AFTER 50 years as a farrier, Liam Whelan is retiring from farriery.

From Athy in Co Kildare, Liam has spent most of his career looking after stud farm clients and Goffs, where has has acted for 40 years. The Punchestown Sale will be his final Goffs engagement.

One of Liam’s clients, Clare Kehoe and Billy Byrne of Woodview Stud in Rathmolyon, contacted The Irish Field to acknowledge Liam’s professionalism over decades. “He is never late, never misses a day, and will always do what he can to help a vendor get their horse sound before it goes into the sales ring,” said Clare. “Liam does not actually follow racing or sales, so he treated every horse the same, regardless of its value.”

Liam played down his dedication, telling us he and two colleagues would be “flat out” for the big sales at Goffs and that he tried his best to help when faced with “emergencies and miracles”. Asked to explain what he meant by ‘miracles’, he said: “Besides the usual loss of shoes and last minute correction, when looking after the sheer numbers of horses at the busy sales you are going to get five or six horses going lame within those days prior to sale.

“To get those horses sound and into the sales ring was always my priority as I always realised the time, work and indeed money that was invested and this was essentially the owner’s pay day. With that narrow window of opportunity, I could often see the stress on those owners faces when their horse went lame.”

Liam’s father was a stud groom at Blackrath Stud (“he looked after Vulgan”) and his uncle shod for Darkie Prendergast. But Liam has other skills too and his passion is sailing and diving.

Just last week he married his long-term partner Alice O’Sullivan, an engineer with Uisce Eireann. The couple are both diving instructors and in late May or early June they will depart Ireland on their yacht with the aim of sailing around the world.

“The loose plan is to set sail, possibly from Kinsale to the north of Spain via the Scilly Isles, weather permitting,” Liam told us. “The intention then is to work our way down the west coast of Portugal, stopping off at various ports along the way down to Portimao and Faro.

“Then from Faro, it’s Madeira, Canaries, Cape Verde and across the Atlantic to the Caribbean in December/January. We want to go through the Panama Canal and into the Pacific....”

Asked how long they would be gone for, Liam laughed: “Could be two years, could be 10. We’re hoping to circumnavigate the world but you don’t know how far you are going to get.”

What a pair of true bohemians. And the name of their yacht? Anyway the Wind Blows.