News from Ireland from Kim Tompkins

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Colt foal born on the 6th of may. The picture was taken at 7 weeks old. He is by a thoroughbred called Windsor Castle out of our mare Ashill Sequoia. Windsor Castle is by Generous out of a Habitat mare. And Sukki is by Rodega Tobias out of Ashill Bamboo byI Claudius.

Hi Everyone,

I hope everybody is having a very prosperous stud season and hope you have had many good foals! I would also like to extend best wishes and great success on behalf of Gordon and myself to Martina Sheehan who has bought Paddy (Ashill Tara's Song) from us and seems to be having great fun.

A lot has happened since I was last involved with the Appaloosas. Before we came here at the end of 1999, we worked for a time at the National Stud in Newmarket in England. Gordon ran the Maiden yard and I ran one of the Nursery yards. In the stud season we used to get our mares covered, train students, foal mares etc. Out of season we used to prep yearlings, mares and foals for the major TB sales. We also used to do the quarantines for horses going to Australia and New Zealand, which is how we came to be employed by the National Stud in the first place. We used to collect the horses from around Europe, quarantine them for three weeks in the UK and then they would fly off and do another two weeks in Australia before being released in the country or to NZ. We were lucky enough to go with the horses a few times and do the quarantine the other end, in Oz. We got to look after some very famous animals and learnt a lot at the same time.

My partner and I look after a stud here in Ireland that carries between 40 to 50 horses depending on the time of year. It is a busy time for us over here, as the bosses TB mares are coming back from stud with this years foals, and the horses that race over here are coming home for their summer holiday. They are racehorses mainly National Hunt, although we do play with a few flat runners that we have bred, thankfully with some success, our first two runners were winners! We normally have two or three in the Grand National! We had three in the National this year, Arctic Jack, Southern Star and Hedgehunter. We were really excited that Hedgehunter ran such a good race, and jumped so well. We were very pleased to hear that he was ok after his fall at the last fence. When you read this he should be home with us for his summer holiday with his old friends having fun.

Meanwhile back at home we are looking forward to our spotty foals (hopefully!) Ashill Sequoia is in foal again to Windsor Castle TB and is due the first week in May. We have a two year old by the same stallion out of her and she is a very smart looking filly. Dillion (Ashill Bubinga) is expecting his third crop of foals. We are very pleased at the size and quality of the foals born so far and they have been born to a variety of mares, jumpers, point to pointers, eventers and riding horses. The ones that have been born so far this year look very smart, and everyone seems to be happy with their foals. We have a lot of interest in Ireland for the Appaloosa, so hopefully it will gather momentum. We shall be flying the flag.

PS Hot news: Sukki gave birth to a beautiful near leopard colt on the 6 th May.