A Quality family

The Kennedy family stand seven stallions including OBOS Quality 004, sire of Burghley winner MGH Grafton Street, and breed 60 foals a year. Pippa Roome visits them at home in Ireland

- Pippa Roome

KIERAN KENNEDY’S interest and pride in his stallions is obvious on arrival at Coolballyshan Stud. His wife, Natalie, sweeps me into the long, covered yard and Kieran opens a stable door to show me the hugely popular and successful stallion OBOS Quality 004.

“OBS”, as the family call him — and this is very much a family affair — is 28 now and his record speaks for itself: he was a Nations Cup showjumper under Denis Coakley and Dermott Lennon and his progeny include last year’s Burghley winner MGH Grafton Street, ridden by Pippa Funnell, and the 2015 European showjumping team bronze medallist Castlefield Eclipse, piloted by Paul Estermann for Switzerland.

Kieran is bubbling with enthusiasm as his brother Liam brings out the stud’s other six stallions, including the Olympic showjumper Vivant, a neat, powerful-looking horse even at 22 and now the stud’s flagship stallion. In an open-fronted barn, yearlings poke their heads through the bars to eat their fill of haylage. Nearly all by Vivant, they appear virtually identical, but Kieran and Liam know the personalities and pedigrees of every one, even though they breed some 60 foals a year.

German powerhouse breeder Paul Schockemöhle bred OBOS Quality 004, selling him to Ireland’s Marie O’Brien as a four-year-old. He is by the multiple grand prix winner Quick Star — whose other stallion sons include Rio 2016 Olympic champion Big Star — with jumping lines also through his dam Reichsdame, by Domino.

“We saw a lot of his young horses jumping in the five- and six-year-old classes, so we approached Marie,” says Kieran.

An injury in the stable ended OBOS Quality’s jumping career when he was 13; the Kennedys bought him two years later, in 2007.

“He was busy the first year — he had 80 mares, then 120 the next year. Then he had three Nations Cup showjumpers in Lisona,