Solid Foundations Rewarding Kilcarn

Few Irish farms of the postwar era have punched quite so far above their weight, and for quite so long, as Kilcarn Stud. Since its foundation by Major Edward “Ned” O'Kelly in 1943, the Co Meath nursery has consistently achieved exceptional dividends both at the sales and on the track, most recently when two lots–out of just four consigned–made it into the top five purchases at the Goffs Orby Yearling Sale last year.

At €2-million, a filly by Raven's Pass brought the highest price of the sale when bought by Moyglare Stud. Named Tocco D'Amore (Ire), she has yet to make her debut for Dermot Weld but her pedigree makes her precious regardless of what she may achieve on the racecourse. Her dam Spirit Of Tara (Ire) (Sadler's Wells) is a sister to the champion Salsabil (GB) and half-sister to Marju (Ire) (Last Tycoon). Remarkably, this was the third time a Spirit Of Tara yearling had topped this sale–surely a unique distinction.

For a rookie stallion like Declaration Of War (War Front), then, a tryst with so venerable a mare must be counted a fairly stunning compliment–not least because Spirit Of Tara, at 22, did not complete her pregnancy this time round and is unlikely to be bred again. That would leave only her colt foal by Invincible Spirit (Ire) (Green Desert) still to go through the ring.

All eyes, then, will be on lot 290, her Declaration Of War colt. “He's a May foal and not even an early May foal,” says Pat O'Kelly, who took over Kilcarn from her father on his death in 1986. “But you wouldn't notice to look at him, he's fairly well grown. I know the sire is just starting out but Coolmore do these things so well and a son of War Front is a good outcross. After all, Raven's Pass was still something of unknown quantity when Spirit Of Tara went to him. You just never know. Certainly it was lucky I was sitting down when the filly started making all that money last year. Otherwise I think I might have fainted.”

With the years catching up with Spirit Of Tara, O'Kelly hopes that patience with the mare's 3-year-old daughter Dream Of Tara (Ire) (Invincible Spirit (Ire}) may yet pay off. “She has been in training but unfortunately hasn't made it as far as the racecourse,” she says. “But I think we'll give her another chance. It's nice to have her because I fear we've reached the end with her mother, in terms of breeding. Of course she will be able to live in peace here, for so long as she can. [Her half-sister] Welsh Love (GB) (Ela-Mana-Mou {GB}) is still going, after all. We don't even mention how old she is, having been foaled in 1986, but you'd never know to look at her, down there eating blackberries. All right, she's a little down on her fetlocks–but she's not down into the mud or anything.”

True to its traditions, O'Kelly has invested some of Spirit Of Tara's earnings in fresh blood for the farm: notably Prima Luce (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), a Group 3 winner out of a half-sister to two Group 1 operators in Cassandra Go (Ire) (Indian Ridge {GB}) and Verglas (Ire) (Highest Honor {Fr}), purchased for 825,000gns at the Tattersalls December Sale in 2011. She is already paying her way, her son by Invincible Spirit having raised €580,000 from China Horse Club at the Orby Sale last year, the fifth-highest price in the catalogue. Named Emmaus (Ire), he made the perfect start to his career for Roger Varian when the well- backed winner of a seven furlong maiden at Leicester six days ago.

In for a penny, in for a pound, and O'Kelly also decided to send Prima Luce to Declaration Of War in 2014. The resulting colt is lot 213. “He's a February foal, and quite big,” O'Kelly says. “The mare is meanwhile in foal to Golden Horn (GB) (Cape Cross {Ire}) and has a filly foal by Invincible Spirit. I was on the board of the Irish National Stud when Invincible Spirit arrived and thought I should put my money where my mouth was. So I took a share– and thank goodness I did.”

Latest to benefit from this prescient investment is the stud's youngest mare, Love Magic (GB) (Dansili {GB}). Her dam is Magical Romance (Ire) (Barathea {Ire}), winner of the G1 Cheveley Park S and subsequently sold for 4.6-million guineas to Love Magic's breeders, the Rothschild family. Bought for 170,000 guineas at Tattersalls December last year, Love Magic is now in foal to Invincible Spirit.

Two other young recruits are Elle Woods (Ire) (Lawman {Fr}), whose first foal–a February colt by Sea The Stars (Ire) (Cape Cross {Ire})–enters the ring as lot 27; and Queen Of Carthage (Cape Cross [Ire}), represented in lot 221 by a son of Dawn Approach (Ire) (New Approach {Ire}).

But O'Kelly has always resisted any temptation to overstretch or overstock the couple of hundred acres of Kilcarn. “We've never had more than about a dozen mares here,” she says. “It's important for them to be able to move round a bit. And it's good limestone land. I'd say they have a more natural existence here than at a place like Newmarket. Sometimes they go down and drink from the River Boyne. When my father bought the place people said to him: 'I suppose you're fencing the river?' To which he replied, 'Indeed and I'm not. They've more sense than any of us.' There's a place down there, I used to call it 'the harbour' when I was a girl, where they can drink quite safely. And of course they get fed well, too, and properly nursed.”

It was on these same principles that her father bred a champion 2-year-old, Big Dipper (GB) (Signal Light {Ire}), within five years of founding Kilcarn. And later he produced Sodium (Ire) (Psidium {GB}) to win the St Leger and Irish Sweeps Derby in 1966; while Flame Of Tara (GB) (Artaius) herself won the G1 Coronation S. before achieving still greater heights in her second career. Now, as a self-effacing octogenarian, O'Kelly is doing that legacy proud.

Curiously, the Kilcarn draft is dominated by colts this year. Its only filly is lot 152, by the same sire as last year's sales topper, Raven's Pass, who was indulged with a partner nearly as venerable as Spirit Of Tara in Mayenne (Nureyev). This is a 22-year-old daughter of the great Detroit (Fr) (Riverman) and, as such, a half-sister to another Arc winner in Carnegie (Ire) (Sadler's Wells). Mayenne's listed-winning daughter My Renee (Kris S), having produced the rags-to-riches Banimpire (Ire) (Holy Roman Emperor {Ire}), has meanwhile been rewarded with a colt by Galileo (Ire) (Sadler's Wells), catalogued as lot 179.

“It's strange the way things happen,” O'Kelly says. “Only one filly this year, and then all these colts. But you can't organise horses to do these things.” Fortunately for Kilcarn, however, genes and husbandry can together make class a lot more predictable than gender.