JERRY Horan has come a long way from his teenage days of trading horses and ponies at Baltinglass Mart.

At the Tattersalls Ireland Breeze-Up Sale last month, he achieved the second-highest price - €325,000 - for a colt by Starspangledbanner (consigned under Ballynure Park Stud). It was some profit considering he cost just €36,000 in France last October.

Making a few quid in sport horse sales while still in school gave the Wicklow native an appetite for the lucrative flat racing scene. He now has a serious eye and a talent for turning inexpensive horses into money-spinners.

“That sale was a timely boost,” commented the 32-year-old, who just a few months ago signed for 45 acres near Moone, Co Kildare.

“When you are tricking and trading, it’s hard. Honestly, you’d be living on breadcrumbs the whole time. You need a big one like that. It fills in a lot of potholes.”

That lump sum - he was the sole investor in the flashy two-year-old - will go a nice way towards paying for his new premises, a permanent base he has been seeking now for quite a while.

“I’ve horses scattered everywhere. The breeze-ups were at a rented yard on the Curragh. I have mares and foals in with Bernard Cloney. I needed a place of my own and I am glad to have bought somewhere now.”

While still at school, Horan got such a kick out of buying and selling horses and ponies. He was known for riding the hardier ones and, by his own admission, ‘got plenty of dirt in my mouth from falls’.

Ambition

He’d done a bit of show jumping as well, but that didn’t float his boat. He also rode out for local trainer John Lennon during transition year and, while he never had much of an ambition to be a jockey back then, he did take part in the Corinthian Challenge in 2019.

“My parents, Eamon and Maree, were not involved in the industry. They ran a successful pub in the town called Horan’s, where I worked in my younger years. It is now sold and they have retired, but I still have a small glamping business beside it.

“My uncle Mick Murtagh would have helped me a lot and got me hunting. I was also breaking a few with the help of local lads, Jordan and Charlie Hart.

“I got chatting to a neighbour Pat Gahan one day. His son Padraic is a whizz on pedigrees, and he introduced me to the bloodstock side of it.”

Jerry Horan and Padraic Gahan have been good friends ever since and, in an interview a few years ago, when asked if ‘he could be someone else for the day, and why’, Gahan replied “probably one of my longest friends, Jerry Horan, because you would be guaranteed to have a story to tell after the day!”

Four years

Horan has plenty of stories alright, including the one about how he had to repeat first year in equine science at University of Limerick three times, because he kept failing the exams. “It took me four years to do a two-year course, but I got there in the end!”

For placement, he did the breeding course at the Irish National Stud. Further experience was gained at various yards and stud farms in Ireland and at Dromoland Stud in Kentucky.

“I had also done some bid spotting at Goffs as work experience while in college and loved it.

“After my first week at Goffs, I bought a Dalakhani filly for €3,200. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but the figures sounded good. I think I sold at a loss!”

When Horan returned from a stint in Australia, he worked locally and did a part-time course in auctioneering before going back to Goffs to work on the rostrum for a time.

By now, he was also renting a yard near Baltinglass. “Colin Jackson was a great help to me getting me started, as was Andrew O’Connell and Jackie McGeer, who have both been a great help to this day.”

Trading under the Paragon Bloodstock banner, one of his first shrewd purchases was Dandy’s Beano, a €1,000 bargain at the Tattersalls Ireland September Yearling Sale in 2016. The daughter of Dandy Man was resold at the Goresbridge Breeze-Up for €20,000 and went on to be a five-time winner in the UK.

Another €1,000 buy was Jumeriah Palm Star, who was picked up at the Goffs Breeding Stock Sale in 2018. Although sold on shortly afterwards, he was delighted to see her two-year-old colt Under The Stars land the Group 3 Princess Margaret Stakes at Ascot the following summer.

“Good or bad, you need to keep moving them. They might be lucky for the next person, and you might get a second throw of the dice.”

Horses here and there

Horan said that from there on, it ‘kind of snowballed’. “I was buying a few of my own and selling them on and buying for others. I also had legs in a few horses here and there.”

When Covid hit, the horse sales business took a bit of hammering, but never one to sit on his laurels, the same year he struck up a business partnership with the Capital Stud team in Kilkenny.

“They have given me plenty of opportunities. I have a share in Castle Star. He is by Starspangledbanner, who has been lucky for me. He will have his first yearlings this year.”

Horan has also supported Top Gear with many mares. He is in his first season at Capital.

“He is top of the pops this year and is heading for 200 mares, so he has every chance of making it.”

He mentions his association with a few others, including the Group 2 winner El Cabello, who is also very exciting being by Havana Gold. He’s the sire of Havana Grey. “When it comes to stallions, everyone is going for the next dream.”

Every year, Horan buys a few mares in foal. “More mares mean more vet bills, but I had a few decent returns early on. I have been luckier buying mares in foal than trying to cover them with decent sires.”

In 2022, he bought three mares in foal to Havana Grey. One of those was the very well-related So You Think mare Style And Grace, who he picked up in Tattersalls for 12,000gns. He made a nice profit when the resulting colt was sold at the Goffs November Breedingstock and Foal Sale for €90,000.

In training

Hailing from the same family as Group 1 winners Sense Of Style and Valentine Waltz, Oro Blanco is now in training with Jessica Harrington.

Together with Michael Kelly, Horan was also involved in bringing the 2024 Italian 1000 Guineas-winning filly Beenham (another by Havana Grey and his first-ever classic winner) to Ireland to commence her breeding career here.

The Wicklow man has been involved in the breeze-up end of the industry for seven or eight years, but up to recently most of those were in partnerships.

One notable sale early on was the coup pulled off with a son of Dark Angel, picked up for €6,000 from the Arqana October Sale in 2020 and later sold on.

Named Brasil Power, he has been a great flagbearer for Paragon. Horan was in partnership with Katharina Irmer for that one, and a few others. “That was a great early start for us.”

Ballynure Park

He has since registered the name Ballynure Park Stud as a sole venture and pulled off another nice payday with a Havana Grey filly in 2025. Purchased as a yearling for £10,000, she was entered for the Guineas Sale in Newmarket.

The fastest of all the fillies in the breeze-up, she was secured by Middleham Park Racing for 100,000gns and put in training with David Easterby. Now named She’s Got A Brother, she won twice over five furlongs at Southwell in April.

This has been Jerry Horan’s first year doing all the breeze-ups himself and he’s had 15 in the yard on the Curragh.

“I am renting at James Burns’ and it has been ideal. We have 25 boxes and, between pre-trainers and breeze-up horses, we’re almost full this year. Joey Walsh and Martin McGreer were with me full-time during the winter and my girlfriend Siona Moynihan, who is a veterinary nurse at Sycamore Lodge, is here every weekend. I have several riders who come in every day too.”

Thrill

Horan was positive about some of the youngsters he had under his wing for 2026, but nothing could have prepared him for the thrill of seeing his colt by Starspangledbanner fetch the second-highest price at the Tattersalls Ireland Breeze-Up Sale last month, when snapped up by Anthony Stroud for €325,000.

Out of the group-placed Shamardal mare Balansiya and a half-brother to the listed-placed Baraniya, the chesnut ticked all the right boxes for his consigner. “I hope he goes on and does well for them.”

Looking ahead to the next few weeks, Ballynure Park Stud has consigned a nice filly by Sea The Stars for the Goffs Classic Breeze-Up Sale on June 27th. She was a €14,000 purchase in February.

After that, it’s back to the drawing boards to fill his book for 2027. “I will attend every yearling sale between August and November and, ideally, would like to have 15 again for next year.

“I’ve had plenty of good days and plenty of bad days, but the breeze-ups have been most lucky for me over the years. It’s the best chance of reaping the biggest reward, so I’d like to build on that end of it,” he concluded.