WHEN Sarah Alexandra Band travelled from Canada to Ireland in 1972, she became the first of 18 students from that country to undertake the Irish National Stud Thoroughbred Stud Management Course. The most recent member of that group was Michaela Kemp in 2020.

Nineteen students did the course in 1972, its second year, and Sarah was the only one of that year’s intake not from Ireland. She also had the distinction of winning the silver medal, a new innovation that year.

Roll on 15 years, to 1987, and there was a full house of 30 students enrolled for the six-month course. Nine of the students were from overseas, three from the USA, two from Australia, while there was one each from Canada, Britain, Lesotho and Belgium. It was to be an historic year, with the first female winner of the coveted gold medal.

That winner was the Canadian student, Helen Boyce. Now one of the best-known names and faces in the breeding industry, Helen has been a stalwart of the Irish National Stud team for longer than she might wish to acknowledge, having just completed her 35th season at Tully. Helen holds the title of breeding manager at the INS, one that does not properly reflect the wide range of duties and responsibilities she has.

This is the 19th of a planned 25-week series on the Irish National Stud Thoroughbred Stud Management Course, and I felt that I should perhaps profile one of the graduates of the course who was now a member of the team at Tully, even though I had already spoken with CEO Cathal Beale. I had in mind someone whose name regularly pops up when I ask former students to pick outstanding lecturers and mentors.

Stud staff

Cathal supplied me with an exhaustive list of current team members who have graduated from Tully, and they included almost all of the stud staff, headed by the stud manager, Annette Boland (class of 1980). Add to that Paul Croke, Harry Shearman, Lauren Eiseman, Leona Harmon, Tina Off, Michelle Fox and Sean Finan, management assistants Emma Hannon, Conor Hyland and Stan Begley, along with Ellen Mitchell in tourism, and you can see that making an impression on the course is no disadvantage when it comes to seeking future employment.

However, despite having such a range of possible interviewees, I stuck to my original plan and met with Helen Boyce this week. She is not a lady for the spotlight, but her story is nonetheless a fascinating one. Yes, Helen’s name is one that former students almost always recall when providing a shortlist of influential course mentors.

‘More Irish than the Irish themselves’ was a phrase that was in my head as I prepared to meet Helen, and that provided me with my first surprise. Helen told me: “I’m multinational Leo. I am Canadian, I have Canadian citizenship, but I was born in Banbridge, Co Down. My parents emigrated when I was a small child. I have two sisters and their families there.”

Nijinsky

That was surprise number one. The second was to learn that her father Tom looked after a horse who caught my imagination as a teenager. “When we emigrated my father went to work at Windfields Farm. He was there for five or six years and the most prominent horse he looked after as a yearling was Nijinsky. After that he managed a couple of private farms.”

Helen experienced a mixture of equine disciplines before and after college, including riding, pre-training and breaking. However, when it came to university she chose to study agriculture, and afterwards thought “I might as well try a civilised job”. This meant going to work as a youth programme coordinator for the Ministry of Agriculture and Food.

Frank Dempsey

However, the lure of working with horses drew Helen back. She vaguely knew of the course at the Irish National Stud, her father being friends with the late Frank Dempsey. However, Helen headed to New Zealand for two seasons to work at Field House Stud where she shared a house with Mick Berry from Wexford (class of 1985) and Gordon Cunningham, a graduate in the class of 1982.

There she learned more about the course, returned to Canada for a season, and went back to Field House. One of her colleagues had an Irish boyfriend, working in Cambridge Stud, and he turned out to be Frank and Teresa Dempsey’s son Des who did the course in 1984. The die was cast. Helen applied to go to Tully, got the gig, and has never looked back.

Olive O’Connor and Greta Clarke, both very familiar names in the business, were Helen’s roommates on the course. Her abiding memories of the course were similar to many others. “Oh it was fun. It was a chance that you would never get elsewhere, to work with 29 others of the same age group, same interests, same everything.

“There were three cars between the lot of us. I think Una Mulcahy had a little car. Jeff Kruger had Alastair Pim’s car [Alastair graduated the previous year] – he went to Australia and the boys swopped cars. Gary Coffey, now at Newsells Park, was good fun. Richard Kelly from Australia could stand up and recite the poem, The Man from Snowy River.”

Glass ceiling

Helen ‘broke through the glass ceiling’ when she won the gold medal, the first of 21 females now to hold that distinction. After the course Helen worked with Bridget McGing as her assistant, doing the veterinary nursing and foal care. John Clarke was manager at the time, while others on the team included Pat Downes [class of 1984].

After that Helen began to work more as an assistant to John Clarke, and she was not short of responsibility, helping with the coordination of coverings, doing all the purchasing and procurement, and looking after the student course. It was a few years before “we managed to convince the powers that be that the course warranted someone to look after it as their main concern. That is where Sally [Carroll] came on board”.

One of the admirable features of the Irish National Stud then, and now, is the loyalty of its employees. Back at the start of Helen’s sojourn at Tully the team also included Janet Dwyer, Annette Boland who was then in the office, Helena Breslin [class of 1979], Eileen Kavanagh and Claire O’Toole. The legend that is John Gannon, stallion men Noel Fox, Mick Kelly and Mick Murphy, and Mick Downey were also recalled by Helen.

Golden asset

If you know Helen, you will know that she is patient, efficient and a golden asset to the Irish National Stud. Being in her presence is always a pleasure.

Her own particular pleasure is “seeing the students going through the course, and doing well out of it. We’ve had some brilliant people on it, and it’s great to see them come in, to grow and to give them the tools to go on with.”

Many students are grateful for Helen’s interest in them, and all students spend a week working with her directly on the course. She is modest to a fault, not always comfortable when told that her influence is beyond measure. However, that is the truth, and many industry leaders who went to Tully in the past three decades owe an enormous debt of gratitude to one of the great ladies of the Irish breeding industry.

Take a bow Helen.