MUCH has been made of how the National Hunt industry is now dominated by a select few powerhouses - be they the leading jumps trainers, or the choicest stallions. In this increasingly challenging environment, it’s comforting that a family-run stallion farm is holding its own.

Con O’Keeffe’s Kilbarry Lodge Stud got back into the stallion game in 2018 with the acquisition of Diamond Boy and the Co Waterford farm has gone from strength to strength since.

Three Grade 1 winners later, the French import remains as popular as ever, vying for attention alongside one of the most exciting young sires in Harzand.

Jeremy’s son Success Days made a bright start with his first four-year-olds in 2025, and Dschingis Secret, a Group 1-winning son of Soldier Hollow, joins the fray for the 2026 season.

At the same time, Kilbarry Lodge Stud continues to breed talented horses themselves, their broodmare band replenished with the handful of fillies O’Keeffe trains himself, all while also assisting his daughter Mary with her successful orthodontics practice.

Good team

The secret to keeping all operations performing at the highest level is having a good team around you, O’Keeffe reports. “My wife Claire is very much a constant and is always with me for nightly foalings and cows calving in the spring time,” he says.

“She looks after all the book work, and phone calls regarding the stallions, as well as taking care of food for the lads daily.

“We are blessed to have Eddie Fanning, who has been with us since he was a young lad; he is a wonderful horse man and all-round stock man. We would be lost without him. Eddie’s right-hand man is Jose Martins from Brazil; they make a formidable pair where nothing is a problem.”

The farm’s location helps in sourcing riders, O’Keeffe adds: “We are lucky to have Justin Houlihan, Larry Hurley and Ethan O’Sullivan coming in daily when they are finished their lots with neighbouring big trainers.”

Added value

Colts bred on the farm are sold, primarily as foals, while most of the fillies are kept, O’Keeffe continues: “We train and race many of them to enhance our pedigrees and add them to the broodmare band. It’s a costly exercise for sure, but one has to lead the way in that regard in order to expect others to buy stock from these pedigrees.”

Given that Kilbarry Lodge Stud themselves primarily breed to sell, O’Keeffe understands the challenging marketplace that his clients are breeding for. With so many struggling due to the polarised demand, I’m curious as to whether O’Keeffe has any bright ideas on how to ease the burden.

People love the genuine toughness and robustness of these Jeremy type racehorses

He replied: “To interfere with free markets and commercial reality in order to level the playing field will only lead to distorting supply and demand, and lead to further unwanted stock that has no market.”

Instead, he believes there may be a silver lining to current challenges. “With more mares being culled and more stallions making a loss due to reduced numbers of mares, foal catalogues will become smaller in the short term, which should lead to National Hunt stock becoming scarce and more valuable. This has happened in the beef industry.”

The cutthroat nature of the market means O’Keeffe refuses to spend too much time basking in Kilbarry’s current success. He says: “It’s important to remember that luck plays a huge part in thoroughbred breeding and even more so when standing stallions. Things can change drastically for good or bad in a day, so let’s not get too carried away and be grateful for what we have.

“Luckily, at the moment, we happen to have horses that people want. But we’ve had other horses here as well. For example, Pillar Coral didn’t get any mares here the last couple of years, and was just a complete loss-maker.

“The reality is that most stallions stand at a loss. It’s a really tough game."

Bright future

Diamond Boy’s momentum looks set to continue in 2026, with 2025 Grade 1 winners Diamond Carl and Impaire Et Passe remaining in training, along with Grade 3 bumper winner Carrigmoornaspruce, who finished second in the Grade 1 Future Champions Novice Hurdle over Christmas.

The best is yet to come from his younger stud mate Harzand, with O’Keeffe reporting: “Harzand got off to a wonderful start with his point-to-point and track results, as well as topping the store sales with consistently high demand for his stock.

“The demand to cover mares with him in 2025 was phenomenal and, unfortunately, we were unable to cater for everybody.”

“Success Days is a great favourite of the point-to-point trainers" \ Morgan Treacy

Success Days’ promising start saw the son of Jeremy cover 179 mares in 2025, with breeders since buoyed by €170,000 point-to-point purchase Princess Day making a successful rules debut in early December.

“Success Days is a great favourite of the point-to-point trainers,” O’Keeffe remarks. “People love the genuine toughness and robustness of these Jeremy type racehorses so far. A nice colt foal we bred was bought by Redpender Stud for €42,000.

Dschingis Secret becomes the first son of Soldier Hollow to stand in Ireland

For many, the ITM Irish Stallion Trail will be a first opportunity to see Kilbarry’s latest recruit, Dschingis Secret, in the flesh. Successful in the Grosser Preis von Berlin, like Adlerflug and Getaway, the well-bred bay is the only son of Soldier Hollow standing in Ireland.

O’Keeffe believes visitors will like what they see, he says: “He’s just under 16.1, and a good-walking, strong horse. He has sired blacktype winners on the flat and over jumps from mainly flat mares in France, and his oldest crop of National Hunt horses will be three-year-olds in 2026.

“Soldier Hollow is a serious sire of National Hunt horses, and also a sire of sires, with Ivanhowe and Pastorious making a big impression.” CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR THE ITM IRISH STALLION TRAIL