By Irish Horse Board / IHB
Photography: Susan Finnerty
We’re fortunate to have selfless ambassadors in the horse world. Chris Ryan is one. To bottle his enthusiasm and knowledge of all matters equine would prove priceless, but then again, as Mark Twain once wrote: “Genius, like gold and precious stones, is chiefly prized because of its rarity.”
The ‘Ryan effect’ is seen around the world, from his late father Thady importing the Irish Draught stallion Kingsway Diamond to New Zealand when he relocated there, and to several decades of Irish-breds sourced for buyers, thanks to Chris’s famous ‘eye for a horse’. And then to the third generation, through the work done by son Tadhg’s Bit-Media communications company.
Dublin Horse Show’s popular inter-hunt chase and the breeders championship with its combined mare and foal format were Thady Ryan brainchilds. One of Bord na gCapall’s original board members, he was chef d’equipe of the Irish Olympic eventing teams for Tokyo and Mexico. “I can remember the Olympic horses getting blessed on the ramp at the airport by Father Sweeney, a brother of Phil Sweeney, who bred the Champion Hurdle winner, Gaye Brief,” said Chris. Yet another priceless vignette.
Integrity is a Ryan trademark as shown in this anecdote about judging in Dublin, courtesy of the late Archie Smith-Maxwell. “There were two really beautiful horses in a championship. The third was a little plainer but quite a horse. Every time you passed a fence, he was ready to take it on,” the breeder of Jumbo recalled. “I said to Thady, who was the senior steward, “I’m very sorry but I need more time to get this right. There’s two lovely horses but if I was going to buy one, it would be the third.”
“He never said anything, except ‘Take your time’. So I rode those two again, went ‘One, two, three’, signed the results book, and then Thady smiled and said, ‘The third one is mine’.”
“Loyal to the Irish horse”
A champion of traditional-breds but always generous and ecumenical in his praise for winners of any denomination, its more than fitting that McKinlaigh – the most recent traditional-bred individual medalist at the Olympics – was bought from Chris. Bought at Goresbridge as a three-year-old, McKinlaigh’s name is a nod to both Sue Ryan (née McCullen), and a New Zealand mountain.
Sue and Chris first met while Chris worked with racehorse trainer Frank Dunne and Sue, an Irish National Stud managament course graduate, worked at nearby Collinstown Stud. The couple’s daughter Emma, having worked eight years at Martinstown Stud owned by legendary racehorse owner JP McManus, now works in a top Limerick small-animal veterinary clinic...
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