, among the clattering poles and surface dust, life changed for them both forever.
Kevin suffered a catastrophic injury to his spinal cord which has left him paralysed and on a long road to recovery. Shorapur was uninjured but the trajectory of her life was also to change.
Five-star mare Shorapur is now living life as a broodmare at Ballypatrick Stables in Tipperary. \ Lorraine O'Sullivan
Shorapur was six years old when Kevin first laid eyes on her. He was at a friend’s yard in Germany trying another horse, when he was shown a video of “an interesting mare”. That mare was Shorapur and Kevin immediately wanted to sit on her, a move not initially encouraged as he recounts: “I said I wanted to sit on her, and my friend said, ‘She’s really difficult, I don’t know if you really want to sit on her.’ I said, ‘No, I want to sit on her!’ And so I insisted on trying her and when I did she was quirky and she was hot but the jump was phenomenal.”
Phenomenal
Purchasing Shorapur was the next challenge and Kevin had to buy someone out to get a half-share of her. “I brought her to the States and as a seven-year-old she looked phenomenal. She was the talk of the show and a very good rider tried her and wanted to purchase her and we were back and forth on price. One of my customers said, ‘You don’t seem very happy about selling her,’ and I said, ‘I’m always happy to sell, but I think she’s going to be a topper someday.’ At which point she came back with, ‘Well why don’t we figure out a way to keep her!’ So together with some customers and friends that’s what Kevin did, putting together the Shorapur Group syndicate.
Kevin teaches his clients from his wheelchair in the porch at his home in Florida. \ AK Dragoo Photography
An easy ride Shorapur was not. She is by Stakkato Gold out of a Drosselklang II mare, with a whole lot of her grandsire Stakkato in the way she jumps. “I wouldn’t be familiar with the motherline so much,” Kevin admits, “but she’s just a very blood horse, and very much a mare in the sense that she is really sensitive and very opinionated. She wasn’t the easiest horse to work on the flat. She had a difficult canter, especially on one lead more than the other, but she had huge respect for the jump.
“She had incredible scope and was unbelievably careful, so her carefulness compensated for the lack of rideability. She always respected the front rail; even if she was running herself into trouble, she was coming off the front rail all the time. So it just balanced itself out. Even in the stable she wouldn’t have been the easiest to handle.
“Elizabeth Sponseller, my manager and head girl at the time, figured her out. Shorapur loved Elizabeth. She was the type of horse who wasn’t for everybody to handle. But then she was funny too; sometimes you would go to walk into her box and she looked like she was going to bite your head off, but when she got in there, she was all over you. She was just possessive of her space until you were actually in her space and then she was fine!”
Despite all the “blood” Kevin describes, when you actually take a look at Shorapur’s pedigree page, there’s only 18.49% thoroughbred blood there. Despite the current popular hunt for thoroughbred blood in jumpers, blood on the page and blood on the ground are very different things. Shorapur has every characteristic of blood you are looking for, in the brain and in the body. “She definitely has blood,” says Kevin. “The motor was always running. I didn’t have to create much.”
Like most top-level horses, Shorapur has had her share of soundness challenges. “We went through a phase where her feet weren’t great, but then we went with glue-on shoes and then they were fantastic,” explains Kevin. “Shorapur was hard on herself. She would jump so hard she would give everything, 110%, and I think we might have had the odd soundness issues because of that. But overall, once we got her feet sorted out, then she was great.
“In 2017 she strained her high suspensory behind. I went all the way over to La Baule to jump on the Irish Nation’s Cup team. We were hoping to either build up to the European Championships that year or to the Dublin Horse Show. But she ended up getting that injury and she missed the best part of nine months because of that.”
Successes
Shorapur had countless top-level successes jumping with Kevin over the years and for such a careful horse she was incredibly brave, as Kevin explains: “Sometimes she was brave almost to a fault, she was so brave she would run herself into trouble sometimes. I jumped some huge tracks on her and you know you could jump 1.40m on her and it would feel like you might be at the end of her scope, and then you could jump a huge 1.60m track and it would feel easier on her. It just sort of depended on the day. She was just so careful that sometimes she would lose a bit of her scope through her carefulness, if that makes sense?”
After the pair’s terrifying accident and despite Kevin’s serious injury, Shorapur wasn’t shaken. Kevin says of her and the fall: “I honestly don’t think it shook her because she didn’t get caught up, it was a vertical coming out, I don’t think it phased her. Elizabeth rode her afterwards and she had no injury thankfully.”
As Kevin’s long recovery began, the question of what to do with Shorapur ran alongside it. “I thought about maybe giving her to another rider, but you know she could be quirky in her combinations. I was just worried that if another rider got hurt on her I’d never forgive myself. And she wouldn’t be one you would just give a rider a leg up on and they would get to know in five minutes. She probably had one of the most winning years in 2019 leading up to the accident, she had an amazing year.
“Her consistency and track record in the FEI classes was just unbelievable. But she was hard on herself, she was a hard mare and I just thought, what if something went wrong? I had a few riders in mind and it was a hard decision, but I talked to the group and we all agreed to try to get some babies out of her and put her in foal, send her to Ireland and let her live out her life.”
Breeding
With foals as the next challenge for Shorapur, Kevin felt the pull of home for reasons of both friendship and practicality, he says: “We attempted to get her into foal here in the States, but weren’t successful and I thought if anybody could do it Cheryl Broderick at Ballypatrick Breeding could do it; plus it’s the best climate, the best place for her.
“I just thought if she’s going to be a broodmare I want her to be a proper broodmare and enjoy it and live out with a herd of horses. I’m not going to drag her all the way back to the States, I’d like her to live her life out in Ireland. And to have somebody like Cheryl on hand all the time, to be able to give her the best opportunity to get in foal. Breeding is not my expertise, I follow it a bit, but as far as picking the right stallion and knowing who to choose, I figured Cheryl and Greg [Broderick] would be far better at that than I would.”
When I ask Kevin if Shorapur is the best horse he’s ever sat on, he is honest: “It would be very hard to say that Carling King wasn’t the best horse I ever rode [with Kevin Carling King was eighth in the World Equestrian Games in Jerez, Spain 2002, won multiple international Nation’s Cups in 2003, and was the 2001 Samsung Nation’s Cup leading horse. Kevin and Carling King also placed fourth individually at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens]. As far as a championship horse or a horse I could jump any competition in the world, Carling King put me on the map. Shorapur is probably one of the most winning horses I have ever ridden though. She’s definitely a horse of a lifetime and I definitely have never sat on a horse more careful, that’s for sure.”
Beautiful filly
Now 17, Shorapur has been in Ireland since June 2020 and last year she foaled a beautiful filly by handsome resident stallion at Ballypatrick, Rock n Roll Ter Putte who is by the legendary Diamant de Semilly. During that time, Kevin has been hugely supported by his family and friends and the wider equestrian world in his Herculean work to recover from the fall.
“It’s coming on,” he says of his rehabilitation. “I’m doing rehab three or four days a week. Some days I feel much stronger and other days it’s one of those things where you are feeling stronger but then you get body sore from the exercise, from the work. I feel certain things have improved, I’ve more feeling in my legs. I definitely have a lot of movement in one arm in particular. That’s getting much stronger, my shoulders are getting much stronger too. But you know, you do have days where you get down, because I’m starting to get a bit more feeling I’m also starting to get a little more pain. So it’s a bit of a double-edged sword. You have to take the good with the bad, or the bad with the good.”
There are plans afoot to come home to Ireland and those plans are not just motivated by family. “I’d love to get over to Ireland at some stage this year or next. My family have been very good to come over and visit, but I’d love to get back and to be honest, get up and see not just my family, but to get up and see Shorapur and the other mares at Ballypatrick. I’m really anxious to do that.”
“I just hope we can get some good foals out of Shorapur, I think she deserves it. If she can pass on her heart and carefulness and her scope, I’m so interested to see what we can breed from her. I know she’s in the best of hands at Ballypatrick. You know, I think Shorapur probably loves being feral again. I know they have a hard time catching her!”
Thirty-four years ago Kevin Babington packed up his riding kit and left Tipperary for the US, still only a teenager.
He was to become a titan of the ring; with thousands of show jumping rounds, the Athens Olympics, European Championships and dozens of Nations Cups under his belt, many on his extraordinary mare Shorapur.
In 2019 at the Hampton Classic show in New York, while Kevin was aboard Shorapur and flying through another fast round, the trick of a shadow caused Shorapur to falter at the last of a triple combination.
The mare took off early, catching her front legs and the talented pair fell. In that split second, among the clattering poles and surface dust, life changed for them both forever.
Kevin suffered a catastrophic injury to his spinal cord which has left him paralysed and on a long road to recovery. Shorapur was uninjured but the trajectory of her life was also to change.
Five-star mare Shorapur is now living life as a broodmare at Ballypatrick Stables in Tipperary. \ Lorraine O'Sullivan
Shorapur was six years old when Kevin first laid eyes on her. He was at a friend’s yard in Germany trying another horse, when he was shown a video of “an interesting mare”. That mare was Shorapur and Kevin immediately wanted to sit on her, a move not initially encouraged as he recounts: “I said I wanted to sit on her, and my friend said, ‘She’s really difficult, I don’t know if you really want to sit on her.’ I said, ‘No, I want to sit on her!’ And so I insisted on trying her and when I did she was quirky and she was hot but the jump was phenomenal.”
Phenomenal
Purchasing Shorapur was the next challenge and Kevin had to buy someone out to get a half-share of her. “I brought her to the States and as a seven-year-old she looked phenomenal. She was the talk of the show and a very good rider tried her and wanted to purchase her and we were back and forth on price. One of my customers said, ‘You don’t seem very happy about selling her,’ and I said, ‘I’m always happy to sell, but I think she’s going to be a topper someday.’ At which point she came back with, ‘Well why don’t we figure out a way to keep her!’ So together with some customers and friends that’s what Kevin did, putting together the Shorapur Group syndicate.
Kevin teaches his clients from his wheelchair in the porch at his home in Florida. \ AK Dragoo Photography
An easy ride Shorapur was not. She is by Stakkato Gold out of a Drosselklang II mare, with a whole lot of her grandsire Stakkato in the way she jumps. “I wouldn’t be familiar with the motherline so much,” Kevin admits, “but she’s just a very blood horse, and very much a mare in the sense that she is really sensitive and very opinionated. She wasn’t the easiest horse to work on the flat. She had a difficult canter, especially on one lead more than the other, but she had huge respect for the jump.
“She had incredible scope and was unbelievably careful, so her carefulness compensated for the lack of rideability. She always respected the front rail; even if she was running herself into trouble, she was coming off the front rail all the time. So it just balanced itself out. Even in the stable she wouldn’t have been the easiest to handle.
“Elizabeth Sponseller, my manager and head girl at the time, figured her out. Shorapur loved Elizabeth. She was the type of horse who wasn’t for everybody to handle. But then she was funny too; sometimes you would go to walk into her box and she looked like she was going to bite your head off, but when she got in there, she was all over you. She was just possessive of her space until you were actually in her space and then she was fine!”
Despite all the “blood” Kevin describes, when you actually take a look at Shorapur’s pedigree page, there’s only 18.49% thoroughbred blood there. Despite the current popular hunt for thoroughbred blood in jumpers, blood on the page and blood on the ground are very different things. Shorapur has every characteristic of blood you are looking for, in the brain and in the body. “She definitely has blood,” says Kevin. “The motor was always running. I didn’t have to create much.”
Like most top-level horses, Shorapur has had her share of soundness challenges. “We went through a phase where her feet weren’t great, but then we went with glue-on shoes and then they were fantastic,” explains Kevin. “Shorapur was hard on herself. She would jump so hard she would give everything, 110%, and I think we might have had the odd soundness issues because of that. But overall, once we got her feet sorted out, then she was great.
“In 2017 she strained her high suspensory behind. I went all the way over to La Baule to jump on the Irish Nation’s Cup team. We were hoping to either build up to the European Championships that year or to the Dublin Horse Show. But she ended up getting that injury and she missed the best part of nine months because of that.”
Successes
Shorapur had countless top-level successes jumping with Kevin over the years and for such a careful horse she was incredibly brave, as Kevin explains: “Sometimes she was brave almost to a fault, she was so brave she would run herself into trouble sometimes. I jumped some huge tracks on her and you know you could jump 1.40m on her and it would feel like you might be at the end of her scope, and then you could jump a huge 1.60m track and it would feel easier on her. It just sort of depended on the day. She was just so careful that sometimes she would lose a bit of her scope through her carefulness, if that makes sense?”
After the pair’s terrifying accident and despite Kevin’s serious injury, Shorapur wasn’t shaken. Kevin says of her and the fall: “I honestly don’t think it shook her because she didn’t get caught up, it was a vertical coming out, I don’t think it phased her. Elizabeth rode her afterwards and she had no injury thankfully.”
As Kevin’s long recovery began, the question of what to do with Shorapur ran alongside it. “I thought about maybe giving her to another rider, but you know she could be quirky in her combinations. I was just worried that if another rider got hurt on her I’d never forgive myself. And she wouldn’t be one you would just give a rider a leg up on and they would get to know in five minutes. She probably had one of the most winning years in 2019 leading up to the accident, she had an amazing year.
“Her consistency and track record in the FEI classes was just unbelievable. But she was hard on herself, she was a hard mare and I just thought, what if something went wrong? I had a few riders in mind and it was a hard decision, but I talked to the group and we all agreed to try to get some babies out of her and put her in foal, send her to Ireland and let her live out her life.”
Breeding
With foals as the next challenge for Shorapur, Kevin felt the pull of home for reasons of both friendship and practicality, he says: “We attempted to get her into foal here in the States, but weren’t successful and I thought if anybody could do it Cheryl Broderick at Ballypatrick Breeding could do it; plus it’s the best climate, the best place for her.
“I just thought if she’s going to be a broodmare I want her to be a proper broodmare and enjoy it and live out with a herd of horses. I’m not going to drag her all the way back to the States, I’d like her to live her life out in Ireland. And to have somebody like Cheryl on hand all the time, to be able to give her the best opportunity to get in foal. Breeding is not my expertise, I follow it a bit, but as far as picking the right stallion and knowing who to choose, I figured Cheryl and Greg [Broderick] would be far better at that than I would.”
When I ask Kevin if Shorapur is the best horse he’s ever sat on, he is honest: “It would be very hard to say that Carling King wasn’t the best horse I ever rode [with Kevin Carling King was eighth in the World Equestrian Games in Jerez, Spain 2002, won multiple international Nation’s Cups in 2003, and was the 2001 Samsung Nation’s Cup leading horse. Kevin and Carling King also placed fourth individually at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens]. As far as a championship horse or a horse I could jump any competition in the world, Carling King put me on the map. Shorapur is probably one of the most winning horses I have ever ridden though. She’s definitely a horse of a lifetime and I definitely have never sat on a horse more careful, that’s for sure.”
Beautiful filly
Now 17, Shorapur has been in Ireland since June 2020 and last year she foaled a beautiful filly by handsome resident stallion at Ballypatrick, Rock n Roll Ter Putte who is by the legendary Diamant de Semilly. During that time, Kevin has been hugely supported by his family and friends and the wider equestrian world in his Herculean work to recover from the fall.
“It’s coming on,” he says of his rehabilitation. “I’m doing rehab three or four days a week. Some days I feel much stronger and other days it’s one of those things where you are feeling stronger but then you get body sore from the exercise, from the work. I feel certain things have improved, I’ve more feeling in my legs. I definitely have a lot of movement in one arm in particular. That’s getting much stronger, my shoulders are getting much stronger too. But you know, you do have days where you get down, because I’m starting to get a bit more feeling I’m also starting to get a little more pain. So it’s a bit of a double-edged sword. You have to take the good with the bad, or the bad with the good.”
There are plans afoot to come home to Ireland and those plans are not just motivated by family. “I’d love to get over to Ireland at some stage this year or next. My family have been very good to come over and visit, but I’d love to get back and to be honest, get up and see not just my family, but to get up and see Shorapur and the other mares at Ballypatrick. I’m really anxious to do that.”
“I just hope we can get some good foals out of Shorapur, I think she deserves it. If she can pass on her heart and carefulness and her scope, I’m so interested to see what we can breed from her. I know she’s in the best of hands at Ballypatrick. You know, I think Shorapur probably loves being feral again. I know they have a hard time catching her!”
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