ITBA Awards

Eva Maria Bucher Haefner inducted into the ITBA's Hall Of Fame at a memorable awards ceremony on Saturday evening Edmond Mahony, Joe Osborne and Eva Maria Bucher Haefner were the big winners at this year's Irish Thoroughbred Breeders Association Awards ceremony that took place at The Heritage Hotel in County Laois on Saturday.  The awards kicked off with a passionate speech from ITBA chairman and Irish National stud boss Cathal Beale where he warned the room that, "we can be certain that there is great uncertainty" with a view towards...

John Connaughton, the hotel owner who bred Group 1 winner Bay City Roller as well as the Group 3 scorer Dunboyne Express, has died almost exactly a year after he was crowned small breeder of the year at the ITBA Awards. He was 93. Connaughton enjoyed a lifetime of success in business and bloodstock. Dunboyne Express was one of the first big names that shot to prominence for the County Westmeath man while Bay City Roller provided Connaughton with a breakthrough Group 1 success as a breeder when landing a...

There are two types of people in life: those who are bowed by adversity and those who stare it in the face and dare it to try to bring them down.  For more than a year Joe Foley has been involved in an ongoing court battle with Steve Parkin. Prior to that the pair had a long and successful run on the track with Parkin's Clipper Logistics operation, which Foley managed. Recent highlights include the homebred Classic winner Fallen Angel, who is now in the ownership of Wathnan Racing. Whatever...

More And More is an old ditty that the late singer Joe Dolan, one of County Westmeath's finest exports, made famous back in the 1980s. Well, the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders Association could not have found a more suitable backing track to the small breeder award presentation at The Heritage Hotel, which was won by fellow Westmeath man John Connaughton. For starters, Connaughton has enjoyed a lifetime of successes in business which have been replicated through his bloodstock endeavors. And even at the age of 93, the accolades keep on coming...

KILLENARD, Ireland - At bloodstock's own annual version of Groundhog Day, it's a familiar scene. A flagging British hack shuffles out of the bar at The Heritage, apologising for retiring to bed "so early" at 3.30am while all around Irish breeders great and small are still on the bridle and full of running. Welcome to the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders' Association National Breeding and Racing Awards. They breed 'em tough on this isle, both horses and their minders. Not even the aftermath of Storm Eowyn could deter the 300-plus members of...

It is just over a month since Dermot Cantillon and Meta Osborne were inducted into the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders Association Hall Of Fame at a memorable awards ceremony at the Heritage Hotel. Described as a "power couple" in the awards booklet, rarely are the Tinnakill House Stud owners seen without each other. After an hour spent in their company at their home near Forenaghts Stud in County Kildare, it is easy to see why Meta and Dermot have risen to many of the challenges that life, and the industry, presents....

There were few more deserving winners at this year's ITBA Awards than Amy Marnane. At just 30 years of age, Marnane has crammed a lot in. From breeding to pinhooking and even consigning horses under her own name, Marnane has accomplished plenty in the industry, which led to her scooping the Next Generation Award.  Of course, that award was tinged with sadness after the death of Marnane's mother, Theresa, at the age of 61 in December.  In this week's Q&A, Marnane discusses how the bloodstock industry has served as a...

The Irish Thoroughbred Breeders' Association (ITBA) has postponed its annual National Awards as a mark of respect following the death of ITBA chief executive Una Tormey on Tuesday.  The awards dinner had been set to take place this coming Saturday, January 27, at the Heritage in Killenard. A rearranged date will be announced in due course.  A statement released through the ITBA from chairman Cathy Grassick on Wednesday morning read, "It is with great sadness that I advise you that our esteemed friend and colleague Una Tormey passed away yesterday...

KILLENARD, Ireland--The trick to living a mostly happy life is to spend as much time as possible doing what you love. Simple, right? That's not to say that people in the bloodstock industry don't work incredibly hard. There is no real let-up in the work either, with almost wall-to-wall sales these days, foals on the way, mares to be covered, mud to be scraped off almost everything and, some mornings, ice to be broken on water troughs and buckets.  But it's a wonderful life nonetheless, and every now and then...

Year after year, the thread of his horsemanship snags another big prize in the web of his many different interests. And this spring Gabriel Duignan is back on the GI Kentucky Derby trail—this time as breeder, his Springhouse Farm near Lexington having started Forbidden Kingdom (American Pharoah) along the road that has already taken in two of the big Californian trials, latterly the GII San Felipe S. at Santa Anita last weekend.  Before you ask: disappointingly, there's no real story behind the nickname. When he started as a kid at...

The cream of Irish Thoroughbred breeding was recognised on Sunday night, with the headline act being Tally-Ho Stud's Tony and Anne O'Callaghan, who were inducted into the ITBA Hall of Fame. Last year's ITBA National Breeding & Racing Awards provided one of the bloodstock social media events of lockdown, but after two years of virtual presentations, the prestigious awards ceremony returned to its rightful home of The Heritage hotel in Co Laois. The O'Callaghans also took home one of the main Flat awards when being named the joint-winners of 2-year-old...

Dolphins swimming in the Venetian canals may have been pandemic fake news, but that the world will have benefited environmentally is one of the few upsides to the coronavirus crisis. What is not fake news is that many heads and livers will have been feeling better on Sunday morning than would otherwise be the case following the annual ITBA Awards, but that is the only benefit to missing out on what is always one of the social highlights of the racing year. Attendance at this event is not for the...