1989 – 2004 168 cm Chestnut

With winning horses in both eventing and showjumping, the Australian bred Koyuna Majestic Supreme, was THM Jumping Stallion of the Year 2009.

The chestnut stallion was born in 1989 and was by Supreme, a son of the jumping foundation sire, Souvenir, and out of Northern Coroula II by Northern Congress, an Australian born son of the German Holsteiner, Contact, by Cor de la Bryère. Congress was out of a mare by the first Warmblood to come to Australia, another Holsteiner, Flaneur out of a mare by the fine Thoroughbred stallion, True Mist. Northern Coroula II’s dam, Northern Amunda, is by the imported Dutch sire, Arnhem by the Thoroughbred sire of jumpers, Abgar, out of another daughter of Flaneur, Marmara.

Although Howard Clark, who stood Souvenir, has recently supplied me with a pedigree of the stallion, it just doesn’t work. Either the horses are not to be found at all in the Australian Thoroughbred Studbook, or are ‘impossible’ – like the mare who is listed as a stallion. Howard points out as proof that Souvenir is a Thoroughbred, that his son, Kumali was advertised as a ‘registered Thoroughbred’. Once again when we look at the ASB studbook, we find that Kumali is registered but described as ‘ntb’ – not Thoroughbred – his sire (that is Souvenir) is ‘unrecognized’ and only the dam sire, Yultewina, is accepted as a Thoroughbred.

The pedigree for Souvenir’s son, Supreme, does more or less check out. He is described as out of Koyuna Felicity by Nestor out of a mare by Voluntary – and both names do come up in the Thoroughbred stud book. There’s just one quibble, Felicity’s dam Philesia is described as being out of Phillady by Valiant Chief out of Lady Courteous. There is a record of a filly by Valiant Chief out of Lady Courteous, but her name is Courtesan.

I guess we will never get to the bottom of the mystery of Souvenir’s pedigree, but there is no doubting that he was one of the very first jumping horse sires in Australia. Howard Clark recalls:

“We first took Souvenir to Melbourne Show in 1963 and that’s when we first started taking outside mares, before that it was a private operation of my father’s. I made it commercial when someone at Melbourne Show said to me, ‘How much is your service fee?’ and I said “What’s a service fee!” Off the top of my head I said forty guineas and all of a sudden I had twelve booked in that year and I thought, well bloody hell this is alright!”

“Out of that first lot came our first Australian Showjumping Champion, the mare, Burgundy. We knew Souvenir could jump because when Henry Hooper broke him in at Wangaratta he free-jumped him. He jumped an enormous bloody log. Jumping wasn’t really fashionable those days, it was only about that time that Olympic jumping started to come in. Dad was more interested in hacks, not showjumping and it was only when Burgundy came along, and more started to jump that we realised what we had. It was me who took it forward as a professional stud. Dad was quite happy to leave it at that because his interest was the hacks and nothing more.”

The sire of Koyuna Majestic Supreme, Supreme, was never quite as famous or seemingly as important as Souvenir?

“No, not to me he wasn’t. He was probably a better conformed stallion. He was Champion at Melbourne, 12 or 13 times and certainly was Ridden Champion at Melbourne a couple of times. But I don’t think the Nestor side of his breeding helped on the jumping side, but certainly it was Souvenir with the jumping influence.”

What made you turn to a Warmblood mare when you bred the stallion, Majestic Supreme?

“After Souvenir died, I really lost heart in the whole thing. I had really had enough because we were milking 300 cows at the time and I had a young family and I just really didn’t have the heart any more. I had Supreme left, and I only had two or three mares left. Johnny White came to me one day and he said to me that he had this mare from Peter Powles and did I want to breed a foal? And I said “Oh not really,” and he said, “I really think you should, and if you get a colt, you can keep the bloodlines alive.” If that hadn’t happened I would have finished breeding forever then. Majestic Supreme was the resulting foal. He wasn’t the be-all-and-end-all as far as I was concerned but he certainly had a fantastic temperament, and there’s a photo I sent to you free-jumping and that was just as a three-year-old.”

“If you have a look at his natural jump over those jumps as a three-year-old, you’ll see Wendy Schaeffer’s mare, Sun Set, jumps the same way. I’ve been watching a lot of the European horses and they jump the same way too.”

He never competed, Majestic Supreme?

“No, he never competed. I took him to Melbourne Show as a two-year-old and he won the Warmblood Class and was Reserve Champion in the Open Stallion.”

“Still we weren’t breeding much. All we did with him was to try and keep the bloodline alive. It wasn’t ‘til after Barcelona Olympics that a bloke in Melbourne approached me and asked, “have you got the same bloodlines as Peppermint Grove?” and I said “yeah,” and he said, “would you like to start up again?” and I said, “oh not really,” and he said, “we’ll get a group together and go and get a band of mares together.” So I went and bought ten or twelve mares of my bloodline that I really wanted and we started up again. And Majestic Supreme was a foundation of the resurrection of the horse breeding again.”

Howard reflects upon the performance horse breeders’ lament – by the time the stallion has enough foals in competition to prove how good he is, he is dead. Majestic Supreme died not so long ago after a paddock accident as a comparatively young fifteen year old.