Great Racing Studs

Aisling Crowe speaks to Irish National Stud chief executive Cathal Beale about the history of the world-renowned farm

Article from Racing Post 18th September by Aisling Crowe

Sea The Stars. The world champion is the best horse foaled and raised at the Irish National Stud this century and belongs in the pantheon of those bred and reared at the farm over an illustrious story that will reach 125 years in a few short months.

The superstar’s name could also describe the vision of the man who transformed Tully from a farm to the birthplace of champions and whose foresight eventually led to the establishment of world-leading studs and educational centres in two nations – although a lot of history had to occur in the intervening years.

Colonel Hall Walker was a man who believed in the power of the stars over life on earth, astrology being one of the guiding tenets by which he lived.

There are any number of theories on ways to plot the trajectory of a horse’s career when one is a wealthy owner-breeder, but Hall Walker, the son of the brewer who donated the Walker Art Gallery to the city of Liverpool, held his own very distinctive ideas.

He employed his astrologer to divine the chart of each foal born at Tully, using their horoscope to forecast if success on the track lay in their future.

Whether that stargazer predicted the Classic success the farm would enjoy or the life one of the horses would lead is not recorded for posterity but, in Minoru, who was bred by Hall Walker at Tully in 1906, there is a horse who connects racing and the royal families of two nations.

He was one of a sextet of horses from that crop of foals leased by his breeder to King Edward VII and provided a royal triumph in two of 1909’s Classics. Minoru’s Epsom victory remains the only Derby triumph by a horse carrying the colours of a reigning monarch. Retired from racing, he wound his way to Russia in 1913 but disappeared during the 1917 Revolution. His fate, although the subject of heavy speculation, has never been conclusively proven.

A couple of years prior to the Bolshevik uprising, Hall Walker gifted his farm to the then government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and it was to be the site of the realm’s National Stud. Home Rule was in the offing but, the year after the sale, the ‘terrible beauty’ so christened by Yeats was born and Ireland soon took the first, faltering steps in its life as an independent nation.

It appears Hall Walker, who was MP for Widnes for 19 years and elevated to the peerage as Baron Wavertree, and his astrologers did not read that in the stars.

“We trace our history and that of the National Stud together until the 1940s, when the two diverged and the Irish National Stud was established here,” explains Cathal Beale, chief executive of the Irish National Stud.

“The two governments negotiated a solution and Ireland owned the land while the British government owned the horses and they moved over. Sun Chariot, who is still remembered in the name of the Group 1 at Newmarket, was one of the last brilliant horses to be bred by the stud before it was divided.”

Beale was appointed chief executive of the Irish National Stud in 2017 and took on the role seven years ago this month. Unlike Hall Walker, he does not have the luxury of indulging personal idiosyncrasies as he is in charge of a state-owned entity that has to be run without recourse to the Exchequer.

“It’s a case of trying to balance all of the objectives we’ve been tasked with while also running an ordinary commercial farm within the realities of that situation,” he says.

“We have a remit to provide education facilities, heritage, culture, stallions at a more affordable level, a boarding farm, and sell our own bloodstock, and we have to do as many of these things as possible while running a commercial entity.”

It is both an ordinary farm and an extraordinary one.

Of course, the Irish National Stud is also a major tourist destination. Tully is one of the star attractions of Ireland’s Ancient East, a tourism initiative that promotes the heritage of the eastern half of the country, and the stud, along with the Japanese Gardens, Irish Racehorse Experience and its Living Legends including Hurricane Fly, Faugheen and Beef Or Salmon, draws around 150,000 people annually.

Beale has overseen an increase in visitor numbers during his tenure.

“That has grown from 110,000 per year five years ago and it would be made up of 65 per cent Irish visitors and 35 per cent international visitors,” he says. “From a tourism perspective, it’s a diverse range of people who Failte Ireland [the National Tourism Development Authority] would describe as culturally curious.”

As well as cultivating another source of revenue for the stunning farm with its ornamental lake below the distinctive stallion yard, tourism plays a vital role in promoting an understanding and appreciation of thoroughbred racing and breeding among the wider public.

“The social licence that racing operates under is fundamentally why we have the tours, racehorse experience and Living Legends,” explains Beale. “Visitors come here and the stud and the interactive experience shows them the life of the thoroughbred, from breeding to aftercare. It’s the circle of a thoroughbred’s life and we show them that it’s a life well-lived, and allow them to participate in that journey.”

Luck plays its part in that journey, as the visitors discover when they get to the end and have the opportunity to pit their bloodstock and racing nous against that of their friends and family

Fortune, destiny and the idea of being written in the stars all appealed to the man who bought Tully with his winnings from the 1896 Grand National victory of The Soarer.

The distinctive stallion boxes at the farm have lantern roofs, designed so that the celestial bodies can shine their heavenly lights upon the horses beneath, bestowing upon them the benign fortune of the gods.

Beale says: “Throughout the history of the stud around 75 to 80 stallions have stood here and the first that the newly established Irish National Stud purchased was Royal Charger in 1946. Thankfully for us all, he became remarkably successful.

“He’s the progenitor of the Sunday Silence – Deep Impact line, which is a huge thing for our Japanese visitors, who are so interested in that history.

“Royal Charger was a three-parts brother to Nasrullah and one of the important horses he sired at the Irish National Stud was Turn-To, who was, like his father, exported to America, where he became the sire of Sir Gaylord and Hail To Reason, grandsire of Sunday Silence.”

Among the roster, the farm has always had a leading man.

Royal Charger was followed by Sallust, who was succeeded by Ahonoora. His son, Indian Ridge, was the Irish National Stud’s next kingpin, and now for the best part of two decades that position has been occupied by Invincible Spirit.

“In our history we’ve always been fortunate to have a standout stallion among the roster and Invincible Spirit has been the one over the past 15 years,” says Beale. “He’s carried the farm to a whole other level and it’s a privilege to stand him here.”

Invincible Spirit has also been introduced to royalty.

The farm was one of the locations chosen to host Queen Elizabeth II during the late monarch’s ground-breaking and historic visit to Ireland in 2011, a century after Minoru carried her great-grandfather’s silks to Classic glory.

Six years later, when King Charles III (the Prince of Wales as he was then) and Queen Camilla (Duchess of Cornwall as was) paid an official visit to the country, the Irish National Stud once again was on the itinerary.

“There’s such a connection between the late Queen’s family and horses bred here; so many of the horses from the early years were leased to the royal family,” says Beale.

“When the stallions were brought out, everyone was on tenterhooks because they are stallions and we all know what they can be like, but the Queen was the calmest person there. It was so clear that she was a fascinated and passionate horsewoman.”

The Irish National Stud also offers world-renowned education. Its breeding course, established by Michael Osborne, who is a predecessor of Beale – a graduate of the course – in the role, has a roll of honour that includes many of the leading figures in racing and breeding around the world over the past four decades.

It demonstrates the wide-ranging experience that is the Irish National Stud and its importance to not only Ireland but the global racing and breeding industry.

Those twin tracks are ones which Beale and his team are honoured to tread.

“It’s a privilege to be a steward of this place, for just a small period of time with respect to the wider period, and you understand that when you read the history,” he says.

“Sustainability and accessibility are hugely important to us. We’re always trying to get better, to improve so that each time a visitor arrives here they see something new, something different from their previous visit. And they leave with a better feeling about racing and breeding”

Legends have been born here, legends live here, but the greatest star that is on show here is the Irish National Stud itself.

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