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                  THE ALL-IMPORTANT MARES.
A SHORT HISTORY OF A SMALL STUD AND HOW IT ALL
STARTED.

A history of a stud is, of course,also  a history of the person who runs it. So the history of Stormhill stud is my history too.. Above all, it is the history of my mares, especially that of  a little brown throughbred mare called Sweet Sirenia.
I came to England from Sweden, where I had done some dressage and show-jumping.My family had ponies and Swedish Warmbloods, during my teens.
In England I fell in love with Thoroughbred horses and National Hunt racing. I rode some point-to-point winners and had great fun. I learnt a lot.

She turned out to be more than a hunter. She ran well over hurdles and came 2nd in a decent handicap at Market Rasen and was placed several times. On non-racing days she hunted, she team-chased, she even cross-country-raced.  Then we ran her in Novice ‘Chases but she kept being beaten into 4th. We decided that she was tired of racing and we bred a foal from her, by a cheap and unknown stallion called Buckley. We called the resulting colt Stormhill Stag and he won 8 races and was placed umpteen times..But that was years later, when he was over 4 years old.
We put her to a better stallion, Broadsword (USA), but got a filly with slightly long fetlocks. We called her Stormhill Arrow. She never raced but she is still with us and must be one of the best best eventing-brood mares in the country.  As ever, we operated on a shoestring and had to to economize on stud-fees.  We put Sweetie to the coloured horse we had then got, Stormhill Joseph. We bred a rather nice-looking filly, Stormhill Madonna.  Next time she bred an even better-looking filly, by Mountain Storm, a part Cleveland bay stallion. This one we called Stormhill Gazelle.The mare was then barren and my daughter Sarah did some Pony Club eventing on her. Her dressage was poor but her x-country and show-jumping very good. And she was a pleasure to take around. Sweetie even won some money under B.S.JA. Rules.
After a year off she got in foal to Amber Glen, Irish Draught,  and had a daughter, Stomhill Amber, who was sold.

Now we had a young thoroughbred colt we had bred ourselves, called Stormhill Miller. We decided to use him on Sweet Sirenia.

The result, a pretty colt, was named Stormhill Michael. He’s been  round Badminton twice now, and finished 18th and then 10th.

In time I had a husband and a young family. I started training N.H. Horses under a permit. Mainly,I trained mares. They are cheaper and money was, as ever, short.   Horse s will go wrong and over-enthusiastic amateur trainers produce even more lame horses than professional trainers. So, from time to time I kept a mare I liked, to breed from.  One year, I had a lame mare called Little Brig but nothing to race.I went to Doncaster Sales with the grand total of £ 1500 , to buy a horse to race with. I looked at many. I bid for several. They went for too much money.
 It was winter and freezing cold. The Sale was drawing to it’s end. One of the last lots was a small, thin, scruffy looking mare called Sweet Sirenia. She had won a point-to-point in Ireland but had since run very moderately indeed on the flat in England.
She looked quiet and innocious. There was hardly anybody left around the cold  ring-side.
I bid, half-heartedly, impressed only by her hard legs and the fact her maternal grandsire was Menelek, an excellent Irish N.H. Sire. She was knocked down to me.
 I bought a rug for the fozen animal,  and took her home to Warwickshire.
 Next morning I took her out and cantered her. She seemed quiet and easy to ride but rather slow and uninspiring. I cursed my luck.
I had a girl helping me, in those days. She loved  Sweetie. I let her ride her every day.  I didn’t sit on her again for weeks, I decided we must build her up and that she looked very moderate anyway... Then a friend asked me to come for a day’s hunting,  with the Warwickshire hounds. I had nothing to ride. Oh yes, I did!  Sweet Sirenia, if she had point -to-pointed, she must have hunted I reasoned.
There was a large field for an expected good day in the cream of the country. The first fence was a telegraph pole above sheep-netting. Not ideal. I felt rather worried. She pinged it. In fact, by the end of a superb day I knew I had a most exceptional ladies hunter if nothing else.

Above are some of Sweet Sirenia’s offspring.  She had nearly all daughters. Her own daughter, Stormhill Arrow, has had nearly all daughters too. It is just her son Stormhill Stag, the winner of 8 N.H. Races who is missing...
I will fill you in about my other good mares another day: Lucky Harvest xx, Farmer’s Fun xx and   Little Brig, xx.
Sweet Sirenia is the one who has made the biggest mark. Never did it occur to me, standing by  the cold sales ring at Doncaster that I was going to become a breeder of event horses through that little dark mare. I owe her a lot.


 Apart from Sweetie, I have had two more mares who have had a lot of influence;

Lucky Harvest xx, by Oats, and Little Brig xx, by Royal Fountain.
A mare whom we named Farmer’s Fun xx, by Broadsword(USA) has also played her part. I shall return to this page another day and tell you the tale of the other mares. One that must not be forgotten is Stormhill Arrow, Sweet Sirenia’s daughter.
When you breed horses you have to take the long view. You also have to harden your heart and eliminate the less satisfactory mares. It is sometimes very hard to know what is bad luck and what is in the genes.

Stormhill Amber, by Amber Glen, now lives in Devon and competes locally

Stormhill Gazelle, by Mountain Storm, now in France. A lovely mare!

Stormhill Arrow xx, by Broadsword (USA) , still with me today.

Stormhill Michael xx, a top clas eventer,  by Stormhill Miller. I bred both Michael and his sire, Miller.

Stormhill Madonna, by Stormhill Joseph. Madonna’s line is still with us, through her dauther Matilda, by Stormhill Miller. If Madonna had been a piebald, she would have beensold as a foal! So, perhaps for the stud, it was good that she was a brown mare.

 This mare is Lucky Harvest xx, a thoroughbred mare by Oats. Oats ran second in the Derby and was a very highclass National Hunt sire.
Lucky Harvest was out of the prolific mare Lucky Janie. Lucky, as we called her, was bred by the show-jumping man, Steve Hadley, ,so maybe it is a sort of longterm fulfillment that she bred a stallion, Stormhill Miller,  that may now beget show-jumpers
Of my Mares, maybe Sweet Sirenia was the favourite but Lucky Harvest came a close second.

She had superb ability and good conformation. She could gallop! And she was very kind.

She ran in N.H flat races with great promise, hurdled a time or two, had a problem, recoverd to be 2nd in her only point-to-point in a big field and was honourably retired. She was bold, if slightly  careless with show-jumps but moved beautifully and had that something about her. She hunted, she hacked, she was useful.

She has excelled as a broodmare, becoming the dam of Stormhill Miller, a thoroughbred Stallion by Vouchsafe, and also Stormhill Harvest, a couloured stallion, now at stud in Herefordshire. Lucky Harvest was put down in 2010, after spending several years with Cathy Wood.

My second most important mare, perhaps was Lucky Harvest. Click here to go and see more about her.

Sweet Sirenia        Lucky Harvest   In a Dream

In a Dream, thourouhgbred mare by Caruso out of Miss Sunacelli by Sunacelli.

Ina a Dream was my first classy mare. Her dam was a very good winner. I loved Dream! She was just a little difficult..She was a very good jumper but she could suddenly decided to jump the wings instead of the hurdles. She loved galloping but didn’t like being restrained. She would get overexcited at the start, sometimes freezing to the spot.On her first outing I rode her myself. I couldn’t hold her, she set upa 30 length lead by the second hurdle, by the end she faded.

It was suggested that I try a professional.  Richard Pitman was engaged.
Oh dear. In a Dream toook a violent dislike to him and refused to leave the paddock with this new rider on board.

I had to lead her halfway to the start and managed to get Richard Pitman legged up again. Sadly, when he got to the start the mare again dug her hooves in. Now she refused to start, then refused to even walk back towards the paddock with Richard on board! He had to walk home. In silence I led the filly back.

As the trainer, I now came up in front of the mighty Stewards. They instructed me that I must school my horse to the starting tape and that a repeat would not be tolerated.

For the next outing I obtained permission from the kind clerk of the course at Stratford and we took the excitable mare there several times. We did very little, we walked her around the paddock, saddled her up. I would hack her to the start and then we would take her home.

After 3 visits to the empty racecourse she was bored. Excellent. We entered her in a novices’ hurdle at Stratford and I rode her myself, with trepidation.

It worked! We even had a false start, no fault of Dream’s this time, yet she started fine, twice! I’m sorry to say she stil lfailed to win a race but she was never troublesome at the start again, a small training success that nobody noticed.
She had some nice foals after sustaining a minor fracture of a bone in her knee. In retrospect she was unlucky, I had her before we had Kremlin, that would have been an ideal mating for producing an eventer.
Dream was also unlucky in life, she died quite young, from an internal haemorage.It was very sad. I shall tell you about her foals another day, she bred a couple of winners and also some nice eventing types.