‘It’s horses like that who get a piece of your heart’: farewell to prominent breeding stallion, aged 23

Tributes have been paid to the top breeding stallion Womanizer, who has died aged 23.

The much-loved Heartbreaker son, owned by Olive and Ivor Broderick of Kylemore Stud, had been standing at Gemini Sport Horses for the last year.

“He was such an exuberant stallion; there was never any badness, but not everyone could ride him. He probably looked a bit mad at times, but it was all blood and enthusiasm,” Olive told H&H.

“When he was younger his tongue was too big for his mouth and he was difficult to bit and quite ‘heady’ to ride – but if you left him alone, you could send him into the bottom of the biggest vertical and he’d never touch it. You didn’t need to worry about where his head was, you just needed to send him and he was uber careful.”

Olive and Ivor bought Womanizer as a rising three-year-old from Paul Hendrix in Holland. He was competed as a four-year-old by Sheila White, then Stuart Harvey rode him as a five-year-old.

Conor Swail went on to have the ride, but Womanizer sustained a serious tendon injury aged seven. He was nursed back to soundness over the next year and a half, but did not return to jumping; instead Olive and Ivor focused on his breeding career.

Offspring of stallion Womanizer:

Some of Womanizer’s offspring include five-star event horses CHF Cooliser (Tom McEwen), Cooley Quicksilver (Liz Halliday) and Ballycoog Breaker Boy (Will Rawlin) – and he has a crop of young horses who have made good prices at the likes of the Goresbridge Go For Gold sales.

“He has plenty of five- four- and three-star event horses and he has some horses doing 1.40m-1.50m showjumping. He also bred good show horses; he had very good conformation and was very correct,” said Olive.

“His offspring aren’t the easiest young horses to ride if you haven’t the patience, and that’s typical Heartbreaker. They’re a bit busy in their mouths and heads, and you have to understand where it’s coming from. Funnily enough, even though he had so much blood, he worked better with mares with some blood, he worked very well with Cavalier, Clover Hill and Cruising mares. You wouldn’t have put him on paper to work well with warmbloods, you’d have said he’d be better off with something a bit lazier, but he didn’t need that because his temperament was so good.”

Olive said this kind and gentle temperament stood out.

“I remember one time, he’d been off for a few years by this point, and my daughter Chloe who was nine or 10 took the notion to take him for a ride,” she said.

“I got back to the yard and there she was with a crate in the middle of the arena hopping up, and we just froze. She was bobbing around the arena on him and he was happy as Larry. He was a real sweet horse, he was happy in the field, in the stable, being ridden – it didn’t matter what he was doing.”

Womanizer will be hugely missed.

“He was a bit like part of the furniture. He helped establish us as a stud and he was the easiest horse in the world, which I think many wouldn’t believe. It’s horses like that who get a piece of your heart,” said Olive.

“He was fully assured that he was the best stallion in existence, he came out of the stable every day the same way, like a cool teenager going to the disco.”

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