Darcy is by no means the only attraction at High Hope’s Stud at Chisbury
Darcy and Tom Hanlom at High Hope's StudFor the latest news on Darcy the mare shot in the head while in a field at Chisbury - see Marlborough News Online news pages.
Darcy’s home is the High Hope’s Stud which is run by Mark Hope and Tom Hanlom. They moved to what had been Chisbury Manor Stud in March. Mark had run a stud farm at Hungerford Park and Tom was based at Boomerang Stables in Chilton Foliat.
They have teamed up to run a multi-enterprise equestrian centre. They have been doing a great deal of renovation to house, barns, stables and fencing and have had the fields ploughed and re-seeded to provide better grass for the horses.
Across the road they are about to put in an arena with an all-weather silica sand and fibre surface. They have sixty acres which includes part of the moat or ditch around Chisbury’s Iron Age fort.
They lease indirectly from the Ramsbury Estate – both land and buildings were bought recently from the Crown Estate by Stefan Persson as part of his purchase of the ‘Savernake Estate’ agricultural holdings.
At the heart of their operation is the stud. In the summer, when it is busiest, they can be taking in 40 mares a month. They arrive, are either covered or artificially inseminated, get a 14-16 day scan to see if they are bearing twins, have a second scan at 28 days to check the foetus’ heartbeat – and if all is well, they go home.
Silver Pond The stud has a range of top class stallions. The thoroughbred Silver Pond is one of the best known. He raced flat and was placed in Group 1 and was a winner of Group 2 races, taking prize money of over £417,000 in his short racing career.
It was a career that ended in a disastrous anti-climax: arriving for the Dubai World Cup – for which was a favoured entry – he left his horsebox with an injury and could not run. And he had just been sold for £5million.
He is now a much favoured stallion. Irish breeders are keen on him for flat and National Hunt progeny and the stud already have half a dozen bookings for January and February – and two people have recently tried to buy him.
Another stallion standing at High Hope’s Stud is Maxmillian Voltucky – a Dutch warm blood who won 32 national and international dressage championships in a row. He was sired by Voltaire who in 1996 was rated number two in the world on the dressage and jumping index.
Nelson van de HelleWorld class show jumping stallion Nelson van de Helle is the newest addition at High Hope’s Stud and will be available this stud season for the first time since retiring from his show jumping career.
A Belgian warm blood, Nelson jumped at top level in South Africa before moving to Europe to compete. He has numerous wins to his record including the South African Derby with international rider Ronnie Lawrence.
High Hope Condor on the way to a clear roundOne of their stallions bears the stud farm’s name: High Hopes Condor is now with the highly successful French showjumper Dan Delsart competing in Fox Hunter competitions – with plenty of double clears.
Delsart is now running a training competiion yard with Victoria Wearing at Farndish on the Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire border.
High Hopes CondorCondor has had four seasons at stud. He has appeared consistently in the top five in the annual ranking of showjumping sires. One of his progeny, Condors Boy, was named Leading Showjumping Yearling in 2011.
The High Hope’s Stud’s other enterprises include livery at various levels – they currently have ten client horses. They run a cleaning and repair service for pony and horse rugs.
They stable horses for private owners and undertake pre-training work, work with ‘difficult’ horses and rehabilitation work. Tom Hanlom is known for his skills with tricky horses and also teaches. He and Mark laugh as they explain that they specialise in doing some of “the hard work” for owners – hard work and sometimes hard knocks.
As an undergraduate Tom studied equine science at Limerick University and then did a research MSc at Essex University. He loves sport and was in the Irish judo team before switching to eventing.
Among the yard’s eventers he has a 14-year old gelding Uptown Jonny who is ‘sharp’ and quite naughty – but with “one hell of a jump”. Uptown Jonny is returning to eventing having last competed in 2008.
It is difficult to find the time to push young horses up the eventing grades, but Tom says: “I am looking to build up the string for next season.” He has already qualified for the Badminton Grassroots competition. This is run before the main event to give young riders and young horses experience of that iconic eventing course.
[Click on photos to enlarge them. Photos of the stallions are copyright of High Hope's Stud.]