OUR family owned Killarkin Stud enjoyed great success at Tattersalls Ireland September Yearling Sale last month, topping day two with a homebred Elzaam colt who made €95,000. It was the best result the farm had achieved in recent years and vindicated the hard work that we have put in over the past few years.

Coincidentally, my aunt, Mary, who owns the adjoining Catherinestown Stud, topped the Sportsman’s Sale a week later with a homebred Dandy Man filly for €90,000, so it was a great week all round.

The Davison family have owned the stud for generations, with my grandfather Walt, originally buying the property in the late ‘50s. I’m told that he was a highly regarded veterinary surgeon who, along, with Captain Rogers of Airlie Stud, became one of the first men in this country to syndicate a stallion, when Habitat stood at Airlie after his racing career ended.

Killarkin featured regularly amongst the top consignors lists’ at a lot of the big yearling auctions and emerged with a high reputation as a nursery for producing young, future racehorses. My grandfather had passed away by the time I was born but my own father took over the stud.

Despite downsizing, and to my father’s credit, the stud has continued to be viable producing some nice stock, albeit at a more modest level. I grew up in the main house on the stud farm and some of my earliest memories revolve around the foaling season and going racing to see some of the homebreds race.

Horses took a back seat when I went to board at Clongowes. Most of my attention then turned to rugby and after having played on cup teams in school, I went to Sydney, Australia as a coach/player for the year in 2006, just after finishing my Leaving Certificate.

After that I returned home to start a four-year Agricultural Science degree in UCD, specialising in Equine Science in the latter stages of the degree course. During my third year at UCD I undertook a six-month work placement at Dromoland Farm in Kentucky and that is when I’d say that I really began to apply myself to try to make a career out of working in the horse business.

FLYING START

I applied for the Godolphin Flying Start programme towards the end of my studies and luckily enough I got the call to confirm that I had been accepted, just as I was walking into my final college exam!

Students receive both management and practical training in a professionally run programme spread over five different countries. I found the work placement periods, of which there were four, to be really beneficial as was the global network that we were afforded access to. Upon completion of the course I was very keen to get back to the coalface and work for a trainer, so I was delighted to take up employment with Mr Bolger in Co Kilkenny. Jim Bolger is a self-made man who had (and continues to) forged a hugely successful career in the business, so I knew that if I kept my head down and my eyes and ears open I would pick up a thing or two.

Admittedly it was a testing year in Coolcullen but a great in year in that I learned a lot about training, breeding, riding, horsemanship and good overall horse care; it was also a great lesson in how to run a training stable in a very efficient way.

I was lucky to go racing quite often and compiling exercise physiology reports for the boss allowed me to see how some of the science that I had learned in UCD and on the Flying Start programme could be applied in the day to day training of the horses.

GAI WATERHOUSE

In 2014, I returned to Australia where I spent five months as a trackwork rider with Gai Waterhouse, one of that country’s best trainers. Not only did I further my education on training and progress my riding but Gai also sent me over to Wesley Ward in Florida for a month, to learn and assist him with his ‘breakers’.

I spent a lot of time with Wesley and that period was a massive learning experience. When I came back to Ireland the flat racing season was upon me so I spent a couple of months at Clive Cox’s in Lambourn before returning home to get stuck into the yearling prep.

Having being off the European sales scene for a couple of years I busied myself showing horses in Ireland, Britain and France for many notable consignors such as Castlebridge, Kildaragh Stud, Grove Stud and La Motteraye. I loved being back in this melting pot because I could rekindle old friendships and meet some new people.

As well, as that being on the sales grounds helped me to tune into what was going on in the marketplace which I thought was very important because I knew that I wanted to be able to run a commercial business.

Dealing with the yearling to the young racehorse was (and still is) an area that I wanted to get more experience in so I took up the opportunity to spend the breeze-up period working at Brendan Holland’s Grove Stud; I knew that Brendan was one of the best in the business, and that he had good lads working for him so it was a no brainer that I went there.

I wasn’t disappointed and that very wet six month period spent down in Fermoy at Grove was one of the toughest but probably the most valuable experience that I’ve had so far. I saw first hand the detail and level of training/conditioning and background work that must go into preparing that young racehorse to execute a ‘breeze’ over that two-furlong distance, if it is to go on and maximise its market value.

My hat goes off to the breeze-up guys because they’ve only got one shot at it which means that the stakes are that much higher. Last year Brendan broke his previous year’s record at the Arqana Breeze-Up Sale when selling a Frankel filly for €800,000 - a job well done!

Always wanting to keep busy I headed over to Newmarket last summer to ride out for Roger Varian before moving back to Killarkin to prepare yearlings for the Fairyhouse sales. That was a worthwhile stopgap for me because I was busy riding out in the mornings and in the afternoons I was free to attend various race meetings including the July meeting, the July sales and the Darley stallion parade. I felt that I was in the thick of things being in Newmarket at that time and I’m sure that it was time well spent.

The Fairyhouse yearling sale dates were an exciting couple of days and I got to experience both ends of the spectrum - consigning a sales’ topper on the second day and failing to sell a filly I had pinhooked on the following afternoon. I can tell you I learned more from the latter result than I did from the first!

Last year I bought a couple of fillies out of training that are now in foal and who will be foaling down this season. I also bought a Raven’s Pass filly at the Sportsman’s Sale a couple of weeks back with a view to racing/breeding from her. So at the moment I’m breaking three fillies and prepping a foal for Goffs next month.

I’ll also have some outside breaking/pre-training work to keep me going during the winter and into the spring. My aim is to build upon the broodmare band that we have here at the moment by breeding tough, sound horses that can go on to acquit themselves well on the track.

I enjoy every aspect of the industry and I love being hands on with the horses; the real dream would be to breed, train and own a couple for myself - that’d really get my blood pumping!

Jack Davison was in conversation with John O’Riordan