SUSAN (Susie) Lanigan-O’Keeffe was a gifted horsewoman who saw the Suma prefix, established over 40 years ago with partner Marily Power, reach global heights in 2018, thanks to the phenomenal success of the ‘Millionaire Mare’ Suma’s Zorro.

Bred by Susie and owned by Joanne Sloan Allen and Sameh El Dahan, she is by Ard VDL Douglas, one of the continental stallions the avant-garde Suma Stud was instrumental in introducing to Ireland, in tandem with their mission to preserve outcross Irish Draught bloodlines.

The global impact of Suma Stud could hardly have been imagined by the young Susie, whose childhood playground with her pony was neighbouring Carton House, then owned by Lord Brocket.

She grew up on a small farm in Maynooth with parents Randal (Lanny) and Eileen, (nee Malcomson), the renowned judge known to all as Dan, and her elder brother John. Having overheard her parents discussing how the farm’s overweight bull should get more exercise, Susie headed to the shops in Maynooth with him in tow but was spotted by the local doctor who got the pair safely home!

Connemara ponies were her earliest passion as Susie spent much of her childhood at her parents summer home in the west, while she recovered from meningitis.

Partly because of her illness, Susie started school late. A bad stammer and dyslexia compounded her dislike of the classroom, from which she once escaped to go hunting in her school uniform, only to meet her classmates and teacher out walking.

Potential

According to her funeral eulogy, penned by Marily, she “was finally kicked out of Killiney where the nuns couldn’t cope with Susie and went to a small school, near Newmarket in the UK, where finally some of her potential was realised, as she was quite artistic. The nuns there, mostly Irish, were very sympathetic to her interest in horses.” An occasional day at the races was an unofficial part of the school curriculum with one nun reportedly fond of the occasional small bet.

Susie and John produced ponies for the well-known Connemara breeder, Frances Lee Norman and were frequently in the ribbons at the Spring Show, Dublin and Wembley.

Royal Penny was her top pony. “The story of her birth may well be apocryphal as, again those of you who knew Susie, know well her ability to embellish a story!” wrote Marily about the origins of the orphaned filly foal, bought from a traveller’s encampment by Susie’s uncle George Malcomson, on his way home from a Curragh race meeting.

Rumoured to be the result of an illicit liaison between a TB yearling colt and her Connemara type dam, Royal Penny was successfully showjumped by the Lanigan-O’Keeffes with blank cheques offered at the peak of her career. Gifted back to the family by Colonel Bellingham, she was bred to a variety of stallions, from thoroughbreds to Arabians. “Ultimately her daughter Presently, by Pride of Shaunlara, produced Vixen, by Horos. Her best son was Foxes Frolic, who with Susie and Ned Cash, jumped in Geneva and Rome. And he won the Grand Prix in Balmoral, which was won by Sumas Zorro a couple of years ago in a nice link.”

Accomplished rider

Pride of Shaunlara was acknowledged by Susie and Marily as changing their lives. “As most of you know, she [Susie] was a very accomplished rider who competed for Ireland in both showjumping and three-day eventing but her biggest pleasure without doubt was hunting, especially bringing on a young horse.

“That in fact is what brought us together after I came to live in Ireland to join my parents, who had moved here while I was in Australia and had started a very small thoroughbred stud. As I had hunted all my life from a young age in the UK, I was very keen to join in but one look at those mammoth Meath ditches and I would never have done it if I hadn’t met Susie and her mother who had the best-ever Connemara crosses, who looked after me and knew just what to do bravely and safely.

“Subsequently we made a point of bringing all our Irish Draughts hunting to prove them brave and worthy of breeding the world-famous Irish sport horses. But after Frolic retired, Susie found difficulty in buying sound horses to bring on and we started to wonder what had gone wrong with the breeding system.

"Dan, Susie’s mother, said it’s because people have stopped breeding from the good Irish Draughts. So we set out on a journey to find some tough, sound Draught mares and as people were fast removing horses from the land, now they had the good little Fergie tractor, we acquired some lovely mares with a view to putting them to top stallions to produce sound, good jumpers in one generation.

“Then suddenly almost overnight we found a fantastic stallion, Pride of Shaunlara. So we started breeding full Irish Draughts instead. Fortunately my mother’s farm Ashfield was given to us to use as our thoroughbreds couldn’t compete with the big boys!”

Susie became a joint-master of the Tara Harriers, along with her cousin George Briscoe. Her Irish Draught mare Softee became a legend, Marily noted about the dam and grandam of Crosstown Dancer, Huntingfield Rebel, Sumas Murphy’s Law and Australian export, Sumas Harkaway.

Recognition

The Suma Stud dispersal sale took place in 2004 with the couple relocating to Co. Kilkenny. In 2015, they received the Outstanding Contribution to Irish Sport Horse breeding at the Horse Sport Ireland awards.

“What many people don’t know is that Susie was a top picture restorer having trained in Stuttgart. She continued to work at that when she came back to Ireland but due to an inability to work with the necessary solvents, had to give up. I think it is certain that a lot of her ill health was due to this time in her life, ably abetted by a 40-a-day habit which she only gave up just after her first admission to St Luke’s our first Christmas here.

“This has been coming for so long now and yet I’m still unprepared for life without Susie or giving her the send-off she deserves. I would like to thank all of you who are here and everyone who has been in touch. I am very grateful, because most of you knew Susie in her active days before she became the sick woman with the oxygen tank, as that in no way defined her. I would like also to thank the HSE carers, particularly Fiona, who came every day to help what was still quite a stubborn lady and to say how happy we have been since coming to Graiguenamanagh, where everyone has made us welcome in this gorgeous part of Ireland.”

“I also think, whatever the post mortem says on the certificate as the cause of death, to me it was the clinical depression she has suffered from for the past 20-odd years that finished her. I urge anyone with depression or family member to please get help. You cannot just snap out of it by hearing good news, it doesn’t work like that,” added Marily in a poignant appeal.

Susie will be sadly missed by Marily, brother John, sister-in-law Lesley, nephew Randal, niece Siobhan and a wide circle of friends.

SF