"LILY? She’s forgotten more about horses than most people will ever learn!” So says Sligo veterinary surgeon Jim Tempany, one of the many west of Ireland horse owners with good reason to admire the consummate horsewoman that is Lily McGowan.

Hailed for her good eye for a horse, it turns out that Lily is part of the background story of multiple Dublin and Horse of the Year Show champions. And then of course there is the fairytale story of Ringwood Magister, the Ballina-bred event horse that brought the young Californian rider Tiana Coudray to the London Olympics.

Not that bragging about these achievements is part of the mettle of this very modest lady; it’s only after leads are provided through names mentioned by Lily that later turn out to be household names in the showing world. And as the tales of her typical courtesy emerge. For example, journalist Louise Parkes is another with the height of praise for her. A regular competitor on the Riding Club circuit with her Connemara gelding West Joey, Louise recalls the day she bought the pony that “turned out to be a cracker” at Maam Cross.

“We were bidding against each other and Lily kindly stepped aside, otherwise I wouldn’t have my ‘Joey pony’. We worked together moons ago and Lily is just the loveliest person. Horses learn quickly with her because of her kindness and inner calm.”

So where did this grounding in practical horsemanship begin? “I always loved horses. My father and grandfather had horses all their live and I have had too once I could walk,” said Lily, who grew up in Ballymacredmond, near Knockmore in Co Mayo.

“I went to school in the convent in Ballina, I would cycle five miles there and back, morning and evening.

“William, my father, came from a big family and every one of them bred and broke horses. Myself and my sister helped my father and I seemed to be the one stuck in the yard! I did all the local shows and had great fun show jumping with my favourites Just Matilda and Tammy.”

HOME IN THE DARK

“In those days, we used to ride to most of the hunts. Michael Noonan was the master of the North Mayo Harriers then and we’d often hunt around Enniscrone and Easkey. “I’d hack to Michael’s yard, lead his horse to Easkey and he would follow on with the hounds in the trailer. It would be dark coming back through Ballina and we were a good five miles beyond that to home, but the roads were a lot quieter then.”

After she finished school Lily went to work for Jack Kidd in Enfield. “He kept a mixture of thoroughbred mares and foals, it was great experience. Then I went to Frank McGarry’s and must have been there in Sligo for two or three years. I worked in the riding school and the yard, teaching, a bit of everything. They are absolutely wonderful people, Declan would have been in ponies at the time and had some good ones. After that, my father was sick so I came home.”

With hard work and patience, she soon established a reputation as a good instructor and the go-to person to start off young horses. Even as we chat over coffee in the Mayfly Hotel, a local lady stops to greet her. “You used to teach my daughter, you were a great teacher.”

“I went to Lily too for lessons and we built up a longtime friendship from then. She is a perfectionist in everything she does. I remember she had the most gorgeous 13.2 show pony named Lavender, it was the first right show pony I remember,” recalls Tiernan Gill, who like Jim Tempany, was to later source future winners from her yard.

BREAKING GOOD

You could nearly tell at a glance a horse broken in by Lily McGowan. She still uses the same method of ‘nagging’ young horses about. It’s an old-school principle, one which the renowned Vere Phillips is a fan of but nowadays with the livery bill meter running, isn’t always financially viable for owners.

She recalls reading his 2014 article in The Irish Field when he lamented the changes in production by saying: “Even in Ireland, the horses are getting a little bit like what I call rabbits in hutches. The Irish way of producing them is becoming more like the continental way of producing them – horsewalker to sand school and not enough out in the fields, where they learn to cope with conditions and helps teach them brains and commonsense.

“That’s why we always bought the lovely Irish horse. So I’m now having to reintroduce them to that environment before I sell them to my clients, because that’s what they want from the Irish horse,” added Phillips.

The need to reintroduce a McGowan-produced horse to the outside world is minimal.

“I’d like to take my time breaking a horse, very much so. It all depends on the horse’s temperament, how long it takes, but the young horses here are very well handled. They’re used to being dosed, having their hooves trimmed and rugs put on them which makes it easier when you take them in as three-year-olds.

“The first thing we’d do is lunge them off the cavesson, followed by letting them get used to the breaking bit while they’re standing in the stable. Then I’d introduce full tack, including the crupper and leave that on for an hour or two. I’d do that maybe for a week, some horses settle quicker than others and when they’re ready, we’d drive them in long reins for two, three weeks or more.

“We have a sand track and also some quiet back roads where you’ll have tractors and barking dogs coming out of farmyards. That’s all part of the horses’ education and it’s very, very important to have a horse going properly and with a good mouth. How they’re broken in can stay with them for life.

“When they have enough driving, I’d introduce them to the saddle. If they’ve had the rest of the tackle on for a couple of weeks, there’s usually no trouble and then we’d back them.

“The forward-going horses may need extra time but generally we’d hack them around the farm and later they get out to see shows, so we’d load them up. Even standing in the lorry at shows is all part of their education.”

Lily and her partner Stephen Doherty still start off their own horses but now send the youngsters away to be backed. “I’m very happy to have good people who do a very good job.”

CHAMPION AFTER CHAMPION

One rule change at the Dublin Horse Show this year is the ‘no double bridles’ rule for classes such as young horses and Irish Draught stallions.

“Years ago, I remember showing a Diamond Lad horse at Dublin in a snaffle which they had to be shown in then as four-year-olds. What I like to see in the in-hand classes is the horse being shown to get the right picture. It’s about training at home and doing your homework to teach your horse to go straight at walk and trot at all times, so the judge sees all of the horse. Not with the head and shoulder turned in towards the handler.”

Lily is another of this series’ horsewomen to bring along a selection of her favourite photos and one of them perfectly illustrates her point. It’s of a dark bay Chillout gelding trotting parallel to the Ring 1 railing at Dublin, ears forward and looking the proverbial picture.

“We bought him from his breeder Michael Morrison and he was out of a Captain Clover dam. He had already qualified for the future event horse final and we had brought him to Athlone Show, where a friend of John Bannon’s spotted him.

“A few days after, John rang and asked “Is your horse for sale?” so he bought him and showed him at Dublin. He came back the following year and won the riding horse championship.”

That 2015 champion – then owned by Patrice Dorney, Daniel and Mhairi Rawluk and produced by P.J. Casey – was Spellbound and is one of many sourced and produced by Lily.

“I’ve always been lucky and came home with a ribbon of some kind,” said Lily in her understated way. “If you got a ribbon in Ballina Show years ago, you could go to Dublin. The standard was that high, they’d bring in great ridden judges. And to win the Oliver Dixon Cup at Claremorris was nearly like winning at Dublin.”

How many times has she won that cup? “Six times. Maybe more,” she admits, delving into the photos to find one of her most recent Claremorris champion she produced. “A Carthago mare that had a Flexible foal this year.”

Lily McGowan is presented with the Oliver Dixon Gold Cup for Champion Hunter at Claremorris Agricultural Show in 2010. Photo: Michael Donnelly

With Claremorris taking place on the August Bank Holiday Monday, the McGowan lorry was packed and ready to go straight on to Dublin.

“The lorry was cleaned out and that was where you slept for the week in Simmonscourt. Vetting was on a Tuesday, then every evening there were the horses being shown and jumped in the veterinary paddock with the buyers lining the ringside.

“I still wouldn’t miss it. There’s a few local children qualified this year, including Taylor Sweeney, Paddy’s son.”

Amongst the numerous Dublin winners she had produced are Ted Connolly’s hunter mare champion Tracy’s Flight, by Euphemism. “I had her about a month before Dublin. Ted’s sister was to ride her but got injured. The mare won her class and then it was into the main arena. I’ll tell you it was something special to gallop up the long side!”

Jim Tempany’s Skreenmor Superstar, bred by the late Pat Gleeson, followed up with two reserve championship ribbons. “Jim was our vet for years, I started off taking a four-year-old of his, Clover Vella, to Balmoral where we won the heavyweight and four-year-old championship. I loved the old Kings Hall showgrounds.

“That was the first foal I bought on the Fair Green in Ballinasloe with my late father,” recalled Jim. “Clover Vella was by Ballinvella out of a Clover Hill mare and I paid 2,800 punts, proper money for a foal back then. I remember the night we went to McHugh’s pub in Knockmore after he won in Balmoral and filling the cup! That horse went to England and so did Skreenmor Superstar, who was by I’m A Star.

“There’s three things of note about Lily, who, if I liked a horse for sale, I’d bring her to see it too. It’s how well her horses are produced, that very keen eye and she’s a real old-school horsewoman,” Tempany said.

THE MAYO FLAG

Tempany is also linked to another Dublin champion, having later bought Tireragh Stepping Stone, by Limmerick, from Tiernan Gill. That was after an historic family win in 1994 when Tiernan led Flogas Marbella to win the Laidlaw Cup for the first time, while his late father and namesake had the reserve champion, Stepping Stone. And again, there’s a Lily McGowan connection.

“The man who bred Marbella was Mairtin Grealish and we bought him as a weaned foal. He was by Into The West out of a Nautilus mare and we showed him in Dublin as a two-year-old when he was second. A great model and a super mover,” Lily said, recalling the flashy chesnut.

“Every day we’d pull him out of the stable, I’d say ‘That horse will win Dublin’ and then three months before the following Dublin, Tiernan and his father came to the yard and bought him.”

There were unforgettable jubilant scenes around Ring 2 after that Laidlaw Cup win in the year Bruce Davidson was one of the young horse judges. Held aloft at the ringside was a Mayo flag. “That was mine,” revealed Lily. “We had it in the yard and I just brought it to Dublin. We all went out that night to celebrate!”

RINGCRAFT

Another Mayo owner to benefit from her ringcraft skills was Anthony Gordon who sent his Butler’s Boy to be produced for Dublin by Lily. Second that year, the horse was sold and returned the following year under his new name Jeeves to win the supreme hunter title in 1992 with the late Diana Gilna on board. Then there was John Connolly’s Ard Grandpa-sired Hillowen Harvest Day, who placed fifth in the 2008 six-year-old show jumping class with Dave Quigley, in a field that included Revelene, Mark Q and Omega Star.

“He was bought at Ballinasloe Fair from his breeder Liam Ryan, the same day that we bought Hillowen Harvest Time there from Cathal Keane.”

Ballinasloe has been a lucky hunting ground. “It’s the only fair I go to without fail and I’d usually buy two foals every year. First of all, I’d have to like the foal, I’d study its conformation, then find out the breeding. It’s very important to look at the dam, the mare is very important. It’s now gone to the stage that a mare has to prove herself doing something, let it be jumping or showing.”

Mayo was renowned for good thoroughbred stallions in the past and Lily runs through some well-known names. “John Daly had Final Problem, Station Master was with Jim O’Donnell, and Johnny Carroll had Rex Get Busy in Killala. I still think I’d have to like the horse first, then the pedigree would come in after that.

“The reason being if a horse wasn’t going to make it as a show jumper, he could still make a nice show horse. An event horse has to have blood and step. A good front is most important in a show horse, a very correct set of legs and a nice, compact topline.”

Once she’s selected her foals, they’re housed indoors for the winter “but we’d try to get them out for two hours every day, weather permitting.

“I buy a good few Connemara ponies now, mostly privately in Galway which would be the heart of Connemara breeding. My father always had a Connemara and there’s a good market for a ridden pony.”

That Golden Warrior horse Hillowen Harvest Time went on to have a successful showring career with Katie Jerram. Incidentally, she also owned the prolific winner Sirius II who placed every year at the Horse of the Year Show (HOYS) since he was a five-year-old.

“I bred him,” disclosed Lily. “He was by Salluceva, that stood with Philip Scott’s brother Michael in Moate and I sold him at Goresbridge. After he won at HOYS, Michael and Jill Jerram came over and bought his full-sister. I think he won everything that could be won in riding horse classes.” Including the 2010 HOYS championship for his new owner Vanessa Ramm.

How does she keep track of these ex-charges? “A lot of people will let you know how the horse is getting on. And I’ve a stack of The Irish Field to catch up on when I’m not busy.”

FINIAN’S STORY

One horse she has followed closely was Ringwood Magister. All credit to Adrian Bourke who has always said it is merely his name on the passport but that Lily is the horse’s unofficial breeder.

“How it all happened was Adrian, who I’d known for years – I would often hear my father talk about how his grandmother would hunt side-saddle – mentioned he wanted to buy a mare. So off I went, found her and the deal was done.”

That was Cloonkeen View, a Carrabawn View-Samiel mare bought near Ballinasloe from John Burke. “Adrian asked me which stallion we should use and of course it was Master Imp. It must have taken us four hours to get down to Carlow but it was well worth it!

“I remember going in for the tea with Mrs Hatton and chatting to Loftus, [O’Neill] sitting round the fire. She got top-class care there and as soon as she was scanned in foal, the mare came home. The following year, Adrian phoned me and said ‘Lily, the mare foaled last night, a colt foal.

“He was kept until a three-year-old and then a friend of mine Joe Sharkey bought him, broke him and sold him on to Peter Leonard.

“There was an article in The Irish Field several years later when Adrian went to see Ringwood Magister and on the front cover that week was Joe’s daughter Cora, who had won the Grand Prix in Fontainebleau with Berties Clover.”

Ringwood Magister has now retired from top-level eventing and has switched to dressage. ‘Finian’ is still “very much the main man of the yard,” Tiana Coudray said this week.

“A few of my very lucky pupils have lessons on him (or I really should say lessons from him as he is such a brilliant teacher). He won’t go more than a few strides of canter unless they sit straight and use correct aids. And they’d better be clear where they’re going with the jumping as he will take them on any line they accidentally point him to!”

Teaching the next generation, just as Lily McGowan, the West’s all-round horsewoman, has done too.