‘I thought he was a really good horse and thank God, I was right’: meet one of Badminton’s first-timers

The 2024 Mars Badminton Horse Trials will be a first for 26-year-old Irish rider Daragh Byrne and his horse Kilcannon Ramiro. Daragh and his father James purchased “Turk” as an unbroken three-year-old from Goresbridge equine auctions in Ireland.

“Dad broke Turk in and I took him on as a four-year-old,” explains Daragh, who events full-time from his Co. Meath base. “I took Turk to a six-year-old class [CICYH*] at Millstreet and said to the commentator, Chris Ryan, that I thought he was a really good horse and thank God, I was right.”

Turk is an Irish 12-year-old gelding, by Ramiro B out of a mare by Kildalton King, who was bred by Mary Bolger at the Kilcannon Stud. Owned by James, Turk won the CCI4*-L at Ballindenisk in 2022 and they attempted their first five-star at Pau last October, but Daragh had a fall across country.

“We’ve been together every step of the way, so it’s great to finally get here,” says Daragh, who has a huge team supporting him at Badminton this week including “old friends, new friends and family”.

Daragh states that Turk is “usually pretty laid-back”.

“He’s good in the stable and is a big, chilled out dude until something frightens him, such as another horse gets lit up around him – that sets him off. He tried really hard not to blow up today,” explains Daragh, relating to their Badminton Horse Trials dressage performance this morning (10 May), where they scored a respectable 34.8.

“I’m very happy with the way he coped with the atmosphere. He became a bit hot and fresh outside and I was getting a little bit worried, but when he went in there, he concentrated and he did his job really well,” commented Daragh. “My aim was to score lower than 35 and we just squeezed under that.

“He’s relatively inexperienced at this level and he’s never seen crowds like that or an arena like that on grass.”

How to watch Badminton Horse Trials

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Gemma Redrup

H&H features, racing and point-to-point editor

Gemma is an experienced journalist, having been part of the H&H team since 2014, who is passionate about all equestrian sports, including racing and point-to-pointing. She has enjoyed riding out for top trainers Nicky Henderson and Charlie Appleby and took part in a charity Flat race at in August 2018. Gemma’s reporting talents have taken her to numerous five-star events around Britain and Europe, as well as European championships.