I enjoy doing it as a hobby, but it is run on a commercial basis,” a very modest Dr Noel Cawley tells me as we walk through a field of mares with some of the best pedigrees in the country.

I first met Dr Cawley during my final year in university. When I asked him if I could come visit his Newpark Lodge Stud in Eadestown, Co Kildare as part of my final year project, he very generously welcomed me and his input into my project on the breeding of Irish Sport Horses was invaluable.

On that January day in 2014, Cawley was pushing for an identification of all the good pedigrees in Ireland, saying:

“I think we have a substantial amount of good genes… we need a paper exercise to go through all the mares we have in the country and for someone with competence to list them. If we find good pedigrees we should list those as potential mares to use for breeding show jumpers.”

***

Fast forward to July 2017 and ‘A Profile of Ireland’s Elite Traditionally Bred Mares’ was published by the RDS and compiled by Marcus O’Donnell. Cawley was one of the supporters of the exercise and is continually striving for excellence in the industry.

During his 17 years as chief executive of the Irish Dairy Board, Cawley relished his evenings in the fields with his mares.

“Dealing with 3,000 people there were always problems, so I looked forward to coming out here,” he said.

One of Aer Lingus’ top 10 fliers during that time, it’s very easy to see why he enjoyed his time in the idyllic Kildare countryside.

Since retiring in 2006 he has more time to concentrate on his breeding endeavors, but Cawley has not let the grass grow under his feat. He took up the chairmanship of Teagasc in 2008, as well as having a number of other private business interests.

FAMILIAR FACES

As we make our way through two fields of mares and a field of exciting two and three-year-olds, it is obvious that Cawley spends plenty of time with his herd, identifying a certain few as “real madams”.

There are a few familiar faces roaming Newpark since my last visit. Instantly recognisable with her large white blaze is Golden Exchange, competed until her retirement at the end of 2015 by Tipperary show jumper Greg Broderick, as are all of Cawley’s home-breds.

Dr Noel Cawley with his broodmare Golden Exchange

He was one of Broderick’s first clients and continues to send his horses to Ballypatrick Stables in Thurles, where he has found huge success with youngsters.

Winner of the six-year-old championship at the Dublin Horse Show in 2011 and winner of one of the seven and eight-year-old international classes two years later, the chesnut mare made her way to the breeding paddock last year after a year on the international circuit with Broderick.

Golden Exchange, Cawley explains, is from probably the most well-known pedigrees of the three major lines in his breeding operation.

By Cruising, she is out of Ballinakill Clover and is a full sister to Thomas Ryan’s now retired 1.60m Nations Cup performer Cruise On Clover, as well as Atomic Mouse, also ridden by Ryan, and Cruise Leaf, now an excellent broodmare in her own right.

“That (line) has a very good historical background,” Cawley says. “Golden Exchange, who is a full-sister to Cruise On Clover and more of them, is by Cruising, out of a Clover Hill mare, out of a King of Diamonds mare.

“The King Of Diamonds mare won a Grand Prix in Ireland and her mother was by Final Problem – one of the best sires of show jumpers in that era, the 1960s and 70s.

“So it’s a pedigree that goes right back and it’s obviously still working and there is a genetic reason for that.”

Ballinakill Clover passed away in 2015 but that line is continuing now through Golden Exchange, Lexie Lady and Cruise Leaf, who is the dam of the excellent home-bred performers Ballypatrick Flamenco, winner of the 2016 Irish Breeders Classic, and the eight-year-old mare Glimmering (by Loughehoe Guy), who won the ISH Studbook final last year.

Cawley travelled to the Young Horse World Breeding Championships in Lanaken, Belgium, two weeks ago to watch Ballypatrick Flamenco in the seven-year-old division.

“I think that Ballypatrick Flamenco is an outstanding horse. Okay, he did something funny in Lanaken, but the first day I watched I thought he was an exceptional horse… Greg said he is the next Going Global! That might never happen, but it just goes to show how good the horse is.”

A foal by Casall ASK out of Cruise Leaf

This year, Cruise Leaf has a foal at foot by Casall ASK, another that Cawley is very excited by, as well as a yearling by For Pleasure, a Plot Blue three-year-old, and a Chacco-Blue five-year-old.

Also on the ground just seven weeks is Golden Exchange’s embryo transfer-born filly foal by Je T’Aime Flamenco, a three-part sister to Ballypatrick Flamenco. The 12-year-old mare is now infoal to Casall ASK.

The second familiar face was of course that of the lovely Rincarina, who hardly lifted her head from grazing the lush green grass to greet us. Winner of countless Grand Prix classes in Ireland, her FEI record also boasts a lot of ‘1s’, including winning three days in a row at two-star level in Arezzo, Italy.

Her foal by Stakkato Gold played nearby with the other newborns and she is in foal to For Pleasure for 2018.

Also by Cruising, Rincarina comes from the line of the west of Ireland-bred Diamond Ballerina, who was by the stallion Diamond Lad out of an Entrechat dam.

Rincarina counts 1.60m performer Solerina as her full-sister. Ranked number two in the traditionally-bred mare book, Solerina was ridden by Conor O’Regan in Ireland and at World Cup level in America before being sold to Sweet Oak Farm where Cork’s Shane Sweetnam took over the ride.

With Sweetnam she won a $100,000 1.60m Grand Prix in Wellington, Florida, as well as numerous 1.50m classes and a five-star class at the world famous Spruce Meadows. The now 18-year-old mare resides at Spy Coast Farm in Kentucky and has a foal at foot by Dikatator.

Diamond Ballerina also bred the six-year-old Flexibilty, by Flexible, who competed in the six-year-old classes at the Dublin Horse Show in August with Jordan Kilkenny and won a leg of the ISH Studbook classes.

NATIONS CUP PEDIGREE

It is hard to pick the best horses of the bunch, but arguably the third breeding line at Newpark Lodge has produced the most success so far, and continues to do so.

The title of elder stateswoman has to go to the now 24-year-old Irco Rain who has bred three Nations Cup horses in Touchable, Mullaghdrin Touch The Stars and Mullaghdrin Gold Rain.

Touchable was sold at the Goresbridge sales for €150,000 in 2009, a record at the time, and was a member of the winning British Nations Cup team in Odense in 2014 under Jessie Drea. The pair were then called up as the travelling reserves to the 2014 World Equestrian Games in Normandy.

Irco Rain is by Irco Mena and out of the Bahrain-sired mare Bahrain May.

A very curious Tyson filly was keeping an eye on proceedings at Newpark with her recipient mare, while her maternal mother was in Ballypatrick Stables getting embryos taken for yet another year.

Another chesnut mare in Cawley’s herd is the nine-year-old Jackie Oh, who looks like she should be strutting around the show ring. By Jack of Diamonds out of another Cawley home-bred, Sailing In Rain, the mare was competed briefly by Broderick before retiring to the breeding paddock and was the champion show horse at Ballivor Show in 2012.

She is yet to have a live foal but was scanned in foal to Je T’Aime Flamenco this year.

Her full-sister, the five-year-old Jacquitta, has just returned to Cawley after an injury and is also destined for the breeding route. The eye-catching grey mare won a one-day event under Camilla Speirs in Crecora last August.

Sailing In Rain also bred Cast Away II, by Clover Bridage, who won a gold medal at Le Lion d’Angers with Britian’s Piggy French in 2007.

BREEDING FOR PURPOSE

Cawley and his daughter Lisa, and her husband Joe Hynes, watch every show worldwide, study the pedigrees and strive to continue improving their stellar breeding operation.

“My daughter Lisa is very interested in the breeding so in recent years we have tried to build up a few broodmares who are reasonably competent in what they do.

“We have tried to perform them, because it’s very clear now – and if you were in Lanaken you could see it – that the majority of the winners in the show jumping classes at international level are all coming from good pedigrees and a lot of them with performance in the family.

“So I think it’s clear we need to do the same here if we want to stay in that level of the sport – if you want an international horse that’s the kind of broodmare you have to have.

“I am not saying it’s the only business in breeding, there is other important segments – the Draughts and the ponies, the leisure riding and eventing – all of that has its place, but the top end requires this approach and the more I see of it, including last week (in Lanaken), it’s clear that it is absolutely necessary,” Cawley explained.

For many years, the Cawleys were breeding traditional horses but have begun to use continental stallions in recent times.

He bred 60-plus horses by Cruising and when the stallion passed on, he wasn’t left with too much choice.

He was one of the first breeders in Ireland to use Emerald and thinks a lot of the young stock he has produced. He is also fond of Chacco-Blue, the sire of Shane Sweetnam’s Chaqui Z.

Cawley has a five-year-old called Chacco Bay currently in training with Broderick and there is high hopes for the gelding.

“It is sensible commercially to use well established stallions,” he advises. “If you end up with a mare that doesn’t jump at least she has a good pedigree by a well-known stallion, but it is expensive.”

BEST DAYS

There have been many good days for Noel and his family with home-bred horses, but one he definitely won’t forget is Rincarina winning the six-year-old championship in Dublin. He has a soft spot for ‘Holly’.

“I loved that! That was a difficult class and she was absolutely brilliant, and Greg was brilliant,” he said proudly.

“You can win in Arezzo or Lummen or Lanaken, but winning in the RDS is unique, and particularly those classes. There have been some great days with her because guys would have thought that they had won the class and she would come after them and Greg would beat them every time – he always reckoned she was one of the fastest horses he ever had in the yard – and he was brilliant on her.”

Greg and his head groom, Ashleigh Skillen, were also very fond of the mare. “He (Greg) loved her, he really did. He would be honest and say she was no Going Global, she didn’t have the scope he did, but she was a real winner for him.”

The difficult decision to retire her was taken at the end of her 11-year-old year as previous attempts to take embryos were unsuccessful.

“We couldn’t get her in foal so we had no choice but to retire her and Greg had Going Global and we had Golden Exchange going at the time. It was time in fairness, with Solerina winning a 1.60m class and several 1.50m, she couldn’t have done a lot more to improve her pedigree anyway.”

He continues to have a great relationship with the Broderick family, although he does reference Greg telling him off a number of times throughout the walk over the horses arriving to him with too much condition.

“I can’t leave the yard without giving them all a bit of hay… Greg will be giving out to me over the weight of this one,” he says as we admire a three-year-old bound for Ballypatrick.

INDUSTRY

With his role as chairman of Teagasc, Cawley was heavily involved in writing the ‘Reaching New Heights’ document and he would like to see the recommendations of the Indecon report implemented fairly quickly.

“It (Reaching New Heights) probably needs to be updated now when the new board is in place because these things get dated. We probably need to refine the recommendations in it and I would like to see that happen.

“As well as a more professional approach to breeding and a modern day structure put in place – company structures have changed over the years because of various things going wrong and we have learned from the past, so the horse industry has to move in that regard too.”

As we finish up our chat, we look out into the ‘field of dreams’ and he tries to point out his next superstar, naming the Plot Blue three-year-old, the For Pleasure yearling and the Casall ASK foal out of Cruise Leaf as ones to be excited by.

“Maybe if you had come next week I could tell you because I will have jumped them all,” he says with a laugh.