‘A clear-round machine'

Pippa Roome finds out more about Je T’Aime Flamenco, the world-class showjumping stallion being made available for breeders on a budget

- Pippa Roome

“WHEN I went to try him, I left thinking, ‘I have to buy that horse.’ He was an outstanding jumper and already a beautiful-looking horse, with real breeding stallion potential.”

Ask Billy Twomey about his first memories of Je T’Aime Flamenco and this is the Irish Olympian’s response, drawn from trying the then six-year-old at Pennie Cornish’s yard.

Fast forward 15 years and the Belgian warmblood is one of the most popular stallions standing at Stallion AI Services – he has covered more than 100 mares in the past year – after a hugely successful showjumping career.

Pennie first saw Je T’Aime Flamenco – or “Doug” – when he was a three-year-old.

“I was in Belgium looking for some horses and saw him. He was too expensive for me, so I didn’t buy him,” she reveals.

But the horse Pennie bought didn’t work out and she ended up swapping him for Doug.

“He was the one I wanted anyway, though I got him in a bit of a roundabout way,” she says. “I always loved him. I liked the fact he wasn’t overly flash, but he was light and quick off the floor. He always made a good shape with his front feet really up.”

Pennie says that Doug was easy to break in, but that he went through “a really naughty phase” as a four-year-old.

“He came through it and was just so consistent,” she says, adding that Doug was somewhat overshadowed by Talan, who is the same age and was also produced by Pennie, and who went on to be a championship horse for Britain’s Robert Smith and Saudi Arabia’s Prince Faisal Al Shalan.