2013

“

THE journey and the dream is over,” was Clement McMahon’s heartfelt reaction to the death of his star nine-year old stallion Pacino, who had to be put down earlier this week after being diagnosed with incurable kidney failure.

The premature death of any good performance horse is sad, but when it is a very popular working stallion, a brilliant international team jumper and a much-loved family heirloom, then it is a treble tragedy.

Just how much so was etched on the face of 36-year-old Clem as he told us of the utter devastation that he, his wife Stacey, his mother Maureen and the whole team at Hilton View Stud felt when the diagnoses was finally confirmed on Monday last. Everything that could possibly be done was done to save this superb model of a horse who delivered those never to be forgotten winning clears at Hickstead and Dublin last summer.

As Clem recalls: “I did regular blood tests on Pacino, but this condition is so rare that it is not routinely tested for. Even the symptoms like weight loss, teeth tarter or being slightly off their food are difficult to detect, and even when they are it is too late. About three weeks ago we began to feel that he was not finishing his feed.

“So we had him checked with our vet Ger Kelly of Fethard. He did the blood test and sent it on to Kevin Corley at Anglesley Lodge in Ned Gowing’s on the Curragh. It was then that we got the hammer blow about the depth of his condition.” However, the McMahon efforts to save Pacino did not end there. “At this point we knew that his competition days were over, but we still had hope that he could be saved as a stallion,” Clem ruefully notes.

Specialist

American specialist Doctor David Wong was called in to attempt a whole new dialysis procedure that he has been pioneering. It makes use of a human dialysis machine, and so far it had been tested on just five healthy horses.

This was to be its first trial on one that had been diagnosed with actual kidney failure. Pacino was put on the machine last Monday.

At first the toxins came down to close on normal levels of 100 to 200, but when he was taken off the machine they shot right back up again to the intolerable reading of 600. There was no option left open but to have this beautiful horse, whose vibrant presence filled any space, be it Hilton View, the massive Hickstead arena or our own Ballsbridge, had to be euthanized.

“I was so thankful to this horse for all he had done for us that I could not stand to have him suffer, so he was put down on Wednesday evening. For the family and the team of Ann Marie Jameson Reynolds, Jackie Glendening and Delth Collins, all of us who were so looking forward to the season ahead, it was a very sad decision to have to make,” Clem says with tears in his eyes.

The dream had ended.

Career

Pacino was born in 2004 in Belgium out of the same performance mare that produced Hilton View Stud’s other stallion, Hermes De Rerve. On the sire side, he is from the great jumping line of Le Tot De Semilly. Clem and his mother Maureen bought him as a three-year-old.

“When he was broken and I rode him over five fences, the feeling he gave me I had never felt in a horse before,” Clem recalls. He jumped in five shows as a four-year-old and finished second in the National Championships. He next won the five-year-old championship at Cavan. The following year he was runner- up in the six/seven-year-old there.

At the World Young Horse Championships in Lanakan, he jumped clear for third in a qualifier and had just one down in the final. As a seven-year-old he was second in the Premier Grand Prix at Balmoral and fourth at Cavan International. At Valencia last year he placed in eight out of 10 competitions he was entered in, and came fourth in the big final. He went on to win the Premier Series Grand Prix at Mullingar International and be second at Louth County.

In his first Nations Cup at Copenhagen, he had two four-fault rounds, but then jumped a clear with one time fault at Rotterdam. Then came clears at both Falsterbo and Hickstead before finishing with that glorious double clear in the Aga Khan. He was rested after that in preparation for 2013.

Just a few weeks back he had been approved in the Selle Francais Studbook. He covered up to 150 mares in 2012, but no frozen semen remains. Clem has four of his gelding sons at Hilton View.

Shergar

ransom

1983

THE kidnapping of Shergar from the Aga Khan’s Ballymany Stud at the Curragh last Tuesday night put all other world-wide news into the background.

Syndicated at £10 million, Shergar was the victim of a gang of armed thugs, who burst into the house of the head groom John Fitzgerald and held his family hostage; while he was forced at gunpoint to load the five-year-old into a horse-box and then dumped him four hours later at one in the morning.

Since then, there has been total confusion with very little progress. Handling the case is Chief Superintendent James Murphy, who admitted yesterday evening that there were no leads. This was after the visit, at the demand of an anonymous telephone caller, of three English racing journalists to Northern Ireland. After going to a Belfast hotel, they were told to proceed to trainer Jeremy Maxwell’s farm near Downpatrick.

They were informed of a ransom demand of £40,000 or £1,000 for every share. Yesterday morning, the same caller said he was forced to put down Shergar as he had hurt himself in the horsebox. This whole incident has been generally accepted as a hoax, or an effort by the gang to draw attention away from the true whereabouts of the horse as they get on with the business of trying to extract the £2 million ransom.

Meanwhile, the Irish breeding industry has been appalled by this senseless and damaging act.

The Irish Thoroughbred Breeders Association announced yesterday that it would offer a substantial reward for any information that would lead to the safe recovery of Shergar.

Excellent trial for the Grand National

1958

LAST Saturday’s Celbridge Handicap Chase at Naas provided an excellent trial for the Liverpool Grand National, Mr What scoring from another Aintree aspirant in Longmead, with Dandybash third, the verdict being four lengths and a length and a quarter.

Grand National top-weight, Quare Times, finished a good fifth, after being only slightly behind Mr What at the last fence. Quare Times challenged coming to the last fence, but Mr What, in receipt of 36lbs from the top-weight, raced clear on the run-in and was not troubled to hold Longmead.

Mr What was ridden in enterprising fashion by W.J. Brennan, who will have the mount again at Aintree if Tos Taaffe is not available for Mr D.J. Coughlan’s greatly improved eight-year-old.

Trainer T. Taaffe had earlier had another winner when Eire’s Flame produced too much pace in the straight in the opening Sallins Maiden Hurdle. Tos Taaffe was the successful rider here, and he completed a double later on Friendly Boy in the Rathcoole Handicap Hurdle.

[Mr What won the 1958 Grand National, with Arthur Freeman in the saddle. A field of 31 faced the starter for record prizemoney of £14,000, and just seven finished. Willie Robinson on Longmead fell at the second, while Tos Taaffe exited at the 13th on Brookling]