ONCE described by author Nicholas O’Hare as “the cradle of performance for the Irish Sport Horse industry,” Slyguff Stud is the ideal setting to bring the current golden horsewomen series to a close.

The kitchen table is the command centre in this Carlow farmhouse. Countless people, from the late Swiss buyer Max Hauri, agreeing on a price for his latest purchase, to a breeder having a cup of tea before the drive home, have sat around it through the years. If this table could talk, it could tell its own tale of the Irish horse and the people who built it.