IT’s one of those rare shoebox finds – a black and white photograph of Prefairy standing outside a namesake premises on Toomevara’s main street, held by a young Matthew O’Meara. “That’s him, that’s Prefairy. And me with the big head of hair!” he said, laughing.

Another recent discovery was one of the original Prefairy studcards. “His fee was £100 for thoroughbred mare and £50 for a half-bred mare and if you had a nomination from the Department, that was worth £25,” said the eldest O’Meara son, who, with the help of younger brother John, took over running the stallion business on the family farm at an early age after their father Jim passed away.

“We had Prefairy, Pinzari, ‘the Milestone’, a Connemara and John had an Appaloosa stallion too. One time, we had a wall-eyed Connemara and one night, a couple of lads in the pub told John the pony was able to see in the dark with his white eyes. Nothing would do him but to go jumping the pony that night to see if it was true and my mother was petrified that John would be injured!

“Shortly after Prefairy arrived here, Dick Jennings tried to buy him back,” he revealed. “Dick Jennings should have been canonised. He had an unbelievable eye for a horse. Jack Powell would be with him when the nominations were on the street in Toomevara and once he gave a nomination to a mare owned by Ned Gilmartin. She was a handy bit of a mare but a terrific mover. Dick said ‘If I live to see it, she’ll breed a nice horse’.

Matthew O'Meara with a rare photo of Prefairy taken on the street in Toomevara where nominations were awarded

“Sure enough she did; three by Prefairy that went to Max Hauri in Switzerland. It just goes to show you what the likes of Dick Jennings could see,” he said, recalling the Bord na gCapall inspector.

“We had a horse ourselves by Prefairy that won the three-year-old championship in Ballinasloe, I can still see the cup. Phil Hayes, a great friend of my father, was champion there in the 1960s so the two of them celebrated the whole way home and my mother, Lord have Mercy on her, wasn’t too pleased at the cut of them when they dropped the ramp in the yard!

“Before that, there was no such thing as ramps on horseboxes, so the horses would be loaded from a ramp at the crossroads outside the village. Another time, Hayes and my father put a cover on a gravel lorry and brought two yearlings up to the thoroughbred sales in Ballsbridge where the AIB was!”

Hindsight is everything in the case of one of the best-bred thoroughbreds to grace Bord na gCapall ranks. Both Prefairy and the continental legend Furioso were thoroughbred sons of Precipitation and with Foxhunter and Gainsborough in his dam line, there’s no surprise then why Jennings, Powell and William Micklem rated his pedigree so highly.

“He was fierce popular for the farmer’s mares, they all wanted a Prefairy out of a Milestone mare or Milestone crossed with a Prefairy mare got lovely half-bred mares,” said Matthew. One such Milestone-Prefairy cross also produced Suma Stud’s influential Irish Draught stallion Pride of Shaunlara. He and his Carrabawn View half-brother Dunkerrin Grey Mist, another approved Draught stallion, were bred by John Hoolan in nearby Dunkerrin.

“Pinzari was next, he was the only other thoroughbred stallion we had,” John recalled. “My father bought Milestone when he was a foal beside the mare. I remember Milestone later used to plough with his mother. When the workmen came in in the evening, we’d be arguing over who’d take the harness off the horses!”

A ‘genius in boots’

Milestone, or ‘The Milestone’ as Matthew refers to him as, came as part of the package when Jim O’Meara bought the Royal Gem mare Dooree Maid with her chesnut Galty’s Son colt at foot.

“I’d have preferred he Milestone. You could jump up on his back he was that quiet. When I was going to school, he’d be going to work at the same time. You’d see Mick Kennedy drive him up past the school and he’d be gone to plough.”

Foaled in 1954, Prefairy’s recorded progeny from his Toomevara years span from 1962 to 1979. Aptly enough, it was their good customer Philip Heenan who bred the very first: Dolly Bay 2. Matthew’s description of Heenan as a “genius in boots” is pure perfection.

“There’s no two ways about it, there is nobody that I know of in this world that could compare with Philip Heenan. He was a born genius with a lovely way with animals.

“If he rang up the night before to say he’d be in the yard at three o’clock, he’d be there at three o’clock, even if there was snow falling. He’d arrive with his mares in Danny Flannery’s lorry and he brought 17 mares the last year he brought them to our yard.”

Philip then started acquiring his own stallions, including the thoroughbred Nero, later sold to a Moroccan buying delegation. That sale led to him buying a two-year-old replacement from Pat McNamara, who in turn had bought the Golden Beaker colt as a foal from breeder Matt Page in Woodford.

Although there were several other good stallions in Heenan’s Ringroe yard, such as Ballinvella, Delamain, Farhaan, Smooth Stepper and Young Convinced, the main magnet was Clover Hill, named after a landmark on the McNamara’s Broadford farm.

The first success story for the ‘Irish Draught’ Clover Hill – not even Dick Jennings himself could make a case for passing him as a ‘half-bred’ stallion – was the international show jumper Viewpoint. From the first Clover Hill crop and out of a mare by another Ringroe resident Light Brigade, he was snapped up by the late Jimmy Maguire, who, together with brothers Bryan and Matthew, were affectionately known as ‘The Three Wise Men.’

“Philip was involved with Nenagh Show for a good number of years, collecting money at the gate. The Maguire brothers from Wexford would come to the show, then go look at Philip’s foals and then on a given date, they’d arrive in the autumn and all the foals would be loaded up in a lorry,” said Matthew.

If it was a lengthy wait on Heenan’s famous railway sleeper bench, spotting Aer Lingus Boeing 747s overhead on their approach to Shannon airport, during the compulsory Shannon Stopover era, passed the time. Matthew, like so many relatives in the 1980s, often had the task of dropping John off at Shannon.

Reading John’s story in last week’s issue, about his years in Australia and America and how he eventually bought his own Milestone Farm in Kentucky, brought back many memories for Matthew. “We were always very great. He made good with nothing starting off, only help from good people. Michael Osborne, the most decent man on Earth, was like a second father to him,” he said gratefully.

With John abroad and Philip Heenan just half an hour away, the years of standing stallions at Toomevara Stud came to a close. Why didn’t Matthew continue to stand stallions, too close to Philip’s growing band? “That’s it exactly. We became his customers instead!”

One of the misconceptions about Heenan’s policy of charging low stud fees – firstly £10, then £30 – was that his approach was some avant-garde marketing gimmick for attracting customers. “Sure, Philip didn’t care about the money, he just enjoyed what he was doing. There’s no two ways about it, the real old-timers knew more about nature than we do. Mikey Quirke and Richard Tolerton would be two other fair horsemen like that.”

Sheep and horses now stock the farm since Matthew retired from dairying last year. “If you were to write down everything you spend on a horse, you’d be frightened. It has to be a hobby as far as I’m concerned.”

He was in namesake Liam O’Meara’s yard on Monday night, covering a Rimilis mare with the Boherdeal Clover stallion, Sir Jim Jim. “Pure Irish breeding, it’s what I know. It’s important to keep [traditional] breeding going and to me, it’s the true breed.”

The Dublin Express

That said, there’s a touch of continental breeding in his three-year-old filly Aggie’s View, by Liam’s Querleybet Hero stallion Big Dan Du Rouet and out of the Killea Hill View dam, Killea Lucy. “I bought her as a foal from her breeder Donal Kenneally. I was a long time trying to get one of her breed and was very friendly with Liam and Aggie Kenneally,” he said about the late father and daughter.

The Kenneallys are another Tipperary family immersed in horse breeding with Liam having bred Swedish rider Dag Albert’s five-star event horse Tubber Rebel, by their own Rich Rebel.

There’s a note of déjà vu about Matthew’s renewed interest in showing as he has vivid memories of standing on a butter box under a ditch at Nenagh Show “throwing the plaits into a grey Prefairy filly at nine o’clock in the morning, back when the horses had to be walked to the shows. I thought it was lunacy at the time!

“It was Jennifer Haverty who got it all started off again. She’s just completed her term of office as chairperson [of the Irish Draught Horse Breeders Association] and put on one of the best stallion parades at Mullingar last year before lockdown.

“Jennifer asked if I’d be interested in putting up a cup in honour of ‘the Milestone’ at the [IDHBA] Draught show. I said I’d put up a cup in honour of my parents. Mammy [Sheila] had Milestone for two or three years after my father passed away.”

An annual occasion for Matthew, Jennifer and a host of Tipperary and Clare Horse Show fans is the train journey up to Dublin. Thursday or ‘Draught Day’ is their mecca and the jovial Matthew entertained the entire carriage on their return trip two years ago.

“Bless us and save us, it was a pantomime, I thought we’d be put off the train! But isn’t that what it’s all about? Good craic and conversation at the end of a day out.”

At that Horse Show, he did one of his many good deeds for neighbours. Keen to get a photograph of The Silver Fox for Julia McLoughney, who had bred the WRS King Elvis small hunter, Matthew arranged a photo with the obliging owner Sinead Barry. One good deed leads to another as Sinead and fiancé Mark O’Driscoll, who had gone halves on the horse as their joint Christmas present, made a detour to Toomevara on their way home to Rosscarbery so Julia could see the horse again.

Needless to say, Matthew is one of many missing the show circuit. “It was like cutting off your hand, not getting to shows and meeting people last year. There’s fantastic characters in the ring but there’s nearly even better characters lying on the rope around the ring. It’s only when you’re standing around that you hear all the things going on.

Matthew O’Meara with Sinead Barry and The Silver Fox, bred by Matthew’s neighbour Julia McLoughney \ Susan Finnerty

“But we had a mighty day yesterday [at the Glandoran Island Summer Show], how lovely it was to be below in Chapmans farm in Gorey and people were so grateful to have a show to go to.

“I was lucky enough to come out with a red. The Shannons in Murroe had her [Aggies View] turned out perfectly and I’m glad Eileen Brennan convinced me to go, but as she’d say herself, ‘The road is never long when you like what you’re doing.’

“She’s a wonderful woman, so knowledgeable and has an unmerciful interest in the Irish Draught. There’s no messing about tolerated from anybody. The Government could do with two or three like her, she’d straighten them out!” he added about the Carlow lady.

Although he has a couple of potential buyers for Aggie’s View, the plan is to keep her for a couple more outings. There’ll be no ‘stewards enquiries’ though. “As far as I’m concerned, when you go into the show ring, you have to be prepared to take your beating. If you’re not prepared to take your beating, you shouldn’t be going out showing.”

Rural Ireland

What was lockdown like in Toomevara? “Catherine [Matthew’s wife] had just retired from nursing in Nenagh General Hospital before Covid hit, so that was one less worry. It wasn’t too bad for me, I had a horsebox! So I got out and about moving and feeding livestock and then we live in the village, but it was terrible for people out in the country.

“There was people coming into the doctors across the street for their first injection and for some, it was one of their few outings to civilisation almost in the past year. It’s been an awful loss not to be able to do what we’d normally do but I’ve got the two shots of ‘Ivomec’ [Covid-19 vaccination] now, so I’m clear to move about!”

His and Catherine’s first date was when he asked her to the North Tipperary Hunt Ball. “And the rest is history!” Carrying on the North Tipperary Hunt links, the couple’s two sons James and Damien are both followers. “James was made a whipper-in to the North Tipps. He’s big time into hunting, both hunting and hound-mad.”

Of his own seven siblings – Anne, Bridget, John, Patricia, James, David and Kevin – both John and David now live in the States. His sister Bridget and husband Noel own the charming Steeples bookshop and tearoom in nearby Nenagh, where noted author Marjorie Quarton has held book launches and readings.

The couple bought Shanbally House, its walled garden and 200 acres in 2013. Built in 1795, it was the former home of the late Jim Powell, who steered John towards the door-opening Irish National Stud course. The farm at Shanbally now grows vegetables and herbs and plans to open to visitors as restrictions lift.

Much has changed in rural Ireland and Toomevara since the Prefairy photo. The O’Meara family once owned the local grocery shop, post office and pub. “We had coal, we’d sell meal as well. That’s gone. The shop where we took Prefairy for the photo with ‘Big Jim O’Meara’s name over the door, that shop has closed but the shopfront is still there. There’s only one shop in Toomevara now, Caseys.”

There’s a glimpse of an old CIE bus stop sign outside their namesake’s shop. “That’s gone too but there’s a local bus service [the Local Link Nenagh-Roscrea route] that stops outside the hall.”

North Tipperary airspace is quieter too since the Shannon Stopover was abolished in 2007 and just last month, Aer Lingus announced the permanent closure of its Shannon Airport base.

Aside from airport taxi runs, Matthew has yet to visit brothers John and David in America. Will he ever take the plunge?

“I’d love to get to America. Maybe once we’re fully back to normal, Catherine and I will visit John in Kentucky and David in Colorado. Covid would definitely make you more inclined to do all these things that we put off before.”

Just like the Dublin-Nenagh pantomime, passengers on those future flights will be well and truly entertained by the Toomevara man.