Lucienne Bellissimo and Tremanton. Photo by Shannon Brinkman Photography.
Sarah Cohen’s Treason and Trebetherick, Katie Taliana’s Trevalgar II, Oliver Townend’s Tregilder, Izzy Taylor’s Trevidden, Lucienne Bellisimo’s Tremanton, and Katie MaGee’s Treworra. You could be forgiven for thinking these horses have nothing in common, despite having awfully similar names. They contain none of those signals we have come to expect from breeders and sourcers with suffixes or prefixes denoting their origin. However, from Nation’s Cups to Young Riders to CCI5* competitions, these British Sport horses with their subtle and incorporated “Tre” consistently appear in entry lists and records globally.
They come from Preci-Spark Event Horses, a stud whose goal is to produce equine partners capable of the highest levels of eventing. Started by Vincent “Vin” Jones, his father Ralph, and his wife Liz, Preci-Spark gets its name from the family aerospace engineering business. The “Tre” nods to their Cornish roots, both personally as past residents and professionally with a manufacturing factory located in Cornwall. In the Cornish language, “tre” means village and each horse bred at Preci-Spark is named after a Cornish place.
By Tre, Pol, and Pen,
You shall know the Cornishmen.
So goes the adage coined in the 1609 Survey of Cornwall, written by Richard Carew.
Vin himself rode to the CCI5* level, then 4*, as an amateur, receiving the Armada Plate in 1982 alongside Captain Mark Phillips and Diana Clapham for over five completions at Badminton. When he hung his hat up from riding due to injury, he thought the time had come to give breeding a go.
“It was probably the most expensive thing I ever did!” He remarked about the beginning of it all. He was encouraged by Sam Barr, founder of the famous Welton Stud and produced horses that were European Champions and CCI5* winners in their own rights. Barr’s legacy continues in Welton Double Cracker, now based at West Kington Stud and fathered over 60 progeny.
Vin purchased broodmares he felt would start a program of CCI5* event horses. Of those, three successfully went on to complete the level and one was a 2004 Athens Olympics selected mount.
“I was always told you put the best to the best to produce the best, so that’s what we tried to do.”
Hand In Glove. Photo courtesy of John Charlebois.
With those first mares, he bred to Barr’s first stallion, Welton Cracker Jack, and to an American Thoroughbred standing at the French stud, Haras de Brullemail. That Thoroughbred was Hand In Glove, a successful Californian show jumper with John Charlebois before moving to France. He is most famously the sire of the Olympic show jumping stallion, Jaguar Mail, who had five offspring competing at the 2022 FEI World Championships of Eventing at Pratoni del Vivaro (Vassily de Lassos, Colorado Blue, Box Leo, Joy Stick, and Ferreolus Lat).
“We adopted the principle of trying to use mares with a lot of blood,” Vin explained. Each of those first mares, and many of their current ones, were full or around ⅞ Thoroughbred. “We always felt that you wanted the Thoroughbred blood in the mare more than anything else. That goes back a bit to the old Irish Sport Horse, which was a Thoroughbred mare, covered by an Irish stallion. That, of course, over the years, was hugely successful [but then they] introduced a lot of Warmbloods, which really wasn’t so successful.”
Trebetherick and Treason were the first success stories, ridden by GBR’s Sarah Cohen who at the time was stable jockey for Preci-Spark. Trebetherick and Cohen showed proof of concept when they completed Badminton 5* together in 2010 and Treason followed his stablemate a little later. From the beginning, Cohen was Treason’s rider, taking him from his first backing all the way to multiple CCI5*s, resulting in Nation’s Cup appearances, long-listing for the London 2012 Olympics, and excellent results in the now defunct Event Rider Masters series.
After 17 years with Preci-Spark, Cohen and the Jones parted ways in 2014 where Samantha Hobbs took over. In a full circle moment, Emily Grace, granddaughter to Vin Jones, started under Sam five years ago and now works as manager and stable jockey for the stud.
“It was definitely in the back of my mind,” she said about joining the family breeding operation, now based in Lowesby in Leicestershire. “But I went off to do a business degree. I came for the summer to help Sam, and then never left!”
Oliver Townend and Tregilder. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
The stud today has around 20 horses on site with exciting prospects among them. Watching her grandfather over the years and working with the horses herself, Emily agrees that the mare is the key to their breeding success.
“We’ve realized over time how important the mare is. We’ve got horses that are all by the same mare and a different stallion, but they’re so similar in their behavior and in their jump.”
It hasn’t been smooth sailing the whole time though.
“My wife and I love horses. We love producing young horses, and it’s exciting,” Vin remarked. “[But] it can be terribly depressing when things go wrong, which they inevitably do.” Pasture accidents, infections, and sport injuries thwarted every effort to care for them and dashed many hopes in the history of Preci-Spark. “Young horses have got to grow up, but you’ve got to hope that they stay in one piece while they’re growing up.”
Vin’s love of the young horse surpasses just his own. In 2002, alongside current British Eventing president Jane Holderness-Roddam, breeder Patrick Rolfe, and the late Sam Barr, he co-founded the BE Breeding committee. Responsible for the creation of the BE Breeding Championships, this is now what we know as the Young Event Horse Championships, held at Cornbury International Horse Trials to spot future talents.
Sarah Cohen and Treason. Photo courtesy of Event Rider Masters.
For the Preci-Spark stud, Tregilder is perhaps the most globally well-known. The 14-year-old gelding is now retired from upper level eventing but at the peak of his career, ridden by World Top 10 athlete GBR’s Oliver Townend, he finished top 10 twice and podiumed once at CCI5*. Tremanton, ridden by US-based GBR rider Lucienne Bellisimo, has enjoyed multiple top 10 finishes at the CCI4* level over the last two years with future hopes for a CCI5* and most recently, Treworra, ridden by GBR’s Katie MaGee, finished 13th at the Pau CCI5* in 2024.
Both Vin and Emily feel the reason for the success of their horses at the highest levels is the way they have prioritized keeping the percentage of blood high.
“They take a little bit more time to develop,” Emily added. “Sometimes they go under the radar a bit until they’re nine or ten and they’re usually quite big horses. [But] they pull through when you’re at your five stars because of the blood in them, and they seem to be quite hardy. I think that’s what really shines.”
Vin’s goal with the stud has been accomplished and now they have proudly produced six 5* mounts: Tregilder, Trevidden, Trevalgar II, Treason, Trebetherick, and Treworra.
Horses rarely go according to plan but the future of the stud is promising.
Trefoil, currently going CCI3* with Richard Jones, is particularly close to their hearts. Out of Cevin Z, a stallion standing at the prominent Billy stud, and an embryo transfer daughter of The Wexford Lady, his dame line’s grandsire is Treason’s full brother, Treffry. Along with Tremanton, hopes for a 5* completion remain high.
Some hopes, however, are closer to home.
“I want to go and compete at five star on a Preci Spark homebred horse!” Emily laughs. She has three young horses in Trewindle, Trevanion, and Trenchant competing in the 4- and 5-Year-Old Young Event Horse series that might fit the bill one day.
