WICKLOW breeder John Hagan joined the list of four-star breeders when Cooley Master Class won the Land Rover Kentucky three-day event on his debut at this level, when completing on his dressage score last Sunday under Britain’s Oliver Townend.

Disappointingly for Hagan, the 2005 Ramiro B-sired gelding was one of just two foals produced by The Swallow (by Master Imp) before she suffered a fatal injury.

Cooley Master Class was bred close to Richard and Georgina Sheane’s Cooley Farm but made his way there circuitously. He was sold by Two-Mile-Water-based Hagan as a yearling at Goresbridge to Jim Crennan from whose north Kilkenny base the horse qualified for the three-year-old performance jumping class at Dublin in 2008.

Later that month, the bay was purchased at Cavan’s Elite sale by Longford’s Michael Reilly who sold a share to Shane McHugh. Reilly broke the horse then sent him to Cathal McMunn to produce for the 2009 four-year-old show jumping classes in which he was lightly campaigned as Master Miro B.

It was at the horse’s first outing in a HSI five-year-old qualifier at Barnadown the following May that he was spotted by Sheane who quickly snapped him up and, in a deal with Steve Smith, set out to qualify Cooley Master Class for Dublin. However, having been alerted to the horse’s potential as top-class eventer by Clare Lambert, Sheane told Townend about him and the rest, as they say, is history.

The Swallow, who was bred in Co Wexford by Tom Norris, was one of nine foals registered with Horse Sport Ireland out of the Cavalier Royale mare Milbrook who, in turn, was out of the unraced thoroughbred Milparinka.

That King’s Equity mare didn’t produce much of note on the racecourse herself but, through her daughter Iora (by Green Shoon), is grandam of the hurdle and chase winner Tinakellylad (by Witness Box) who was Grade 1-placed over fences. One of the best racehorses bred from this line has been the Gordon Elliott-trained Well Chosen gelding Jury Duty who won a Grade 2 novice chase at Punchestown in mid-November.

John Hagan senior is no longer breeding horses but has retained his 1999 Grade A mare Katies Golden Clover (by Clover Brigade), out of whom he has bred four foals, and hunts a Touchdown/Master Imp cross gelding. His sons John (trainer) and Declan (rider) are more interested in point-to-pointing and breeding thoroughbreds.

(See more on A51.)