STORIES, conversations and eras all have their endings. Famous stallions have their shelf life too.

After the powerhouse Clover Hill’s death in 1997, the flood of breeders travelling to Ringroe gradually became a trickle. Not that revenue dried up, as money had meant little to Philip Heenan.

Officially there are over 4,000 registered foals between Clover Hill and Ballinvella. A conservative IR£150 stud fee for this pair would have netted Heenan some IR£400,000. Clover Hill could have made him or another owner a millionaire. Or would he? Was Heenan’s God-given instinct of matching him to the right mares the reason for his success?

“He wanted the best for the ordinary person, whether it was a postman or a small farmer,” replied his brother Tim when asked why Philip didn’t charge going rates.

The late Dr Pat Geraghty also summed it up beautifully, back in 2003 at Ballinasloe Country Fair Day when he spoke about how Philip thought as much of the farmer with the homemade horsebox as owners of more deluxe transport. Lorry owners travelled up that narrow laneway, lined with overhanging branches, at their own risk. Which led to one famous incident when an international show jumping rider’s mares were banished, after a remark was made on the state of the laneway.

Carling King’s breeder had booked a locum to cover his Glenamaddy practice that day so he could travel to Ballinasloe. Capt. Donald Swan came up from Modreeny with Philip’s namesake nephew. And there was Denis Heenan, who always came to Country Fair Day with his brother for the “genius in boots” annual day out, too.

John Hoolan, Pride of Shaunlara’s breeder, was also there. Late for the evening milking, he left it up to Heenan one year to select any stallion for his mare. Farhaan was Philip’s choice and the result was Moneymore, the 1993 Grade C champion at the Horse of the Year Show. Luck, insight or both?

The breeders of Carling King and Pride of Shaunlara - Dr. Pat Geraghty and John Hoolan - pictured with Denis Heenan (centre) at Ballinasloe Country Fair Day, 2003 \ Susan Finnerty

A devout man, Philip had passed away earlier in 2003. Unlike the hapless breeder who mistakenly strayed into a Church of Ireland service in Borrisokane, his many Hillman Hunters were familiar with the daily route to Nenagh for 8am Mass. Falling ill on the way to town, he passed away on March 27th. Shortly afterwards, an advert for an auction of the remaining stallions appeared in the Irish Farmers Journal and the laneway grew silent.

Some 20 years beforehand, based on the thinking that a trip to Tipperary was more educational than double biology, my brother Peter and I set off to Ringroe for the first time. In tow in the horsebox, borrowed from her breeder Leslie Wakefield, was Aughrim Dew. Few schoolgirls had chequebooks but a signed cheque was obligingly provided by other brother Michael to pay for the famous Clover Hill’s stud fee. Rookie mistake. The mare was covered, cheque waved away and a long-lasting friendship formed.

I never could pay Philip for the two Clover Hill foals that mare bred. Although he could be repaid somehow. A cup, spotted in the jeweller’s shopwindow one lunchbreak, caught my eye and the idea formed for a Philip Heenan Memorial Cup for the champion foal on Country Fair Day.

The price tag made me wince but waiting at home that same day was an income tax refund. Same amount as the cup.

Lab test

There was more magic. As the noted jazz musician Humphrey Lyttelton once said, “Coincidence is a wonderful thing.” Which is one way of describing standing in the aisle of the Sultan of Oman’s Royal Stables in January 1994, staring at the four-legged result of skipping school that afternoon: Pendle Hill, the first foal the L-plate breeder had bred.

Sold as a yearling at Ballinasloe to the late Fordie Cathers, she was later sold on after a successful novice career with Richard Smyth. As the groom explained, she was amongst a consignment of horses brought 3,000 miles to Oman by the Royal Stables show jumping trainer Steve Hadley.

In this same week 11 years ago, while at his Leominster home for an Irish Field feature, his wife Claire obligingly dug out a sales ledger with Pendle Hill’s name recorded in it. “It could only happen to you,” was Philip’s amused reaction to this extraordinary coincidence. He already knew the details as someone had posted him the Connacht Tribune clipping about the story.

In ‘normal’ times, Holiday World takes place at the RDS this weekend. The first person I met two years ago at the Simmonscourt entrance was Mary Oakley, Philip’s niece and later on, the Moroccan ambassador Laheen Mahraoul. He was fascinated by the story of the two ex-Heenan stallions sold to Morocco; Monanore and Nero, with his prophet’s thumb.

Small (Holiday) World: Mary Oakley, Philip's niece with the Moroccan ambassador Laheen Mahraoul at Holiday World in 2020 \ Susan Finnerty

There was a touch of the prophet too about Philip. “One day you’ll write about all this,” was an imprimatur given. Then, it went right over the head of a skittish 20-something with a Green Card. Now, I see it as the subtle benediction it was.

However writing about those Camelot years is a tall request. There is always the risk of romanticising those times. That Ringroe hilltop was a bleak place to be in the middle of a March gale. Philip’s ways either fascinated or frustrated breeders and other stallion owners. There were sad times too, such as when his nephew John Oakley passed away.

Still, that bench - a railway sleeper on two upended oil cans - was the best place and classroom to be when the sun and characters were out. Some arrived as early as 2am in the morning hoping to beat the queue for Clover Hill.

The conversations were Irish storytelling at its best. Others played a game of cards to pass the time. I remember one silver-haired gentleman silently praying with his rosary beads one evening. Whether it was his daily ritual or a divine appeal for Clover Hill’s last slot of the day, only he knew.

“It was the camaraderie back then,” remarked Matthew O’Meara, while his Kentucky-based brother John recalled the incident of a Cork breeder being dismissed for casually kicking one of the terriers.

You always heard Philip returning from the occasional lunchbreak by the yapping of his terriers, front paws on the dashboard, as the posse rode shotgun up the laneway in Heenan’s car.

“We got them here and there for £20 or £30,” said Tim about his trademark Hillman Hunters.

The wire-haired Patch and Tiny “he came from east Limerick,” according to Tim, were the best-known of the terrier family. Ben was a gift from Betty Parker, Ballaseyr Twilight’s breeder.

“She promised Philip she would bring him an Alsatian pup so sometime later she walked up from the road and said, ‘I have that pup for you today.’ Philip said: ‘Where’s the pup?’ ‘It’s in the box at the road.’ Philip said: ‘Bring up the box!’ and a while later, Betty came up the lane with a 30-foot horsebox and a fully grown Alsatian in it. That was Ben.

“He had a black Labrador for 19 years but Philip didn’t own him at all! Mrs McFarland owned him. Some person left a message for Philip so she came up with the Labrador. She put the dog back in the car but as soon as she got home, the dog went back up to Philip. She came back 20 times for the dog, would lock him up but he always went back to Philip. In the end, the dog would watch both houses. When the meter man called, the dog would cross up the field to Philip’s and your man thought there was two black Labradors in the neighbourhood!”

Fasten your seatbelts

The other constant feature were the birds overhead. “It must be 25 years ago, I took over a three-quarter-bred mare I’d bought from Andrew Younghusband. Philip put the breadcrumbs into my hand and the birds came and landed. He said: ‘Don’t move or they’ll fly away.’ That just made my day, the birds eating out of my hands,” said Jennifer Haverty describing the feeding ritual.

Swiss visitor Silvia Röösli also has vivid memories of her first visits to the yard. “I spent the day watching the stallions and the people who were coming with their mares and feeding the birds. Philip always had crumbs in his jacket pocket and gave me some to feed them,” while Ruth Loney confirmed it was the late Robert Orr who took the famous photo of Philip with a robin perched on his hand.

“Philip was a stickler for manners. If you jumped the queue to get your mare covered, you would be put back to the end of the line,” she added.

Always a gentleman, Philip was gifted with a near-sixth sense as another lady found on her visit to the yard. “I can picture the scene, holding my mare at the teaser’s window. Philip, sitting on the bench, suddenly called to Matt Cleary to hold the mare as “You’ll have your own youngster before the mare has hers.” And I didn’t even know [I was pregnant] at the time!”

Another lovely fact about Philip was that I can’t ever recall or heard of him criticising another stallion or stallion owner. Yes, the occasional breeder, who strayed from the fold and sheepishly returned to Ringroe with a foal at foot by another stallion, did the walk of shame past his mischievous gaze but that was it.

Nothing escaped his attention. “Max Hauri used to come to Nenagh show. He’d be showing Philip photos of this horse, saying he’ll make a great horse. The person he’d sold that horse to as a foal called to the yard one day and Philip said, ‘How did you get on with that foal out of such a mare?’ ‘Oh he died,’ and he after looking at a picture of the horse abroad in Switzerland!”

Another breeder owned a miraculous mare that produced 10 or 12 foals each year by Clover Hill, thanks to some creative paperwork. “Now, Philip was very vexed about that.”

A cardinal sin, apart from aiming a kick at a precious terrier, was to leave the gate at the end of the laneway open. This gate, where visitors parked any notions at, was to be kept closed at all times.

“Philip was very particular about shutting the gate in case the mares got out on the road. He sent Denis to town for horsenuts once and then said, ‘Did you shut the gate?’ ‘Oh I did’. “You’re the first man to come up the laneway to close the gate wearing a seatbelt so,” said Tipperary hurling great and family friend Len Gaynor.

Incidentally, a man cut from the same modest cloth as the Heenans, as there was no mention when we met about his award-winning autobiography Chiselled from Ash.

Another seatbelt story involved a Garda checkpoint in another Tipperary town. “A couple of fellows came along with mares in horseboxes and didn’t see him until the last minute so they were pulling seatbelts across them as quick as they could but couldn’t get them closed. The Garda was checking tax and insurance and then he said, ‘Mind the seatbelts don’t choke ye, lads.’ He knew they were going to Philip’s,” said Tim, who had his own humourous brush with the law.

“This new guard came from West Cork, Jim Murphy. He was checking traffic in the middle of the town one day and was asking me who’d have a horse for sale. So he took out his book and wrote down their names. I parked the lorry and as I got out, someone said to me, ‘Isn’t that fellow an awful so-and-so, taking down your details.” All he was trying to find out was who was selling horses!” said Tim about the breeder of Nick Skelton’s speed horse, the Smooth Stepper-sired Everest Domino.

Legacy

Urban myths about mare owners ringing Jim Murphy or the green P&T phonebox at Ardcroney crossroads in the hopes that the local Garda or a helpful passing local would relay messages to Philip appear to be just that. “[Brother-in-law and nephew] Tom and John Oakley had mobile phones,” Tim said, explaining the advances in modern technology. The introduction of DNA reduced the shenanigans of multiple foals in one year from the same mare too.

Tim’s own mobile phone is a godsend to him, planning greyhound fixtures for example. One message includes a photo of nephew Philip leading one of Denis Hogan’s horses at Doncaster. While replying to confirm the time for the pre-Christmas visit and smiling at the wonder of this 84-year-old WhatsApp wizard, what lands on the windowsill outside but a robin. Coincidence of course.

“Philip never liked having his photo taken. He seldom got into a photo. If anything he’d turn his back to the camera.”

A most amazing set of photo albums, taken by Silvia Röösli and featuring the most complete collection of Philip’s stallions, show he did not always turn his back to the camera. Photo albums were one way Philip was paid or repaid. Bales of hay; pups; 3,500 words; a freshly caught salmon from the river Moy, brought by Captain Clover’s breeder Cormac Hanley, are others.

With the post-Dick Jennings era followed by central inspections for stallions, there were fewer registered stallions at Ringroe. Matt Page was absolutely correct when he said at the 2016 stallion inspections that Clover Hill would not pass today.

“Dick Jennings was a man with common sense. A man you can negotiate with is a great man. Other people in his position would just say, ‘He’s a half-bred’ but we were just pointing out that horse [Clover Hill] does not look like a half-bred horse,” Tim emphasised.

Times have changed and Irish breeding has moved on. “There’s not so many horses being bred locally now,” he added. “The world is a different place now, everyone is in a hurry.”

The legacy of those years is not so much seen at Ringroe, where the yard has mostly gone back to nature. As a man of nature, Philip would approve of this. The legacy is seen wider afield such as 27 approved stallion sons, a Swedish horse farm named after a Clover Hill mare, stables, land and jeeps bought and third level education paid for on the back of profitable times. The same knot of loyal breeders, including Willie Nicholas and retired Mayo postman Peter McHugh, still turn up at his anniversary Mass.

Heenan, either wearing a tweed jacket, dustcoat or oilskins, depending on the season and often with a bag of Emerald sweets in a pocket, held the key to many puzzles. For example, the mystery of Ballaghmor Class’s dam would have been solved in seconds with his encyclopaedic knowledge.

He was of his time but what a time; one of characters, profits and success stories in Irish breeding.

Next week: The Swiss Family Merz.