Sea the stars at Cadlanvalley
Rebecca Haywood pays the Welsh pony breeders a visit at their Cadlanvalley Stud to discover some of the secrets behind their success
IF you ever get the chance to visit Cadlanvalley Stud, don’t rely on sat nav. You’ll end up at the wrong farm.
“Ah yes, we’ve had a lot of people tell us sat nav takes them the scenic route, so Howell and I tried it one day and it was absolutely horrendous,” says the stud’s founder Yvonne Davies, in her soft Welsh accent.
However, the invigorating abundance of wild and spectacular coastal scenery is ample reward for the directional errors.
“We’re on the edge of a cliff and, on a good day, you can see Ireland,” was what I now recall Yvonne’s daughter Hayley Grota telling me on the phone.
Yvonne and Howell Davies, who founded the Cadlanvalley stud in 1975, can look back on the 2017 season with a great sense of pride and satisfaction.
Not only did they see ponies they’ve bred win top accolades at the most prestigious shows, but the prefix was awarded a host of
major awards, including the Horse of the Year Show (HOYS) Kellythorpe Stud's leading Welsh section B breeder of the year, while their stallion Russetwood Elation was crowned leading breed sire of the year.
Among the ponies helping to catapult the stud into the limelight is the recent Olympia BSPS Heritage champion Cadlanvalley Sandpiper, HOYS junior mountain and moorland (M&M) reserve champion Cadlanvalley Mikado, and HOYS lead-rein of hunter type winner Cadlanvalley Super
Ted. Cadlanvalley Buzby wrapped up the
2016 season by clinching the M&M ridden title at HOYS .
Despite the enviable, long list of championship titles and awards, the family remains a modest bunch.
“We’re always trying to improve our stock. We are learning all the time,” says Yvonne.
The walls in the farm’s bungalow kitchen are festooned with pictures of the stud’s main players, past and present, and it’s obvious they possess real passion for the ponies they breed.
The current home of the Cadlanvalley stud is a 200-acre farm on the North Pembrokeshire coastline, but Yvonne and Howell originally started in a small valley — Cwm Cadlan — a Welsh national nature reserve in south Wales. “This is where we took our name from,” explains Yvonne, who recalls how some money her grandfather gave her was just the beginning of a successful breeding programme. “He gave me some money towards a house. Instead, I went to my first Fayre Oaks sale and bought a Welsh section B mare,” says Yvonne. “We did well because we later found out she was in foal to a Royal Welsh champion. That first filly we bred went on to win a lot and cemented our love for the breed.”
Yvonne and Howell moved to St Dogmaels, near Cardigan, in 1988 when Hayley was 12-years-old.
“I remember thinking we were moving to the end of the world,” laughs Hayley.
The stud has relatively new outbuildings, which include four outdoor stables and eight internal. The family currently has about 35 ponies around them, and they aim to breed 20 foals a year.
“We made the decision a few years ago no longer to have any visiting mares, so everything here is our own,” says Yvonne. “We did this
because a lot of the mares coming to us were not section Bs we would want to own and breed from ourselves. We were getting so many that we thought by not taking them, a lot of these people would want to buy a foal instead, which has definitely happened.”
Yvonne, Howell and Hayley, who also works three days a week in sales at an estate agent, along with granddaughter Libby, 13, strive to keep it a family affair. They clearly make a good team as the results speak for themselves. “We’ve all got to muck in to make it work,” says Hayley, who now does all the in-hand showing — a skill she has been perfecting from the age of 11 — while Libby has taken on the ridden ponies. “Dad is in charge of all the hard feeding, but the mucking out and turning out is done by myself,” adds Hayley. “My brother Mark, who isn’t horsey at all, will do the water and hay. And if we were all away at a show, they’d never want for anything with him around.
“When it comes to the foaling season, Dad will go out two to three times a day to check them all,” she says. “Both Mum and Dad are still very much on top of the breeding side of things and Mum likes to do all the foal registrations and passports. I’m in charge of all the entries for the shows. Mum did one HOYS qualifier for me and entered the wrong class, so I now do them all.”
With no arena to work the ponies in at home, Hayley makes use of the big, open fields and the beach.
“We have nothing flash, but there are arenas I can hire if needs be and Libby has a dressage lesson once a week,” says Hayley.
While the stud has been home to many top stallions — Wharley St George, Georgian Sinbad, Millcroft Copper Lustre, Boston Bonaparte — to name a few, the family is eager to pay tribute to their senior stallion Russetwood Elation, who they lost in November last year.
“He left us with some amazing stock and we’re very lucky to have retained so many of them,” says Yvonne.
Elation, a son of Eyarth Troy, was the sire of both Cadlanvalley Buzby and Cadlanvalley Mikado. “Not only was he a top sire of HOYS and Royal Welsh champions in-hand, he was the sweetest stallion anyone could ever own,” she adds. “He was a true little Welshman with tremendous bone and substance combined with a fantastic temperament and movement, which has been passed on to his stock.
“He was such a gentleman in all ways and loved to be made a fuss of — he was, without a doubt, the best sire we’ve ever owned.”
Now, two of Elation’s grandsons, Cadlanvalley VIP, who is out of Buzby’s sister Georgette, and Cadlanvalley Georgie Boy, who is back on loan from the Goldenwood Stud — will have their first crop of foals on the ground this year.
“It will be interesting to see how they turn out,” says Yvonne. “Our aim is to breed a HOYS winner, but you have to remember that the mare is just as important when it comes to breeding,” she adds.
Howell and Yvonne are quick to credit Stockham Domino as their leading dam.
“She’s 24 years old and she’s been the best,” says Howell. “We breed from her every other year, so she’s not in foal this time. We’re going to cover her again this year with Georgie Boy.”
Domino is the dam of Buzby, Sandpiper, Georgette and Georgia, who was reserve supreme at the Royal Welsh show as a
‘There’s definitely a certain stamp of section B that’s my cup of tea, so I try to hang on to the ones I like’ YVONNE DAVIES
three-year-old.
“There’s definitely a certain stamp of section B that’s my cup of tea,” says Yvonne,
“so I try to hang on to the ones I like.”
Hayley adds: “A section B should be substantial and deep-bodied with a big back end. They should also have a lovely Welsh head, little ears, big eyes with a good set on front, and plenty of limb, which is an important trait to us.”
Cadlanvalley has an annual list of foal buyers from all over the world, including Canada, France and Poland. “We’ve sold a lot to Holland and Germany, too,” says Yvonne.
Last year, the stud retained four foals out of the 20 they bred. “We’re selling to about 15 countries, which is great, but we have to keep on improving. The difficulty we face as a stud is finding good stallions for the future. They’ve got to have good temperaments and they must be the stamp we actually like,” says Yvonne, who recalls that Howell being asked to judge the section Bs at the Royal Welsh last year was one of their most memorable moments in their 40-year breeding/showing journey. “It was an honour for him to be asked and a day we’ll never forget.”
“One of the main struggles when it comes to showing is that we have to travel so many miles to get to any of the qualifiers,” says Hayley, who spends hours driving to shows with Libby. “There’s never any in Wales, so we have to travel the country.”
Despite these endless journeys, Hayley admits Libby’s results have definitely been worth it. “She’s probably the most keen out of all of us,” she laughs. Last season,
Libby qualified six ponies for both Royal International and HOYS. Partnering Mikado, she headed the junior small breeds final before taking reserve in the junior M&M championship. “It was the third time Libby has had a win at HOYS, but the first time riding one of our home-bred ponies,” says Hayley. “Libby has always been hard-working and determined. She loves nothing more than watching the adults ride when we’re at shows.”
The Cardigan schoolgirl has been riding for producers Debbie and Ron Thomas for the past four seasons and will continue with some new rides for them this year. “I’ve learnt so much from them and it’s great being part of a fun team,” says Libby.
It will also be Libby’s first season riding Buzby in open section B classes. “She’s finally old enough to ride him in the ring,” says Yvonne. “She’s ridden him at home since she was eight,” adds Hayley. “He’s like a 20-yearold gelding rather than a stallion.”