LAST weekend saw St Patrick’s Day celebrated worldwide, particularly in America where 35 million US citizens claim Irish ancestry. For generations of people from the west, the choices were east to England or west to America and for Hollymount-born Peter McHugh, New York happened to be his port of call.
“I had a brother and two sisters there at the time and then I got a permanent visa. It was one of the very last ones given out in June 1967, there was no more of that type after that. It’s nearly impossible now to get a working visa, unless you’re a professional,” 82-year-old McHugh told The Irish Field.
Living in the Bronx, Peter found his first job as a doorman. “It was a very nice job downtown in an apartment building on Lexington Avenue,” he says, recalling one resident, a famous Hollywood film star, who would return to his apartment in the morning after nights out on the town.
There was one dream job he coveted in a building that housed an American icon and reminder of the Camelot era. “I’d heard that Jacqueline Kennedy had a full floor apartment on Park Avenue. I’d have liked to work there or to have seen her. I thought I’ll go in someday and enquire about a job but it didn’t happen.
“The sad part about getting the green card was it was no good to me because I came back again after two years. My father got ill, so I had no choice but to come back and run the farm.”
REKINDLED INTEREST
While his only contact with horses during his New York years was watching trotting races on the television, the silver lining in returning home to Hollymount was rekindling this interest, particularly his passion for Irish Draughts.
“My first experience of Irish Draught horses was when I rode a Draught mare bareback to Ballinrobe Show where my father showed her. It was the first Ballinrobe Show in September 1950 and I’ve been going there ever since. It was held then on the Green, now it’s held in the racecourse.
“I like the Irish Draught breed, I ploughed and cultivated land for many years with horses until the tractor took over around 1970. My father always kept one Irish Draught mare. He’d a good eye for a mare, he always kept a nice one.
“Them times they used to have the nominations, you’d get £7 back then. We had a very nice black mare, that was the mare we showed in Ballinrobe, and she was the first mare picked out for the nominations.”
Peter McHugh with Tim Heenan, Philip’s brother, at Ringroe in September last year. Photo Susan Finnerty
So did the McHugh’s paths cross with the legendary inspector Dick Jennings? “He came to our house! A lovely man and a great judge of a horse.
“He didn’t go for big mares at all, ‘Even 15.1 or 15.2, if she’s good enough’ I believe that was his statement. Some of those big, leggy mares go in at the legs and yet the big mare is the most sought-after in the showring.”
As Slyguff Stud’s Frances Hatton explained in her The Irish Field feature last year, it was Dick Jennings himself who was responsible for naming Ginger Dick, the Bell Laughton-Battleburn stallion that stood with Owen Hallinan, near Westport.
Peter bred the Class 1 Irish Draught stallion Ginger Holly, by Ginger Dick. “He qualified for Dublin Horse Show in 1990, it was called the Gascoigne competition for five-year-olds back then and Gabriel Slattery Jnr jumped him. Ginger Holly was bred out of one of the best show mares in Ireland, as well as being a good jumper.”
FOR A FIVER
That mare was Westfield Lass, acknowledged by Peter as his favourite horse. Foaled in 1979, she was by the King of Diamonds son Flagmount Boy, part of Bord na gCapall’s pioneer performance testing programme and produced by John Hall.
Prematurely lost to breeders, Flagmount Boy also sired Willie Boland’s mare Chipmount who jumped internationally with Marie White (Burke).
Ginger Holly is one of a dozen offspring of Westfield Lass, who arrived in Hollymount as part of another Horse Board scheme.
“I’ll tell you how it happened. I got her from Bord na gCapall. There was an advertisement in the Farmers Journal that the Horse Board was to give out two Draught mares in the 26 counties, so I put my name down and that’s how I got her. I appreciated it. All I had to do was pay down £5.
“She wasn’t in foal one year so I gave her to Sean Stagg to break and he put her over a jump. I met Sean at mass the following week and he said: ‘Peter, that mare has an almighty jump, will you come over to see her today?’ and that’s how it all started.
“Sean used to jump her in the amateurs, the late Sean Sweeney from Ballyhane also rode her in the amateur classes, he was awful proud of jumping in Claremorris with the mare. Without the Staggs, I wouldn’t manage.
Former Taoiseach Enda Kenny listens intently to Peter at the 2010 IDHS National Show at Ballinrobe Racecourse. Photo Susan Finnerty
“Sean’s son jumped her too and she came within a few points of qualifying for Dublin that year.
“You’d get six cards that time for your horse to try to qualify for Dublin and the last day we were using up the sixth card at Galway County Show, it was a wicked wet day. Maybe it was all for luck that she didn’t qualify.”
Instead, Westfield Lass resumed her broodmare career. Amongst the stack of photographs Peter has brought along is one of her in the Greenvale line-up, held by Sean, while her foal at foot that summer was Ginger Holly.
“I always thought it was a pity they got rid of the Irish Draught classes at Millstreet. I used to like that even better than Dublin, you’d get the tops of the top mares in Draughts in Millstreet.”
Westfield Lass bred six foals by Clover Hill, including the Class 1 stallion and Grade A show jumper Westfield Bobby. Both this gold merit Draught and his full-sister Westfield Hollie Hill were produced by Robert and Linda Skillen in Newry.
“They’ve been very good customers and brought them along. I also bred the mare [Robeen Lass, by Glenagyle Rebel and out of Westfield Lass] that bred Sean Ruane’s winning RID mare at Dublin, Strictly Come Bouncing.”
RURAL DECLINE
“She left me many a pound, that’s why I’d like to give something back in return,” says Peter about his prolific mare. With one nephew a member of An Garda Síochána, he’s interested in another McHugh recruit to the police force.
“I’ve a four-year-old gelding by Clew Bay Bouncer out of a Diamond Lad mare. Joe Sharkey broke him in and said he was a real gentleman to train. I don’t think it’s possible anymore but I would have liked to have donated him to the Garda Mounted Unit.”
Garda stations are becoming scarcer in rural communities, as are post offices. Peter worked as the local postman for 28 years after he returned home from New York.
“I just happened to pick up the postman’s job by accident. It was very easy to get in then but not now either. This lady Mrs McGovern was in the local post office in Hollymount, her husband was the postman and she said ‘Will you ever do the post for one week?’ while he was gone on a week’s holidays. That’s how I started.
“I started off on the bicycle in 1973, 28 miles every day in every sort of weather. Then I got the van. Of course people looked forward to getting something in the post. I did Kilmaine as well.”
Is there a post office in those villages now? “Neither, they’re both closed. A big loss, the postmistress was there 53 years. Ballinrobe and Claremorris are the nearest post offices now. There was five pubs in Hollymount, there’s only two now.
“There’s a grocery shop, there used to be a wool sale and two fairs in the street, mostly in the autumn. Everything seems to be going. Now when you’re buying stuff, it’s nearly all done off your phone.”
Another vanishing act is the local show. “We ran Hollymount Show for 11 years and then we ran the two national [Irish Draught] shows there and that was the end. Roundfort took over then, Hollymount and Roundfort were just a mile apart, so you couldn’t have two shows,” he said, explaining the loss of the two south Mayo shows from the calendar.
“The Irish Draught is our native breed. We formed our Irish Draught branch around the mid-1970s and I was secretary of the Mayo branch for a number of years.
“We ran the national show here in Mayo in 1992 and 1993 and also in 2010,” Peter explained, outlining the background to his involvement with both the breed and its shop window annual shows.
“More Irish Draught breeders should support the breed. I qualified a number of times for Millstreet Show and found that very interesting, to see some of the best Irish Draught mares from the 32 counties.
“It was Irish Draught judges that were in charge. I think they’re the best judge of Irish Draught horses, although some of the Irish Draught judges I see out there should stay at home.
“If you’re not capable of judging or know what a curb is in a horse, then you’re not a capable person for that important position.”
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN
“To my way of thinking, a broodmare is a mare with a foal at foot. I’ve seen mares for years going in and out of showings with never a foal to be seen. The same applies to ponies.
“I mentioned to a judge and exhibitor I never see a foal with your mare. He very quickly replied: ‘That would spoil her appearance!’ Those barren mares should never win a championship.”
Although he has wound down showing horses himself, Peter would still like to have one more Dublin entry. “I’ve two in-foal mares and two geldings, that’s all I’ll have now. One mare is a Clonakilty Hero out of a Diamond Lad mare and then I have her daughter by Clew Bay Bouncer.
“I finished showing in 2017, although I’d hope to have the Clew Bay Bouncer and her foal shown in Dublin for the final run home. I’m not going to win a prize, just for the sake of being there.”
The other reason Dublin is his mecca is the GAA All Ireland finals in Croke Park.
“I like hurling but Gaelic football is my second religion. Nothing comes before football, except religion to me, not even the horses.
“If I had to go to an All Ireland final on crutches, I’d go!,” states the man who once switched jobs while working in New York, so he could have Sundays off to attend matches in the Gaelic Stadium in Riverdale.
Call it a pisheog, urban legend, curse or myth but what about the theory that Mayo will not win another football title at Croke Park until all members of the victorious All Ireland team from 1951 have passed away?
“I do believe it, because I’ll tell you why. Mayo lost to Dublin by one point in 2016 and in 2017, Mayo lost by a point again.
“Isn’t that most unusual?
“I would dearly love to see Mayo win an All Ireland but I’m not sure it will happen in my time.
“I think Dublin could win their five-in-a-row, Kerry is the only team that might beat them this year.”
As with all these equine seanchaís, Peter has a store of anecdotes and jigsaw pieces of Irish sport horse breeding history to fill in. He talks about local horsemen such as Sean Stagg, Anthony Sheridan and John Daly. And then there’s Eugene McCartan’s Hail Titan, “he was only down the road”, he said about Lannegan’s sire or the rare outcross Irish Draught stallion, Blue Peter.
“He was brought to Mayo in the back of a truck and an open one at that, with somebody inside the whole way to hold him all the way from Kerry to Killala. One end of the island to the other!”
Another story involves John Shorten. “John was great judge of a horse. I bought a Sunny Light mare off a man in West Clare, Pat Hoare and Anthony Sheridan were with me that day. She was one of only two half-breds I ever had, she had a massive step and I won a lot of show prizes with her.
“The man who sold her wasn’t sure if she was in foal or not but she’d been covered by one of John’s horses, so I rang him.
“‘Now, Peter’, he said ‘if the mare isn’t in foal and you bring her so far, I’ll go to meet you to pick her up. I’ll cover her again free of charge and I’ll drop her back 30 miles along the road for you.’ Wasn’t that a very decent offer?”
Unfortunately the mare proved not in foal nor did Peter want to place John under any obligation and so missed out on producing a foal by Stan The Man, the most successful sire of Olympic gold medallist horses in modern eventing, before his export to Germany.
“It would have been something else alright,” he says wistfully.
MONUMENTAL WISH
However, he did succeed in breeding a number of foals by Clover Hill. “We all owe a lot to Clover Hill and of course his owner, the one and only Philip Heenan. I’d heard the talk going about Clover Hill,” he said, recalling his first visit to Ringroe to see the horse for himself.
“It was in September I’d say and Philip had a great welcome for us, it was my first time to ever meet him and to see Clover Hill. I thought the horse seemed to have a nice temperament and he certainly bred some good ones.
“I was one of the first that went there from Mayo and Philip often used to say that. I think Philip thought Mayo was an awful distance from his place!
“Unless people were foolish, you didn’t ask Philip many questions! There’s a lot of people that wanted Clover Hill and anyone who ever went there with me, Philip never refused any of them.
“Any money I ever gave Philip I always stuck it in his top coat, otherwise he wouldn’t take it. I’d bring him down a lock of hay in the springtime down in the trailer too,” he says, describing the ad-hoc payment system in use in Heenan’s yard.
He is politely doubtful whether any of Clover Hill’s stallion descendants emulated their sire.
“That’s often the case though,” he added about the random science of horse breeding.
As with the Camelot years of John F. Kennedy in the White House, the years of Philip and Clover Hill holding court had their own lifespan too. Customers became a trickle after Clover Hill’s demise and once the stallion owner himself passed away in 2003, so too ended an extraordinary era.
Tomorrow will see Peter make his annual visit to Tipperary for Heenan’s anniversary Mass. “Every year, I never miss a year.”
One dearly-held wish of his is for a memorial to mark Philip Heenan and Clover Hill’s contribution.
“Philip is gone now but people still have great respect for him. It’s only right that a monument should be erected in memory of the late Philip and, of course, Clover Hill. I sincerely hope I live to see that day.”
Anyone can be Irish for a day on March 17th, however there is something of the ‘auld decency’ Irish in McHugh’s loyalty to his friends, the GAA and the Irish Draught.
“Long may the Irish Draught horse live on,” was his parting shot.