The old school bloggers will remember when the Family Tree series of posts went around the blogosphere, and I definitely jumped on board with Henry and then later with Sadie/Presto (he wasn’t even born yet omg). Now that Grace is here, which yes albeit it’s temporary, I figured we could deep dive a little bit more into her heritage as well. Plus, like… look at the title of the blog. You shouldn’t be surprised that I’ll take any semi-legitimate excuse to talk about breeding.

Grace is an Irish Sporthorse registered name as Kilpatrick Grace, and she was bred in Ireland at Kilpatrick Stud in County Kildare. Her sire, A Quidam M, was only 5 years old when she was born in 2010, and Grace was part of his first foal crop. While A Quidam M has not been used heavily for breeding (and his offspring are still fairly young by upper level performance standards) he does already have several competing at the upper levels. The most notable eventer is 4*L horse Global Orchid, with the most notable showjumper so far being Thebestof Dancer who is competing at 1.40m. A Quidam M himself competed through 1.30m showjumping, although passed away in 2020.

Looking at his pedigree is a bit like taking a tour through Europe. A Quidam M was born in the Nederlands, thus registered as a Dutch Warmblood, but his sire Quidam de Revel was a Selle Francais bred in France and his dam Minook was a Holsteiner bred in Germany. If you follow showjumping or eventing breeding even a little bit you’ve probably heard of Quidam de Revel, who was a top competitor as well as a prolific sire. If there’s a jumper with a Q name, it can probably be traced back to him (along with lots of others that don’t have Q names – depends on the particular registry’s naming rules). He also shows up in the pedigree of tons of event horses, no surprise since the QdR’s tend to be quick and bold and love to jump. The list of famous, top level horses with QdR in their pedigree is very long.

A Quidam M’s dam Minook is by Caretino, who was also a top level showjumper and excellent sire. Minook produced several foals, the most successful of which was 1.60m jumper Zaretino M (who was later imported to the US and turned into a hunter). Caretino was a good enough mover to sire some good dressage horses, as well as showjumpers and eventers… not many stallions can say that they’ve had offspring reach the top level in all 3 disciplines, but Caretino is one of them.

Grace’s dam is Kilpatrick Cavalier Clover, from the classic Irish combination of Cavalier Royale and Clover Hill. Cavalier Clover competed a bit herself in showjumping as a young horse in Ireland with Darragh Kenny, winning some 1.10m classes. She had her first foal in 2003 when she was a 4yo, a colt by Condios that was exported to Brazil as a showjumper and kept as a breeding stallion (he was the high seller at an elite sporthorse auction as a 4 year old).

After some time in the show ring she went back to the breeding shed and in 2008 produced a filly, Kilpatrick Duchess, by Kings Master. Kilpatrick Duchess has already proven herself to be quite a good producer… you may have heard of her oldest offspring, Cooley Moonshine (by Cobra), who has so far competed through 4* level with Liz Halliday-Sharp. Duchess’ next offspring, Global Theodora (by Albaran xx) has so far competed through 3* level eventing in Ireland with Brian Morrison (who also rides the previously mentioned Global Orchid – small world). Kilpatrick Cavalier Clover had another foal in 2009, and then her next foal was Grace, born in 2010. After that she was sold and produced two more offspring for another breeder.

Kilpatrick Cavalier Clover’s sire is the legendary Cavalier Royale, a Holsteiner stallion who was not approved for breeding in his home country of Germany but found fantastic success as a sire in Ireland. His record for producing top level eventers and showjumpers is matched only by his later success as a damsire – Cavalier Royale mares have proven time and again to be exceptional producers. You can’t throw a rock at a 5* event without hitting a horse with Cavalier Royale in the pedigree.

Kilpatrick Cavalier Clover’s damsire is Clover Hill, the only traditional Irish-bred horse in Grace’s pedigree. Clover Hill was by the thoroughbred stallion Golden Beaker xx, out of a mare by the Irish Draught stallion Tara. Clover Hill was one of the most successful traditionally-bred Irish stallions of all time, siring top level showjumpers and some eventers. He’s been particularly successful as a grandsire (both as a sire of sires and a sire of dams), with progeny at the highest levels of both showjumping and eventing.

That’s the, um… short version of Grace’s family tree. Maybe now you can see why we were so eager to add her to the broodmare band!