SUNDAY at Punchestown had it all - a thrilling finish to a top-class Grade 1, followed by a win for “the small man”.

Sonny May won the proceeding novice handicap hurdle, marking a second straight win for the Denis Hickey-owned and trained seven-year-old, who was bred by his wife Lucy, and led up by their son Patrick. To top it all off, he is by their Garryrichard Stud sire Hillstar, ridden by Denis every morning, and is one of just two horses in training.

As Denis Hickey relayed over coffee in the family kitchen: “If you look at the winner of the previous race, trained by the greatest trainer of all time, Willie Mullins, for the biggest owner of all time. Then the next race is the complete opposite - that’s great for racing.

“I’m actually still replying to texts,” he adds. “I must say, Punchestown were brilliant. They treated us so well.”

On Sonny May’s nine-pound rise, Denis says: “In fairness, you couldn’t expect much less, but it’ll hinder him now too.” A novice contest over the Christmas period is next for the progressive hurdler, though which one is yet to be decided.

Over The River

Sunday marked a 99th run by Denis Hickey-trained horses, while the best of his wins was Ballistraw’s Grade 2 victory in the Red Mills Chase in 2008.

He was by former Garryrichard resident Carroll House, out of a mare by another past stallion in Over The River, the sire of two Gold Cup winners. Over The River mares have been successful for the Hickey family in recent years, albeit in a different capacity.

After failing to deliver as a National Hunt broodmare, his daughter Legal Lady made the switch to sport horses, with fantastic results. Her first sport horse produce, Lady Ophelia, events at five-star level for Padraig McCarthy, competing at Burghley this year.

Her second sport horse foal, GRS Lady Amaro, was ridden by Patrick up to two-star level, before being sold to cousin Mark McAuley. She has progressed to represent Ireland on the Nations Cup team at Hickstead, finished second in the Rolex Grand Prix in Dublin and was on the Irish team, which finished second in the Aga Khan Trophy.

“They were both on the long list for the Olympics,” explains William, who runs the sport horse side of Garryrichard Stud with Patrick. “I personally think we’re very lucky that they were out of Over The River mares, as they were very good jumpers.”

“Anything by Over The River could jump with their eyes closed,” his father agrees. He also sired Britain’s most decorated event horse, Over To You, bred by Mrs Litt in Enniscorthy and competed by Jeanette Brakewell. His achievements are led by two Olympic silver medals, a world individual silver, team bronze, and four European team golds.

Versatility

With my racing background, I am intrigued by the idea that thoroughbreds, or thoroughbred blood, is successful in other disciplines. No less because of Treo Eile’s ambition to promote ex-racehorses, the greatest development in thoroughbred aftercare in Ireland.

Thoroughbreds’ versatility is nothing new, Denis informs me. “Years ago, the American show jumping team were all thoroughbreds, until show jumping became so popular in Europe, and they were breeding specifically for jumping.”

Lucy adds: “When Mark Todd and all those New Zealand and Australians took England by storm, they were all thoroughbreds.” Like Denis and their sons, Lucy grew up with horses of all kinds.

She evented for Ireland in the junior team, while her father Billy McKeever rode around Badminton. He was also deputy senior steward and had horses with Bunny Cox. No wonder, then, that William, Patrick and their sister Anna grew up on ponies.

The trend away from thoroughbreds seems to be reversing, according to William. “I think blood has come a lot more back into show jumping now. If you look at the top five at the five-star Grand Prix last week, they’re all very blood, fast horses.”

I, the sport horse novice, ask what he means by blood. “More quality, more thoroughbred - that’s what we mean by more blood,” Denis explains.

Next generation

William and his brother Patrick are well-versed in the show jumping world, having travelled to gain experience - the former worked in America, while his younger brother spent time with Shane Breen and Mark McAuley.

The pair returned to Co Wexford to ‘set up shop’, to breed and produce show jumpers at the highest level. They acquired Casago II as a sport horse stallion last year. His first crop are now foals, and the future looks bright, William reports. “Anything that’s on the ground by him that we have ourselves, or that have already gone to sales, look like very nice types. He was quite popular, even before competing. I think a lot of it was from his pedigree, he is very, very well-bred.”

Casago’s first year at Garryrichard was spent covering mares, and began competing under Patrick this year, the pair earning the title of Irish Show Jumping Champions. Of the mares covered by Casago, a certain percentage were thoroughbred, their owners changing track after a lack of success in the National Hunt sphere.

Against the clock

A huge challenge when breeding National Hunt horses is the timeline, in that it is only when a mare’s first foals reach the age of four and upwards, can their breeding career be judged. That, of course, is nothing new, but the demand for quicker results from the end user has made it even more cut-throat.

Denis gives his view: “Now with National Hunt horses, they’re trying to get them quicker, earlier and, in my opinion, it won’t work, because they’re bred to need time, no matter what anybody says.”

A major driving force behind this is the success of French-bred horses, but pressuring our horses to race at three is the wrong approach, Hickey argues. “France has a completely different method of doing things.

“They break their National Hunt horses as yearlings, they do a bit with them, let them off, bring them back in, do more with them, and as a result, they’re not getting big and gross like our horses.

“We try to sell them as three-year-olds, and they have to be looking well, but you can’t bring a horse to the sales like you’ve broken, because nobody would buy them.”

The path less taken

That hasn’t always been the case, listening to one of Hickey’s tales. “In 1996, we brought a four-year-old to the Derby Sale, a four-year-old who had been broken and riding, had done a little bit of show jumping in the spring, and he topped the sale.”

Subsequently named Lord Of The River, he went on to win a Grade 1 and Grade 2 over fences. His final win came in a Class 2 chase at Aintree as a 12-year-old.

In comparison to current practice, an even more unusual approach shaped Glenrue, a son of Carnival Night, who had been bought by Denis’s father Michael as a show horse. “He was placed in Dublin, he was second or third in his class,” Denis recalls.

“We started jumping him when he came back. I evented him for a year and had him sold to Mark Phillips, but the vet cast him for he had a big hind joint from hitting a pole, a solid pole. He said he wouldn’t stand up, but he went to the track then, and Terry Casey trained him to win the Topham. He was a great jumper.”

It’s not just racehorses who now face a race against the clock, but their sires, too. On how the stallion game has changed, Denis says: “Oh it’s changed totally, because they’re written off so quickly now. If they don’t get four-year-old point-to-point winners now, and people start talking about them and everything, they’re gone in a year.”

Sourcing stallions has also become more difficult, Hickey adds: “It’s hard to get the stallions that you’d like now as well, because there’s a great trade in America and Australia for the staying horses, or the older horses as well, where there wasn’t before.”

Fate went against the much-missed Jeremy, who stood at Garryrichard for just two seasons before sadly passing. Hickey later sourced another son of Danehill Dancer in Hillstar, a Grade 1 winner and half-brother to Crystal Ocean.

Legacy

Things have changed a lot since Denis’s father Michael, an esteemed stallion man, ran Garryrichard Stud. Arctic Slave was his first successful thoroughbred stallion, siring Paddy Prendergast’s Musidora Stakes heroine Arctic Melody. She went on to produce Irish 1000 Guineas winner Arctique Royal, as well as the dam of dual Gold Cup hero Ardross.

Arctic Slave’s accolades as a damsire are perhaps led by Dawn Run, whose dam was sold by Michael Hickey as a foal for 300gns when Goffs was based in Ballsbridge. All of this came pre-internet, of course, so I struggled to find any information myself on Arctic Slave’s own racing career.

“He won on the flat, over hurdles and over fences,” Denis informs me. “My dad went over to Newmarket to buy him in 1958, I think it was the first time he was on a plane, and he cost £750.”

Over The River, who sired two Gold Cup winners, wouldn’t have fit in current day trends, either, Denis says. “Over The River didn’t win on the flat, he wasn’t able to - he was fourth, I think, one day. He won three hurdle races.

“Roselier, who was a very good stallion that stood at Knockhouse Stud, won the French champion hurdle over three miles. If we brought any of those horses to Ireland now, people wouldn’t even come to look at them. That’s the way it’s gone.

“And yet, if they were alive now, they would be equally as good as stallions as they were in their day, in my opinion. The French do it, and the French are winning.”

On the bright side

So, what could be done to ease the challenges facing National Hunt breeders at the moment? “National Hunt breeders deserve to be rewarded,” Denis says.

“There’s nothing for them. There was a scheme a good while ago that came from the foal levy, but it was taken out, that you got rewarded for breeding a graded winner.”

It’s easy to imagine that Garryrichard Stud’s return to sport horses would receive Michael Hickey’s approval, listening to his son. “You must remember, we were very involved in half-breds years ago as well. My brother [Michael, of Sunnyhill Stud] jumped on the Aga Khan team in the 70s, and did a lot with show jumpers, he was a very good rider. So really, it’s nearly doing a full circle now.”

Denis and Michael’s father also rode six Dublin champions, and Denis describes him as “a natural horse man”.

“He had great intuition about a horse, a great eye for a horse. He loved a good-looking horse, with a good step. He was lucky through his life as well, but it wasn’t all down to luck.

“He always gave horses time as well. We’re going back to that thing again. He would turn in his grave now, if he saw what was happening and a lot of his generation would as well.

“It’s very confined in the National Hunt now and show jumping, at the moment, would be much more straightforward. If the two lads weren’t here now, this would be a dead place, basically. There wouldn’t be much activity. But now it’s alive, and it’s really blooming at the moment, and it’s lovely. We’re very lucky to have the two lads at home.”