WHEN Joe Flynn arrived at Cavan Equestrian Centre during the 2019 stallion inspections, he came armed with a prized scrapbook full mostly of The Irish Field and Irish Farmers Journalcuttings. All about Ardcolum Duke, the international show jumper, bred by Flynn, a Roscommon farmer and former coal miner.
Ardcolum Duke’s recent loss is the end of a remarkable chapter, recorded in those cuttings of a horse, bred by an ‘ordinary breeder,’ that achieved notable worldwide success.
And it was worldwide. Amsterdam, Antwerp, Barcelona, Basel, Falsterbo, Geneva, Gijon, Hickstead, Hong Kong, the Horse of the Year Show, La Baule, La Coruña, Leipzig, Lyon, Paris, Rome, Spruce Meadows, Stuttgart, Verona and Zurich were just some of the international shows the Roscommon-bred competed at with Billy Twomey.
Regarded as one of the best 1.45m speed horses in the world, Ardcolum Duke - his prefix is his breeder’s address - also had his fair share of success up to 1.60m level too.
Roscommon breeder Joe Flynn, owner and breeder of Ardcolum Duke \ Susan Finnerty
“He had a couple of great wins and results in the five-star at Dublin. I was very proud of him as he was going to the last fence in the Accumulator and he ended up winning it that year (2018),” recalled the unassuming, soft-spoken Joe.
Another proud ‘home ground’ occasion was Ardcolum Duke’s 1.60m Grand Prix win at Millstreet International CSI3* in 2015.
According to the Belgian database Hippomundo, Ardcolum Duke paid his way for his international campaign by winning €235,919 in prize money. From 186 recorded outings, including his peak year of 2016, he had placed in 89 (48%) competitions. That gave the consistent traditional-bred a Hippomundo Lifetime Rating (HLR) of 102.
Modest investment
Where did it all begin? Joe, accompanied by Lisa Molloy, arrived in Cavan that day with those scrapbooks and photos, to record his interview for an article in the West of the Shannon series.
Lisa was instrumental in helping her neighbour; setting up the Ardcolum Duke Facebook page and even re-routing Joe and his wife Tess to their rightful place in the international owners’ box at Dublin, after finding the pair watching from the grandstand after buying their own tickets!
“It’s an extra bit of pride to have bred Ardcolum Duke, I would count myself lucky to have him,” said Joe. A small farmer, he had worked in Arigna coal mines for 30 years before its closure and kept horses too.
Dangerous Lady, Ardcolum Duke’s dam, was bought as a yearling filly at Claremorris Sales. Bred by Thomas Fallon and by Clover Hill, her unrecorded pedigree goes back to both Middle Temple (sire of John Whitaker’s Dortmund World Cup qualifier winner Clonee Temple and Nicola McIrvine’s Badminton champion Middle Road) and Ideal Water, a rare sport horse son of Water Serpent.
“It was a lot of money at the time!” said Joe of the €1,900 paid for her, however, his investment paid off when, as a five-year-old, Dangerous Lady and Padraig Judge won the Dublin Grade D/E championship.
The offers rolled in, but Joe decided to keep her as a broodmare. Difficult to get in foal, Joe tried the time-honoured method of letting her run with the Connemara stallion Brian Boru and she duly produced her first foal.
Billy Twomey on his way to winning the 1.45m Minerva Stakes with the brilliant Irish Sport Horse stallion Ardcolum Duke at the 2018 Dublin Horse Show \ Rolf Stenberg/ Sports Press
Her next foal was Ardcolum Duke, foaled in 2004. “He’s by Gypsy Duke when the horse stood in Co Monaghan with Sam Burgess.”
Gypsy Duke was by The Conqueror, a King of Diamonds grandson. Another rare sighting in an Irish pedigree now is of Gypsy Duke’s damsire, the thoroughbred Go Tobann, sire of Eddie Macken’s Kerrygold.
Great traditional bloodlines that started to be backed up by performance, when Ardcolum Duke started competing on the Irish circuit.
“He did nothing as a youngster and then Shane Quinn took him to his first show at Turlough Equestrian Centre. I rang Jimmy McDermott [Shane’s father-in-law] and said, ‘How did you get on?’
“I thought he might say he was no good, but instead he said, ‘You should have been there, the horse was jumping out of his skin!”’
Victoria Golden and Shane Goggins were two other riders to have produced Ardcolum Duke on the national circuit and, like his dam, the offers started to build up. Barry O’Connor was amongst those who enquired about Ardcolum Duke after the stallion’s first Mullingar Grand Prix outing; another was Billy Twomey, who took the horse on a four-week trial, as Joe was still keen not to sell him.
A breeders dream
Lisa remembers a phonecall from Cheshire shortly afterwards. “Billy rang me and said, ‘Do you think Joe will mind the horse flying?’ And I said, ‘No, where are you thinking of taking him?’ ‘China!’ He had him only about six weeks and brought him to Shanghai on the Global Champions Tour, where he won €48,000.”
Retired back home to Roscommon, Ardcolum Duke stood with Joe in Arigna and more recently with his son Colm, in Foxford, Co Mayo.
Many of the tributes on social media to the stallion mention his “lovely temperament” and that of his progeny. His loss also means one less fully approved Traditional Irish Horse stallion in Ireland.
“He really was a breeders’ dream - you breed a foal that goes on to international success - and while he is a loss to traditional breeding, it’s also important to thank Joe Flynn for keeping the dam and Ardcolum Duke himself,” said Kevin Noone, Traditional Irish Horse Association (TIHA) chairman.
“The whole Ardcolum Duke era is about the dedication of breeders. I had the pleasure of being at the RDS when we made a presentation to Joe and the five-star performance rated Duke in 2017.”
“He’s one of the best 1.45m horses in the world, he and Billy are practically unbeatable and what a superb horse he is,” Chris Ryan commented back in 2019.
Lisa Molloy, Joe Flynn and Alison Corbally at the 2019 stallion inspections in Cavan \ Susan Finnerty
Irish Horse Board (IHB) Director General Alison Corbally paid tribute to Ardcolum Duke, saying: “He epitomised all the attributes of traditionally bred horses, the will and ability to win in all kinds of competitions, from speed classes to 1.60m Grands Prix.
“Meeting his breeder Joe Flynn at the Cavan stallion inspections in 2019 and seeing the scrapbooks of cuttings about Ardcolum Duke is a reminder of the pride and passion of Irish horse breeders. Ardcolum Duke’s story gives us all striving to breed a top horse continued hope for the future; that the small dedicated Irish breeder has every chance of achieving success.
“Dangerous Lady was nearly sold to Switzerland, but thanks to Joe’s dedication she stayed in the country instead.”