I was brought up in the suburbs of Leeds, but like a lot of young girls longed for a pony!!!! To keep me quiet my parents sent me to riding school every Saturday – think it actually gave my mother peace for the day!!!!

Eventually my grandfather bought me my special horse – Maid Marion, a 14.3 strawberry roan Arab x New Forest – we did everything together and spent most of the weekends and evenings exploring the open spaces!!!

My parents moved to a village outside Harrogate where we had the luxury of our own field and a couple of stables. Well the horses had to expand to two – my sister and I argued over who should ride Maid Marion and who should ride the bike!!!

 

  The first pure bred arrived in Autumn 1970 Shireema by Shirar (Indian Magic x Sirella) x Sitara

  (Stargard x Tamri) a chestnut snorting machine with tail way over her back who moved for fun!!!!

  I trained as a Secretary and worked for the local government but eventually went into the family

  firm ending up running the business, when my father suffered ill health.

  I married a tall handsome chap, who had prospects!!! But my husband’s idea of horsepower

  was a little different to mine!!! My father told him “you take Judith and you take her horses as

  well” – luckily he agreed and to this day supports me 100%.

  We started married life in Bedfordshire – where I worked for Granada TV but we had to leave

  the horses back in Yorkshire – lack of funds prevented us taking them south, so we would

  travel home each weekend to see them – my parents looked after them through the week.

Chris was offered a job in Scotland with Volvo Trucks – this was too good a job to turn down so he moved immediately and left me in Bedfordshire to sell the house – we would meet in Yorkshire (half way) each weekend. Well, house took longer to sell, so I moved back in with my parents and took over my father’s business for him – an electrical retailers with three outlets.

My father’s health was deteriorating, so we arranged to sell the business.

We moved to S.W. Scotland to the land of Robbie Burns – it was forever

raining, the grass really grew, hay times were entertaining but the people

were wonderful. Our horses flourished and we thought nothing of loading

some up and heading south to either Ascot or Crabbet conventions etc.

We were loaned a lovely mare Raqqasa (Ragos x Calexa by Champurrado)

by Mrs Macvie, she produced a colt Santanna by Rheingolde (Blenheim x

Rosemary) and a filly Raqisa by Sorbus (St. Simon x Volante). We later

acquired Diamond Star (Indian Star x Dalika by Dargee) he crossed really

well with our foundation mare Shireema and Raqisa. Diamond, although used sparingly at

stud will most likely be remembered for being the sire of Aboud (x Azeme bint Gleam) but also worthy of a

mention are some of his other super children Roman Star (racehorse) Ali Ibn Dream (x Border Dream) an

endurance superstar. Samad (x Shriphala) a true all-rounder and Surita (x Layyen) sadly deceased –

everyone’s dream of a family ridden horse – safe and secure!!!

 

  During 1986 Volvo decided to move their

  headquarters to a more central point in the UK,

  so the hunt was on to find a suitable home for

  us all. This while I was heavily pregnant with our

  first child!! The birth of our daughter Kate

  coincided with our move south to Worcestershire

  – to move one's family is bad enough but ours

  was like moving Noah's ark at times. Cattle,

  sheep, horses, pets and humans but we survived

  although showing and horse breeding had to

  take a back seat until we had the facilities

  established to continue.

 

Sadly during 1997 we lost Diamond Star which was a huge blow. We had always based our breeding programme on mainly Crabbet/Old English bloodlines but found it extremely difficult to find anything suitable within these lines for our mares.

After looking at different bloodlines/horses over the years – nothing sparked any imagination UNTIL

walking past the collecting ring at the British Nationals at Malvern in 2002, I noticed this iridescent,

three year old chestnut colt – and I just couldn’t take my eyes off him. Here was the type of future

stallion I was looking for: Conformationally correct and extremely beautiful to the eye – his quality

was breathtaking!!! But would the bloodlines be what I was looking for? The colt in question was

Toman and was bred by Jane Kadri at Al Waha Stud. I had always admired the way Al Waha had

blended the Crabbet/GSB bloodlines with top class Russian stallions. Now all I had to do was

persuade them to part with Toman. I later found out he was bred as the result of the stallion raffle

at the British Nationals in 1997. Jane Kadri had the fourth ticket to be pulled out and she was

thrilled that the Russian stallion Grand was still available and immediately took the nomination as

her prize and sent her best mare Queen’s Topaz to him.

Toman – meaning Arabic gold coin – his sire Grand (Mukomol x Nevesta) was a grey standing at nearly 16hh and was bred at the Tersk Stud, he has a race record of 20 starts in four years – including 14 first and was Dutch National Champion, World Top Ten and leading sire in Russia in 1993.

 

  Toman’s dam Queen’s Topaz (Midnight Gold x Dancing

  Queen) has produced three British National Champion

  sons: Tayseer and Tawoos, both by Narim and Toman by

  Grand. Midnight Gold (King Cotton Gold x Enchantment)

  was Junior British National Champion and Best Ridden

  Novice Arabian and Dancing Queen (Dancing King x

  Ludmilla) won the Princess Muna Saddle of Honour in 2002.

 

  It is interesting to note that Enchantment (Indian Magic x

  Dalika) is three-quarter sister to Diamond Star (Indian Star

  by Indian Magic x Dalika) so should blend well with our

  Diamond daughters.

 

As our mares were older and had not bred for a few years, we felt the need to invest in new

bloodlines. We couldn’t find the type of mares we wanted in the existing Crabbet/Old English stock here so looked to Russia and to Tersk for the type of horses we wanted. Russian horses have an ability to be crossed with many different lines and many are wonderful examples of Crabbet type – hardly surprising since they carry a strong percentage of Crabbet blood. I feel that combining Russian bloodlines with a Crabbet/Old English foundation is the way forward for many breeders without getting too far away from the horses in the past.

The Russian influence joined us in 2002 with the purchase of Toman and we have since acquired a further six Russian mares, daughters of the famous stallions Balaton****, Piligrim (SU), Aromat(SU) and Menes (SU) whose female lines have produced wonderful horses that have excelled both in hand and under saddle.

We hope these lines will blend well with Toman and our original Crabbet/Old English mares.

Toman has an enviable show record consisting of:

 

2004

Cheltenham Show   1st Open ridden Pure bred Arabian

British Nationals   1st Novice Ridden Stallion, British National Champion Novice Ridden Purebreds

2005

N. Staffs Reg Gp Spring Show 1st Open Ridden Stallions 

Midland Reg Gp Spring Show 1st Open Ridden Stallions 

Three Counties Show, Malvern  1st Open Ridden Pure Breds, Champion Arab, Anglo Part bred

Midland Group C, Malvern   1st Open Ridden Stallions Champion Open Ridden Pure Bred

South West Reg Gp, Bicton 1st Open Ridden Stallions, Reserve Champion Overall Ridden Pure bred

British Nationals, Malvern 1st Open Ridden Arabian Stallion, British National Champion Ridden Stallion

Monmouthshire County Show   1st Ridden Pure Bred , Champion Ridden Pure Anglo and Part bred, Reserve Supreme Champion of Champions

BACs, Rodbaston   1st Pure Bred Stallion, Supreme Overall Ridden Champion

2006

NPS North Staffs 1st Ridden Pure Bred Stallion, Overall ridden Pure Bred Champion

Royal Bath & West   1st Ridden Pure Bred Stallion, Overall Ridden Pure Bred Champion, Supreme Overall Ridden Pure, Part and Anglo

Three Counties 1st Ridden Pure Bred, Supreme Overall Ridden Pure, Part and Anglo 

The Royal International 1st & Champion Ridden Pure bred

The Horse of The Year Show   Champion Ridden Arab Stallion, Supreme Overall Ridden Arab 

2007

Royal Bath and West 1st Ridden Pure Bred Stallion, Overall Ridden Pure Bred Arabian, Reserve Supreme Overall Ridden Pure, Part & Anglo

It would be so easy to open the flood gates and offer Toman at stud BUT I made a commitment early on and I am going to stick with it at the moment. I want him to be known for the QUALITY of his foals rather than the QUANTITY.

One can never know how a stallion will produce until his first foals are on the ground – despite the excellence of the stallion himself or a great pedigree, nothing is guaranteed when breeding and the resulting foals might not be up to the mark or expectations. Breeding many foals in a first crop or even second is a huge gamble anyway you look at it and especially considering the state of the market.

Toman is a VERY special horse – not only in his type and conformation, his impeccable manners but in his achievements to date – no one can ever take away what he has achieved under saddle by the age of seven and more importantly the kind of ambassador he has been to the breed, why would I ever dream of tarnishing that? The Arab breed suffers enough from bad publicity and unrealistic owners – perhaps as breeders we should think carefully what we are doing and if we are benefiting the breed and the reputation of the Arab horse.

We are thrilled by the quality of his first foals from Auchmillan and Al Waha mares and I am very grateful to Jane Kadri for offering such wonderful mares for him to prove himself – the mares we are covering this year again have different bloodlines – let’s see what he can do next year, – I for one can’t wait.

Over the years I have seen different fashions come and go, different bloodlines and different types – as a breeder we have to remember that the horses we breed can not always be in hand show horses, they have to be able to go on and ‘do’ something and by doing something we encourage the greater public to be aware of the Arabian breed for the all round horse that it is, not a silly fluffy airhead.

Call me old fashioned or what but I like to know my horses are built on strong foundations!! Therefore conformation plays a big part in the type of horses I like to breed.

They have to have quality and type and powerful movement and bring a smile to your face, quicken your heart whenever you see them. On to the next generation – the fillies bred at Auchmillan over the last few years – straight Russian, Russian cross and Russian/Crabbet/GSB have proved to us that we were right to continue our faith in breeding beautiful versatile horses able to compete in all spheres.

To the future – luckily our daughter Kate has the same enthusiasm as Chris and I with Arabian horses – although her heart belongs to her 17.2hh shire x thoroughbred gelding AC (only because she has grown out of all our Arabs). Kate has BHS qualifications up to Teaching level, also a National Diploma in Stud Management, a DEFRA Certificate of Competence to enable her to inseminate mares and is now hoping to do a Foundation Degree in Equine Performance.

So hopefully in a few years, Chris and I can take a back seat and hope that Kate continues our stud and moves it forward.

Doubt we’ll ever take too much of a back seat though!!!!!

Diamond Star

Queen's Topaz

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