2017 has been busy and successful year – both on the stud and stallion centre. In January Tessa spent a few weeks in Kenya and made a useful contact with Venetia Philipps (a protégé of Professor Twink Allen). As a result we are now exporting frozen semen to Kenya. Irish Draught, Connemara and New Forest stallions seem the most popular. With the first 6 mares in foal with one insemination each, Venetia appears to be doing a great job!
Tim and Jane visited Australia in May where Jane was on the Ground Jury at Sydney International 3 day event and they continued to promote stallions eligible for Australia and New Zealand with good publicity and sales for 2017/18 seasons. There appears to be increasing interest for Sport Horses, ponies and Natives in particular. We had a very successful Stud Open Day pre-Badminton for many of the stallions who stand or have had semen collected here.
Gemma Tattersall came to show off CHILLI MORNING, WEG Bronze medallist and the only stallion to have won Badminton; William Funnell talked through CEVIN Z’s great achievements; Chris Burton put CALIBER ROYALE through his paces, and we were lucky to squeeze in Nick Gauntlett’s PARTY TRICK, one of Chilli Morning’s high-performing offspring ahead of his slot in the Burghley Young Event Horse Class. Cholderton Ixion, a successful Cleveland Bay stallion, represented our Native breeds.
We were very pleased to stand CHILLI MORNING this season and he settled in to the daily life of being a stud stallion well but still relished his daily hacks! CEVIN Z had a very busy season and it is pleasing that he is now being better recognised as a producer of international show-jumpers as well as eventers. WELTON DOUBLE CRACKER and WINDSOR HEIGHTS continue to produce successful offspring. It has been fun hearing about their varied roles as eventers, show horses and general multi- purpose horses and ponies from their various owners. WKS produced 3
stunning foals from its own mares this season by Timolin, Billy Mexico and Windsor Heights, all of whom should go far.
The stud was busy with over 30 foals born here and numerous mares visiting our stallions or for imported chilled semen, as well as our important service of AI with frozen semen. Camilla Scott from B&W Vets, supported by senior partner Chris Shepherd and Kelly Harrison-Tait did a great job this season. Sadly Camilla has left to be senior vet at Sandringham Stud, so Kelly will become our daily vet for 2018, supported by Chris.
The Stallion Centre was busy with numerous stallions visiting, including the fourth return visit for NO RISK AL MAURY (Shadwell Stud) a top class Arabian racehorse producing Group 1 winners, CORRINDON DANCER (very successful Irish draught) and a variety of Gypsy Cobs, all of which have good bookings from Australia, New Zealand and USA. We have exported a huge amount of frozen semen this year to various countries. The order books are most encouraging for stallion owners to commit to collecting and freezing semen from numerous different breeds and competition
types. This Autumn we have already exported 25% of frozen semen collected at the last session. Our ongoing partnership with Martin Boyle, one of the early pioneers of Equine AI, continues to yield some interesting and valuable results.
In September, Tim and Tessa attended a very interesting day with the Rare Breeds Survival Trust. Tessa gave a presentation of the important work carried out at WKS for the RBST, ensuring the survival of our endangered Native equine breeds, through both our Stud and Stallion Centre activity and our involvement with both the Shire and Suffolk Horse Societies. We were again honoured that HM The Queen sent three native mares (one Fell Pony and two Cleveland Bays) to be put in foal for the fourth year running.
Next season already promises to be extremely busy and we are excited to announce that the Shadwell stallion HANDASSA will make his stud debut with us. This outstanding Group One Arabian stallion is sure to prove a popular sire for racing, but also suitable for the Sports horse market.
We do hope you have a really good Christmas and wish you all the very best for 2018. It would be great to see you here at any time if you are nearby.