The Broderick breeding philosophy

Cheryl Broderick aims to breed the best and heads up the breeding operation at Ballypatrick Stables. Horses have always been part of the Broderick family and now breeding plays a central role in the business.

“From as young as I can remember I have been around horses. My great grandad Martin, my grandad Patrick and my Dad Austin and Mother Maureen all loved horses,” said Cheryl.

Breeding began at Ballypatrick at the same time as Cheryl’s brother Greg’s became successful in the show jumping arena.

“As Greg became more successful with the young horses, I could see a pattern emerging – good well-bred horses were getting scarce and becoming more expensive. I thought a good way to get into good young stock was to breed our own.”

Huge influence

Greg plays a central role in the breeding enterprise. Going to five-star shows with Greg opened Cheryl’s eyes to what was expected of horses at the top level of modern-day show jumping.

“It made me rethink all my ideas on breeding. These animals need to be blood, agile, careful athletic balanced, scopey, careful and most importantly rideable.

“When I spoke to the riders, they all told me – courses, fences, time allowed and distances have changed immensely over the last ten years and as breeders we need to adapt and breed the type of horse these riders require,” she explained.

“Greg and I work very closely as a team, our dedication and commitment to breeding and producing top horses is the one thing we always agree on.

“In an ideal world you want every foal you breed to be a star, but unfortunately breeders must be realistic. I look into a field of foals and to me they are a field of dreams. I’m lucky to have Greg to bring me back down to reality.

“Greg looks at young stock from a commercial and riders’ perspective, pointing out characteristics that he likes or dislikes, such as the canter, shoulder, balance or type. A lot of these essential traits can be easily seen in a foal in the field.

“His expert eye and ability to see a good jumping foal from the field is an insight I would be lost without,” she added.

Young horses at Ballypatrick are assessed by Greg and Cheryl from an early age, both in the field and when they are bought in and loose-jumped. “As breeding is getting more and more expensive, I think it’s essential that we can make quick and clear judgements about how each mare is breeding,” Cheryl advises.

New developments

Once the Brodericks decided to embrace the breeding business, they didn’t hold back with new developments, in fact they embraced it. “My first taste of breeding and indeed of embryo transfers came with the mare Ballypatrick Mystique. She was very successful with Greg and together they were five and seven-year-old National Champions.

“She won a Bronze medal at the World Breeding Championships in Lanaken as a seven-year-old. She was a mare with all the right credentials to breed from. Before being sold to Kevin Babington, we decided to do an embryo transfer on her. Luckily, we got twins on her first and only flush, which we included in our breeding herd.”

Cheryl soon saw the advantages of using embryo transfer. “I became more and more interested in this side of breeding. I knew that by doing this procedure in mares, it would allow us to hold onto the breed when or if the mare is sold and take multiple foals from our genetically valuable mares in any one season. This method also allows the mare to continue her show jumping career, while a surrogate or recipient mare carries her foal to full term.”

Today Ballypatrick is home to a large breeding operation, including everything from broodmares and foals to horses competing internationally. They also have a large herd of recipient mares.

“I have learned over the years that a good herd of recipient mares are key to successful embryo transfers. People often take these mares for granted but in my opinion, they have the most important job.

“A good recipient mare in my opinion should be easy to handle, have good maternal instincts, have size and depth about her, and be young and fertile. The cost of keeping such herds puts a great expense on any breeding business because often mares are empty over the winter and need to be carried over to the following spring. This is a cost that often makes breeding very expensive,” she states.

Standout

There is an established herd of proven performance mares in Ballypatrick. One that really stands out is Ballypatrick Flight. She was National Champion as a six-year-old, competed at 1.50m level and is a full sister to Greg’s Rio Olympic mount MHS Going Global.

The results of adding this mare to speak for themselves.

“Her foals have topped the sales in both England and Ireland to date. In 2015 her foal by Verdi topped the Breeders classic sale when selling for €22,000.

“In 2016 her foal by Quidam Junior topped the elite sale at Bolesworth International Show when knocked down to Czech based syndicate for just over €34,000.

“At the same sale her foal by Stakkato Gold made €40,000.

“Her filly by Luidam made the headlines by topping the elite sale at Gorsebridge in 2017,” says Cheryl.

Her progeny have already recorded good results in the show jumping arena. BP First Editions (by Elvis Ter Putte) won the five-year-old championship at the Dublin Horse Show. The Broderick’s also have another five-year-old mare out of Ballypatrick Flight and by Elvis Ter Putte who is currently competing on the Sunshine Tour with Greg.

Success

The success of Ballypatrick Stables is clear to see. Cheryl’s standout moment came in 2014: “A highlight of mine is when Ballypatrick made history at the Dublin Horse Show in 2014. Greg won the four-year-old championship on BP Castlefield, the five-year-old championship on Alberta Mist and six-year-old Championship on Superchilled.” This was the first, and only, time that one rider won all three young horse classes in the same year at the RDS.

Cheryl believes that Ireland is a unique place to be a breeder. “Ireland has one of the best systems in the world for producing young horses. We have Horse Sport Ireland classes which cater for five, six and seven-year-old horses with very good prize money.

“The Breeders Classic for five and six-year-old horses is the richest young horse class in Europe. We have the four, five and six- year-old classes at the five-star RDS Dublin Horse Show. These classes are invaluable to the production of young horse classes in Ireland.”

Cheryl explained how the benefits of such classes can be seen in the production of the MHS Going Global, who was produced in Ireland up to International level without having to leave the country.

Insight

Greg obviously makes it a lot easier to produce young horses at Ballypatrick, he also has a huge impact in choosing the right breeding plan for each mare because he has ridden most of the mares that they breed from.

“I’m lucky I get a great insight into the characteristics of each mare from a rider’s perspective. At the start of each breeding season I sit down with Greg to plan.

“We discuss each mare individually and decide which stallion would suit her best?

“From riding each mare Greg knows their faults and their strengths. This insight for a breeder is invaluable and is essential to know when picking a stallion for a specific mare. We also look at what the mares are producing and if one is not breeding to the standard required then we no longer include her in the breeding programme.

“Instead she may take on another role as a recipient mare. Breeding is not an exact science, but you must try and improve each generation from the next and we can only do this by using the best mares and stallions available to us,” explained Cheryl.

Performance bloodlines

Along with the foals born at Ballypatrick each year. They also like to buy foals in, both privately and auctions, every year. “I think this is very important to buy in some foals from top performance bloodlines as it prevents our pedigrees becoming stale or dated.”

Breeders need to keep buying into the next good families where possible. I think the easiest way of doing this is by buying them as foals.

In the last couple of years, we have bought a sister to Emerald and two sisters to double Olympic Winner Sapphire.

We also like to buy good young colts and one we are looking forward to is our two-year-old Rock n Roll Ter Putte. He is a full brother to Elvis Ter Putte and Cameron Hanley’s mount, Eis Isaura.