SOMETIMES asking a horseman to nominate their outstanding horse is akin to picking a favourite child. That decision becomes even more difficult when multiple horses achieve dream results.
James Kernan is spoilt for choice; there’s Marcella who won him Ireland’s first gold medal at the European junior championships; Condy, his Dream Team horse and the home-bred Touchdown, who went to the Olympics.
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James Kernan and Marcella in 1975 \ Ruth Rogers
“Marcella was kept for me for the juniors. My father wanted me to win the Junior European championships, the gold medal. There was never an Irish winner, nobody had won it before. I can remember that as if it was yesterday. He said he wanted to win that.
“She was a brilliant mare. Seamus Hayes, Ned Cash and Tommy Brennan all rode and won a lot with her. My grandfather bought her, and this animal wasn’t to be sold. ‘She’s to be kept for James.’ And sure enough, we won.
“We had three cracks at the European championships. The first time, I think there’s a photograph of a pole up around her neck, obviously where I missed a stride. I was only 14 at that year’s championships in Cork. The next year in Belgium, we were fifth. And, lo and behold, the dream came true in Lucerne in 1974. Third time lucky.
“I was the first Irishman to win that and everybody was happy. I was only 16 and got an invitation to go to Amsterdam. They had a course that was the same every year, a twisty speed class. And I can remember as if it were yesterday. I was number 12 to go, and I went into the lead.
“There were 72 horses in the class with a car for the winner. And all I was worried about was when you win the car, you’re supposed to drive around the ring. At that stage, I couldn’t drive! As it turned out, I didn’t have to. Harvey Smith, the last rider in, beat me.”
Condy
Next was Condy. “Again, I can see it like it was yesterday. ‘Young Ned’, Ned Cash’s son, said to me as he was riding down towards the practice ring at Moate Show, ‘James, this one is for you’. So we watched the horse jump and after the show, we all went back to Ned’s house in Moate that evening and bought the horse. Sure the rest is history.”
The Wexford-bred became hot property and James remembers, “oceans of people around my father wanting to buy Condy,” after the six-year-old and James won the Grade B/C championship at Dublin in 1976.
“He wasn’t being sold that day anyway. As a seven-year-old, he moved up into the Grade As, and I think we won a national Grand Prix at Kilkenny Show as an eight-year-old.” James and Condy were then catapulted into Irish sporting history when the young pair were selected for the Aga Khan team, a breakthrough James credits to Lt. Col. Sean Daly.
“I had no notions of ever thinking that we were going to be on a team. The next thing, the chef d’equipe Sean Daly picked us to be one of the five for Dublin and he was brave enough to put me on the team. And sure, I jumped a clear round. I was 18 in my first year, I’m still the youngest-ever rider on an Aga Khan team.”
That was 1977 and the iconic team of James, Eddie Macken, the late Capt. Con Power and Paul Darragh went on to complete an Aga Khan treble.
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Jane Darragh, wife of the late Paul Darragh, James Kernan, Captain Con Power, and Eddie Macken, pictured at a special reception in 2017 which was 40 years after the first of three Aga Khan wins in-a-row \ Sam Barnes Sportsfile
How did Condy and Marcella compare under saddle?
“Marcella was a great mare, a feisty little thing. She was hard to get up on and a buzzy little mare, but my God, was she a careful jumper and fast against the clock. Condy was lovely. Condy was this brilliant, super horse, careful as a cat. He hadn’t the greatest technique in front, but he got high over the fence. He didn’t have the best scope, so you were always nervous of a big combination and I never even brought him to a championship because that was just a step too far.
“And just thinking back to the three Nations Cups in Dublin, twice we went to a jump-off. Condy actually jumped seven clear rounds and had a fence down from those eight rounds. He was a clear round jumper all the time.”
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James Kernan and Condy at the Dublin Horse Show
Hickstead was another lucky fixture for Condy. “He won the Grand Prix in Hickstead as a nine-year-old. One year there, the ground was wet and heavy. It wasn’t like the ring they have now. In the Nations Cup first round, only two horses jumped clear: Condy and there was an Olympic horse, a lovely, lovely horse called Flambeau C.”
French breeding was then emerging as a real force and Frank Kernan was ahead of his time in choosing another French-bred Galoubet A to cover Lady Willpower. Unlike Marcella and Condy, she left Kernan’s yard after Graziano Mancinelli bought her as a promising novice.
“She was sold to Italy for an awful lot of money. I remember it was the talk of the country, the price that she made. But she was a difficult mare and we got her back to breed from her.
“As you can remember, Galoubet was one of the top sires of the world at that stage. He was jumping on television, was very popular, and he used to kick out,” James continued, describing the distinctive technique of the Almé son out of a trotter mare, ridden by French international Gilles-Bertrand de Balanda.
“Paul Schockemöhle said to my father that Galoubet wasn’t the right sire for Lady Willpower, but my father proved him wrong because he said the difference is Lady Willpower is an Irish horse. And again, the rest is history!”
Galoubet A was seen up close by Irish fans when he was on the winning French team at the 1982 world show jumping championships at Dublin. The same year when Lady Willpower, by the thoroughbred Cheyne, produced a strapping bay Galoubet A colt, Touchdown.
Olympic ambition
Frank Kernan’s avant-garde choice paid off. “Touchdown was the best horse I ever put my leg across from a young horse. As a four-year-old, he was tall but very weak. As a five-year-old, he started to come into himself, and his first major competition that Irish people came to see him was in the Boomerang final in Millstreet.
“It was his first big class and he was outstanding that day. We were just beaten by Robert Splaine in a very fast class, but the feeling I got that day from him was unbelievable.
“Riding Touchdown was like riding a 12.2hh pony. You could do anything with him, you could shorten him up, his power and athleticism were unbelievable. Touchdown was, without doubt, a great horse.”
Touchdown’s fans saw him up close again at the national show jumping championships in Salthill. A large contingent travelled annually from Northern Ireland to support the popular Crossmaglen rider and his home-bred horse, now named IJM Touchdown following his sponsorship by IJM Timber Engineering Ltd.
Beamed into Irish homes by RTE, watched each evening by show jumping followers and holidaymakers, the Salthill championships were a piece of magic in the Irish calendar. James, though, had mixed fortunes.
“One year, he banked the fence and I came off. I landed on my foot and broke my leg, just below my knee. Then the next year, we came back and won it which was brilliant.”
With the benefit of hindsight, Touchdown’s lack of match practice played out when he and James got their call-up for Barcelona. “Without doubt, he was an Olympic horse. But unfortunately, I broke my leg the year before the Olympics and he hadn’t a lot of time. He only jumped two Nations Cups before he went to the Games in ’92, he was green and probably in hindsight, Barcelona was too soon.
“As it turned out, he was the best Irish horse there, but he was green for that level. He hadn’t done enough Nations Cups and he hadn’t done enough shows at that level.”
Those two Nations Cups are still standout memories. “We were in Hickstead and Touchdown jumped a clear and four. I think he could have been the best Irish horse at that show and he jumped his way onto the team. Then he went to Dublin and he was on the winning Nations Cup team.”
James’ teammates in 1992 were Peter Charles (Kruger), Comdt. Gerry Mullins (Lismore) and the anchor man constant: Eddie Macken (Welfenkrone). Being on the winning home team is a bucket list item for an Irish rider, but to do so on a home-bred was the finishing touch.
“It was a different era as well and we were lucky that Touchdown turned out great. At that time, I think my father said that we were the first person ever to breed and bring one to the Olympics.”
Luck can run both ways as James found out post-Olympics at Millstreet. “I still wake up in the middle of the night and I’ll never forget that day. I went up on that indoor bank in Millstreet to practise for the outdoor Derby on Sunday. Oh my God, I should never have done it because after the Olympic Games, I’d got an invitation to Olympia, I got invited to go to Calgary [Spruce Meadows]. I could have gone to any show after that because he was a standout horse.
“And next thing, he came off that bank and chipped a bone in a stifle.”
Second careers
Compared to golf clubs or tennis rackets, horses are the most delicate item of sporting equipment - and much more difficult to replace - as James learned. “I’m sure he was never the same horse again. He was always feeling sore from that and couldn’t use his back end the way he should have done.”
The bonus of a show jumping stallion though, compared to clubs and rackets, is Touchdown got a second career and went to Norman and Lucy Allen’s Knockrath Stud.
“He was a great breeding stallion. He had a world champion (Liscalgot, bred by Terence Harvey) and a Badminton winner (Paulank Brockagh, bred by Frank and Paula Cullen) at the top of their game and the amount of good mares and offspring that were all fantastic horses. He was just a superb athlete of a horse and he was incredible, really, as a stallion. I can even go to shows today, and next thing you’ll hear, ‘out of a Touchdown mare’.”
The British Nations Cup horses Touchable and A Touch Imperious, plus Brackley Rose Down, Cara Touche, Gelvins Touch, Mullaghdrin Touch The Stars and Will Wimble, are among Touchdown’s show jumping offspring.
“The amount of horses that he bred and he wasn’t used half enough. People didn’t use him the way they should have used him but again, we probably didn’t promote him the way we should have promoted him,” said James candidly.
Steve Hadley aptly described breeding horses as an “inexact science” and James has experienced both sides. Touchdown was their success story, what about Marcella?
“Would you believe it or not, she bred nothing! She bred twice and nothing any good. Just wasn’t a big breeder.
“Linda, my wife, she’s big into horse breeding. She does all the running around, getting them in foal and looks after that part of the business. We have a few yearlings by Ermitage Kalone, another superstar, so we look forward to seeing how they turn out.”
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James Kernan's young rider team of (l-r) Rhys Williams, Niamh McEvoy, Tom Wachman, Francis Derwin and Max Wachman won team gold at the European Championships in 2024\ Tomas Holcbecher
All that experience and mileage, from European junior championships, Nations Cups to the Olympics, is now funnelled into second and third careers. As well as the family’s Kernans Equestrian Centre and its competition calendar, James has built up an impressive track record as a team manager with gold medals racked up at European junior and young rider levels under his watch.
“It was brilliant. We had a great run of success, won a lot of gold medals and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I teach a little bit, and now Jessica Kürten, the senior chef d’equipe, has asked if I would help with teams at shows that she can’t go to.
“I jumped at that. I was delighted. I think that Jessica’s going to be brilliant for Ireland and I think she’ll plan to set up to win medals hopefully at the world championships and Olympic Games.”
The conversation turns to one of Jessica’s early stars: Diamond Exchange, surely in the running for her horse of a lifetime picks. “I jumped against him lots of times. A big, scopey horse. And then you had Rockbarton. For a horse to win a speed class, win a puissance and then a Grand Prix at one show? Brilliant.
“Bellevue is another horse we had years ago, and he could do all three, but there’s not too many horses that could ever do that!”
A different era, often brought to the wider public by Brian McSharry’s commentary and Michael Slavin’s words. Horses of a lifetime rise to the top in any era though. James Kernan is in a fortunate place of having three very different nominations from different eras: the feisty Marcella, careful Condy and homebred hero Touchdown. What a choice.
By the numbers
£5,000 - Frank Kernan’s bonus if Ambassador won a gold medal at the 1972 Munich Olympics. He did.
823 - Touchdown’s progeny numbers on Capall Oir.
30th place - Touchdown and James’ result at the Barcelona Olympics.
Four - winning Aga Khan Nations Cup appearances for James: Condy’s treble and IJM Touchdown.
Three - James Kernan’s three narrowed-down horse of a lifetime choices.
Two - Olympic offspring for Touchdown: High-Scope and Paulank Brockagh.
One - world champion title for Dermott Lennon and Liscalgot, the Touchdown daughter.
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