Irish Dream...

Featured in Horse & Pony!

AMERICAN DREAM COMES TRUE:

Kim Clark of Ocala, florida, has always had horses.  Her riding career began in Miami at the age of three with a horse named Trigger.

For the past ten years she has been striving to breed world class dressage horses, with a goal of producing a stallion that would go to the Olympics and then become a sire of Olympic caliber sport horses. With this goal in mind, Kim bought ten acres in beautiful Ocala, the horse capital of the world. At this point we introduce Irish Dream, the horse that may be making these dreams come true. "Visky" pronounced 'Whiskey', as she calls him, is now three and a newly approved Swedish Warmblood stallion.  It should be noted here that the Swedes are noted for having the toughest inspections and that horses accepted into their studbook are usually readily approved by all the major European Studbooks.

This horse is beginning to mave waves in the industry, and has even been invited to Sweden. The ever growing success story began when Kim bought a TB mare 'Dream Vacation', who's sire was Hawaii, who was a sire of dams, was sporthorse sire of the year, champion grass horse, and stood at Clayborn Farms in Kentucky, from the OBS sale. The mare, 'Dreamer', was in foal to 'Unreal Zeal'. A beautiful colt was born, then Kim gave the mare a year off to recover as the colt was so huge. He began growing into quite an awesome prospect.

The next year she bred this lovely mare to 'Gespi', a Swedish Warmblood who was one of the highest scoring Dressage horses at the Grand Prix level on the west coast, at the time, often scoring in the 80%... very excellent! The next year, she liked the results so much she bred to 'Gespi' again. Kim, being a compassionate horsewoman, she again gave the mare a year off, before breeding.  Kim still worked to find the best dressage bloodlines possible. She was busy with her homework, around the clock, digging to find the best possible dressage bloodlines in the world, when a friend gave her a tip about a Swedish Warmblood stallion  being imported to America. This stallion, 'Vivaldi', an amazing 16.2 Chestnut Stallion, who stood at the Main Stallion Station in Sweden for 15 years…………and produced many dressage horses of the year in the U.S., 22 highest rated mares in Sweden, his son Pastuer currently winning CDI Grand Prix's throughout Europe with incredible scores over 73%, and even a local favorite, Vodka, a U.S. horse of the year. Possibly unprecedented, Vivaldi, has 8 half brothers, by Napoleon, all winning Grand Prix Dressage horses, one of them being the famous Amiral, who scored perfect 10's across the board, on his Stallion Inspection. Kim signed on early to breed her phenomenal mare to this stud.

If you listen to real horsepeople, you will find that Kim has hit a home run with this combination.  Irish Dream is really attracting the attention of discriminating breeders and competitors. Irish Dream is described repeatedly as; 'Powerful', 'Rhythmical', 'Intelligent', 'Has a ground covering stride', Fluid…….his walk is enormous, his trot lovely, his canter is a '10'. His gaits are true; the walk is a big natural 4 beat, his trot has great reach and suspension, often showing brilliant natural passage. The canter has an unshakable three beat, natural collection, awesome lenghtening, a rolling fluidity that is incredible to sit. Breeders must come take a look.  But all was not so easy, the first Tb colt, grew up to 16.3, looking like a foundation sire for Genesis Farms, then died tragically at five. 

Her star mare's next foal was lovely. Kim felt he was not quite a world class dressage horse, he is now a lovely 7 year old gelding, watch for him at Hits. Further, several other mares were bred and foaled at great expense, yet did not pan out. One year, after traveling to promote a young horse, the horse came home with a sickness that ripped through the barn and aborted all the mares, and caused huge vet bills.  Heartbreaking to say the least. Kim struggled on, got up in the morning, did the horses, worked 60 to 80 hour weeks at her 'real' job, and came home to feed the horses and muck the stalls. No life……

Three years ago the dream began coming true, in the birth of a young chestnut colt. His brilliant shimmering
chestnut coat may be attributed to his great grand dam, Somethingroyal, mother of Secretariat. Irish Dream, as a yearling, won the Southeastern Regional Cosequin Finals in 2002, he beat all the approved stallions that were shown that day.  As a two-year-old he was given 9's for presence, head, neck, and body type.  They loved his confirmation. His movement was labeled as supple and ground covering, rhythmical.

This summer, Irish Dream was three years old, looking great, but not quite broke enough to suit Kim for presentation at the fall Swedish Inspection.  Sweden was sending some new top notch inspectors and Kim wanted her horse to continue his high scoring record. She called around and no one wanted to deal with a young Stallion. Someone found a card of Ken Edwards' that stated 'Stallions' below his name. She visited several times, saw that his Eagle Oaks Farm had well bedded, clean stalls, a swept aisle, muscled horses, harmonious training, and a relaxed atmosphere.  All she saw were hunters and jumpers in training, but on second look, and with some study, she found that Ken's foundation was in Dressage, under the direct instruction of Jessica Newberry Ransenhousen & Major Hector Carmona. At one time Ken did a great deal of the flat work for Gold Medal Olympian Melanie Smith's string of show jumpers. 

Kim had 5 weeks to get her horse ready for the big inspection. Ken said he would make her horse a priority, she trucked him in daily for schooling. Kim would like to give credit here to all the help she received from friend Nina Aiken who has been a huge help for the better part of six months with learning how to handle a young, vibrant, virile, stallion. At this point, it might be remarkable to note that Kim is able to load "Visky", his stable name, singlehandedly. And unload him. Just like you would like it, walk up, throw the rope over his neck, up he walks. She shuts the tail bar, then walks around and hooks up the tie.  At Three! Even on the way to work. He loves to work. Ask Ken Edwards if he as ever enjoyed training a horse more. No. This horse is a complete pleasure to ride and train. 

As the available weeks were diminishing, Ken kept hinting to Kim that this horse 'might-oughta-jump', he would impress the inspectors more. Kim held to her Dressage guns for awhile, but then relented, she was getting curious to see what her powerful colt could do. At Eagle Oaks, Ken had built a jump chute, or hitchcock pen, where horses can be free schooled over jumps. The perimeter fence is 9 feet high, the pen is 50 by 120 feet. The horses have ample time to balance and do changes of leads on the turns, and room to do an entire triple combination of jumps on the side with out leaning into or out of it. Kim's young stud was impressive from the getgo.  Ken who has trained thousands of horses for their first jumps, told Kim that he started great. If they put him in some more, he might really impress the inspectors. Plus he pointed out, at the inspection, they would want to jump him some anyway, why not add to the great dressage score he would get anyway? Kim bit her nails, put the four boots on, the bell boots, and said go ahead. Well, Visky just jumped with ease. Ken, who has trained many horses to win prizes in the Grand Prix Show Jumping Arena, says he is on his way there. Visky has the scope for the big time.

The Inspection came during Hurricane Francis. Kim, organizing the inspection figured out how to run it one day early, late at night. Under tough circumstances, windy, cold, night, her three year old colt, Irish Dream, was given the highest scores by Swedish inspectors in the US, at the Swedish Warmblood inspections held at Pennock point, during the first Hurricane(Francis), is that home run.  He was the only stallion approved this year that was bred in the United States.  One of the photos shows an exciting moment during the freejumping phase of the inspection. Young Visky got distracted and turned around in the one stride combination at the base of the nearly 4'6" oxer. Ken stepped forward and clapped his hands and clucked, Visky pirouetted back and powered over the big oxer. Look close, his belly is up over seven feet, you will see that Visky is nearly 2 feet clear of the top of the jump standards. The jump standards are five and half feet tall.  The showjumping inspector was awed, and said that was enough. 

Later, in the Dressage phase of the inspection, Visky was given very high scores, noted for the quality of all his gaits. Ken took a chance while performing and in the small arena, and showed off Viskys' perfect flying changes of leads in both directions. The inspectors grilled Visky hard, lenghtening and collecting all gaits, Visky showed his elasticity, was asked to gallop, then collect. He showed he could do it on the bit and on the buckle, literally. Visky performed so well in the dressage phase, that it could be noted that he would likely win training and first level competitions now. Please watch for him to debut at the Hits horse shows in Ocala, maybe some local dressage shows, maybe a low level horse trial. Check out the website, www.genesisfarmusa.com .  If you are breeding some mares, you are strongly encouraged to make an appointment to see this wonderful young stallion during a training session. Consider joining Kim in making your dream of owning a world class horse come true too.

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