I met my first Irish Draught in 1994,
in our first year of showing in the sporthorse venue. We had
taken a very nice colt out of our best mare to the Northwest
Sporthorse Breeders Association Breeders Classic, entering him
in Dressage Suitability for Weanling Colts.
While there, I ran into my old and dear
friend, Ann Cummings. What a surprise! Ann and her family had
moved out of our neighborhood, and it had been a couple years
since I'd seen her. She had brought in her new horse, the then-three
year old stud colt Snowford O'Donnell. He was the very first
Irish Draught I'd ever seen up til that time, I had barely
even heard of the breed.
This boy was such a sweet horse, and
despite being in the bratty prime of young stallion-ness, still
a dream to work with, and to handle. I was completely sold on
the breed. We booked the dam of our Reserve Champion colt to
him, hoping to get our first Irish Sporthorse baby the next spring.
This was not to be, as our beloved mare had given us her best
and last with RK Paratrooper, the colt we showed that year.
We schemed and plotted for years, waiting
for the opportunity to get into the Irish Draught horses. Finally,
after the move to our new place outside Monroe, we made the decision
to "go Irish", and to breed all our mares to Irish
Draught stallions. I believed that O'Donnell was still in New
Mexico at the time, so went stallion shopping on the internet.
My "other" favorite pick was a horse named Touch of
the Blues, but I could not find him any place! The owner's website
was gone, and no trace of the horse remained.
Finally, reading the For Sale listings
on the website of the Irish Draught Horse Society of North America
(IDHS(NA)), I came across an ad for a colt sired by Touch of
the Blues!
I went immediately
to his owners' website, and looked at his pictures and description.
I knew that we had finally found our Irish Draught! I printed
out the pictures and information to show my husband. We looked
at each other and simultaneously said, "we can't afford
this horse", then said, "what the heck, it costs nothing
to ask". The deal was struck within a week. After doing
a LOT of juggling, selling off and just plain scraping together,
we were able to come up with the price, and then waited anxiously
as our colt made the long journey from eastern Kansas to our
yard.
In early November, ManuForti's Touch
Down, aka Ollie, walked down the ramp of Cathi Bunker's trailer
and onto our place. He settled right in, and has become a huge
part of our lives.
I found out that Ann had just gotten
Snowford O'Donnell back to the Northwest, and was showing him
in dressage. He had already competed extensively in eventing
and done some jumping, and was doing great at his new job, with
Asia Thayer in the irons. In his first year of open showing in
dressage, OD did pretty well with a median score of 65.798,
he won the USDF All Breeds Award for First Level, Irish Draught!
We booked three of our mares to him for breeding, and are now
awaiting next spring with bated breath our first Irish
Draught Sporthorse foal crop!
I've placed a short history
of the Irish Draught on our website. I hope you will agree that
we are justified in being so excited about these horses!
For those who want to find out more about
this breed, I urge you to check out the website of the Irish
Draught Horse Society of North America; there is a link located
on our links page.
--Kate Justet Triplett, Homesick
Angels Farm, Monroe, WA, USA
