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Cruising is by the registered Irish Draught stallion, Sea Crest. Cruising’s dam, Mullacrew was an International showjumper, winning at top European shows. Mullacrew’s sire, Nordlys was the sire of many famous jumpers, including the 1972 individual Olympic gold medallist, Ambassador (Italy). Cruising’s grand-dam, Big Idea was a full sister to the Irish stallion, Ideal Waters. Big Idea was by Water Serpent, the sire of international jumpers like Rockette and The Rock. Water Serpent was also the foundation sire in Patricia Nicholson’s successful eventing horse breeding program. As a competitor himself, Cruising was a star – winning Grand Prix at Aachen (1999), Dortmund (1999), Lucerne (1998), San Marino (1996) and Wolfsburg (1996). He was the winner of three World Cup Qualifiers: Millstreet (1997, 1998) and Geneva (1998). |
Cruising has been a successful sire of international jumpers such as Cruise Missile, Cruiseline, Sails Away, Sail Rain and World Cruise. His eventer son, Mr Medicott, ridden by Frank Ostholt, won the World Cup CIC 2007 in Strzegom (POL). In the 2006 Jumping Stallions’ rankings, as compiled by Bernard le Courtois in Monneron 2007-2008, Cruising ranks equal 24th with 11 international representatives.
Cruising was one of those very lucky ‘accidents’ that happen every now and then. His dam, Mullacrew had been sent to the Irish breeder (and owner of Sea Crest) Mary McCann: “She hadn’t been bred for three years. She had retired from competition after competing for the Army internationally, winning such shows as Lucerne, Rome and Wembley. After she retired she bred one foal, Steel Dust, a horse that went to Joe Fargis in the United States – they sold him as a foal to raise money to send the team to the Los Angeles Olympics. He won their Novice Championships, then damaged his knee.” “We didn’t get another foal after that, and when Mullacrew was nineteen, we were told to put her down.I had to move heaven and earth to reverse that decision and in the end I leased Mullacrew to breed with, from the Army, for a shilling. We covered her the next week and Cruising was the offspring.” “He was a nice foal but didn’t show anything special. |
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Then when he was three years old he was starting to realise he was a little man, and I said to Edward Doyle, the international rider who was working with me at the time, ‘You better take that fellow out, and if he doesn’t jump, I’m castrating him’. He hit the rafters and that’s when we realised we had something. From then on we took him very easy.” “He doesn’t do an awful lot. He only does about ten shows a year. He’ll do a few shows, come home, go out in the field every day while we are freezing semen for export, all the work he does here is to trot around the roads for about eight miles each day, then a bit of cantering in the sand, but no jumping at all. Then he’ll go back to Trevor Coyle’s and back into the shows.” “He gets no schooling except what Trevor gives him. He’s always very good on the flat, he’s highly intelligent. We just keep him very fit.” “He breeds very well to the half Irish Draught mare. You want to look at Cruising as if he was a National Hunt Thoroughbred. He actually puts more quality into the mare than she has herself – he never goes the other way. With his foals, the day they are born they are dead correct.” |
