'National Hunt breeding can be very rewarding but requires patience and resolve'

Tell us about your new role at Goffs and what it will entail? The role will primarily involve inspecting and sourcing stock for the sales at Goffs and also as part of this I will be a point of contact for vendors in any aspects of their business with Goffs.

What are you most looking forward to with the job? I really enjoy visiting clients on their farms and discussing their stock, with the aim of helping them achieve the best return from their horses by placing them in the sales that suit them best.

I'm also looking forward to working with the team at Goffs - the bloodstock team there are very proactive and energetic and have been doing an excellent job at building and developing the sales at Kildare Paddocks. I hope that I can add to the team in their effort to serve our vendors and purchasers with the best possible sales and service.

I see a lot of potential in Goffs and in particular on the National Hunt side of the business. The Land Rover Sale has really captured the imagination of both vendors and purchasers and it is easy to see why.

A vendor can send their best horses to the sale safe in the knowledge that the market at the Land Rover Sale is proven - the top prices achieved at the sale in recent years are there for all to see.

From a purchaser's perspective, the recent results of the sale on the racecourse, and in particular at the Cheltenham Festival, mean that trainers and agents are acutely aware that they are more likely to buy a Cheltenham winner at the Land Rover Sale than at any other store sale.

The December National Hunt Sale has grown in tandem with the Land Rover Sale and I think there is further scope to catalogue more high-end foals in the sale. I think the position of the sale in the calendar is ideal for National Hunt foals; a high percentage of National Hunt foals are born between April and June and the extra few weeks at this time of year can be invaluable to allow foals to develop physically and be at their peak for the sale.

How and when did you become involved in racing? I'd been involved, like most youngsters with an interest in horses, in pony club and hunting when I was younger. I always enjoyed working with young horses and I started breaking and pre-training a few horses in the mornings before I went to school.

It went from there to having a few point-to-pointers and bumper horses and a couple of broodmares. Racing is an infectious sport and once you become involved in any aspect of the sport it stays with you forever. I'm very fortunate that my wife Laura is interested in the business and she is a huge help to me, as are both my parents.

Who has been the greatest influence on your career? I couldn’t narrow it down to one particular person but more a mixture of the advice and attributes that I have absorbed from people that I respect from all walks of life. When I find myself faced with a difficult decision to make, I will often ask myself what would any of these people do if they were faced with the same decision.

You have your own band of broodmares on the family farm in County Kilkenny and bred the Graded horses Theatre Territory and Commodore Barry out of Specifiedrisk. Tell us about the mare and how you came to own her? She had bred Glencove Marina, incidentally a Land Rover Sale graduate and winner of the Land Rover Bumper at Punchestown, prior to me buying her and I had also seen some stock that she had produced so there wasn't any great mystery to her being a good broodmare.

She was owned by John Murphy who had sadly passed away and the family were selling her. I knew John's son Martin from my time working in Horse Racing Ireland and I went to see her one evening and bought her with a Golan filly foal at foot. I still have the note that John's wife Betty put in the passport wishing me luck with her.

Specifiedrisk is 24 now and retired but I have a three-year-old filly by the very promising young sire Jet Away out of her that I will keep and hopefully breed from.

Theatre Territory: one of three black-type performers out of SpecifiedriskCredit: Edward Whitaker

What other mares have you on the farm? There was only Specifiedrisk and one other mare on the farm until a couple of years ago as I wasn't able to be home enough to manage them properly.

We have eight mares on the farm at present and most of them are either maidens or rearing their first foal. Donald McCain and I do some business and we have a very nice colt foal by Getaway from the family of Death Duty on the ground - there'll surely be an interesting phone call when I want to sell him and Donald wants to race him!

I also keep a mare for Donald and the Leslies called Lastbutnotleast. She's a queen and a pleasure to have around the farm. She has a smashing colt by Kayf Tara on the ground and is in foal to Getaway.

I'm a big fan of Old Vic as a broodmare sire and I picked up a mare called Sigh Of Relief from Willie and Jackie Mullins at the sales in 2018 for small money. She had bred three previous foals with the Mullinses, the oldest of which is now four. With some luck one of them might do something. She has a gorgeous Mount Nelson filly on the ground and is in foal to Success Days.

Have you any advice for someone looking to source a jumps broodmare? National Hunt breeding can be very rewarding but requires patience and resolve. The textbook National Hunt broodmare will have pedigree, conformation and movement. Unfortunately most of us can't afford this calibre of mare, which means we have to forgive something.

I would say that it is okay to forgive one of these things but to be very realistic in your appraisal of the mare's stock. If she's not producing the goods, move her on and start again.

Which of the farm's graduates should we be keeping an eye on? My Whirlwind was bought as a foal and sold to Patrick Turley, who won a point-to-point with her. Laura picked her out, I was in a meeting at the sales when she was going through the ring and I left her to do the buying.

The mare is now in Nicky Henderson's and it will be interesting to watch her progress - she was always a lovely filly with a great attitude and loved her work when she was here. She's a daughter of Stowaway, a sire I have huge respect for. I think he will become an important broodmare sire in the coming years.

My Whirlwind sells to Nicky Henderson for £400,000 at last year's Cheltenham Festival SaleCredit: Patrick McCann

Thedevilscoachman won a four-year-old bumper for Noel Meade in January. Even though he is from a Flat pedigree he always gave the impression that he would make into a lovely jumper when he was here, he's in a good hotel and he'll have no excuses.

Glenveagh Park was bought by Bobby O'Ryan at the 2018 store sales and she's with Gordon Elliott. She had just the one run last year, finishing fourth in a Punchestown bumper, and gave the impression that she will be better over a trip and with an obstacle in front of her.

Commodore Barry looks like he might have his day in one of the bigger handicap chases this winter. His career to date has been very well managed by Kim Bailey, he has taken his time with him and hopefully his patience will be rewarded.

I had a couple of reasons to cheer Milan Native home at Cheltenham this year. He was ridden by my brother-in-law and I bought him for a friend of mine who asked me to find them a foal.

Danny Molony was on the rostrum when he was selling and when I was about to sign the purchase confirmation I noticed he already had 'CC Bloodstock' down as the purchaser. He had been giving me a ribbing for a while because I was driving a company car and this was his latest niggle. We both laughed and agreed it would be unlucky to change it and so left it as 'CC Bloodstock'.

You also buy Flat and National Hunt foals for resale. What have been the best pinhooks for you to date? And should we be keeping an eye out for any of your pinhooks for this year's sales? I'm a firm believer in homework and preparation and until recently I was only hobby trading because of my commitments on sales days. It made it difficult to get around to inspect horses so I was just following in foals that I had spotted at the sale. For this reason I was always bargain basement hunting and my purchases were at a low enough level.

I bought Wenyerreadyfreddie for €2,800 and sold him as a two-year-old for €16,000. Peter Nolan found Thedevilscoachman as a foal and we sold him as a yearling for €27,000 - he cost €1,500 as a foal.

Wenyerreadyfreddie: went from a €2,800 foal to a €16,000 two-year-oldCredit: Mark Cranham

I trade a bit with Peter and he consigns any stock from here. We get on great; he always calls it as he sees it and I do the same. This makes everything very easy and there's never any misunderstanding. My Whirlwind and Glenveagh Park were healthy pinhooks also.

We've a few nice stores to sell from the farm this year, there's a very athletic Court Cave horse going to the Land Rover Sale. He's from Ken Parkhill's pedigree, which is a fabulous family to consistently throw up good horses. Ferny Hollow and City Island are the most recent top-flight performers to appear in this pedigree.

There's also a Shantou gelding going to the May Sale in Fairyhouse. His half-brother Hollow Games was a very impressive four-year-old point-to-point winner for James Doyle and has been sold to Gordon Elliott. I like this fellow a lot, he has a great temperament, loves his work and never has an off day.

There's a particularly nice bunch of two-year-olds for next year with stock by Milan, Soldier Of Fortune, Sholokhov, Flemensfirth, Court Cave, Westerner, Mahler, Kingston Hill and Vendangeur to sell.

I normally bring the two-year-olds in and do a version of a sales prep with them during the summer, but with the sales dates changing this year they haven't come in as of yet. I find getting them in at this time of year stops them from getting too heavy, and I'm a big believer in educating them along the way and not leaving everything until eight weeks before a sale.

In the point-to-point sphere, you have spent 13 years as a raceday official and inspector of courses for the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB). What major changes have you seen in that time? I started working at the point-to-points in 2004 and the last meeting I was on duty at was Courtown in 2017. I'd love to have stayed doing them but it is a big time commitment to be at a meeting two and a half hours before the first and you'd generally be one of the last to leave the field.

It's a role that carries a great deal of responsibility, decisions sometimes have to be made very quickly and repercussions from a poor decision can be serious, so you've to think on your feet and do what's right by the rules and people you're dealing with.

There have been many changes that have improved the sport for the better, the introduction of the camera on the finish line, artificial aprons, medical facilities for riders, microchipping of all runners, drug testing of all winners and also the p2p.ie website has revolutionised the administration of the sport from an entries and results aspect. It has also been a major help to market and promote the sport and its participants to the wider racing community.

If you go point-to-pointing you are likely to see top-class four- and five-year-olds competing each weekend in any part of the country, and it's been that way for a few years. It's no secret there have always been top-class horses coming from the point-to-point field, but historically they were unearthed sporadically throughout the year. In recent years there's been a relentless supply of top-level graduates coming from the point-to-point field.

This is testament to the handlers who spend fortunes on raw materials at the store sales each year with the aim of producing them to run as four- and five-year-olds. They deserve every cent they earn from their endeavours; it's a business model that carries plenty of risk. The commercial success they enjoy is there for all to see, but we rarely see or hear about the hard-luck stories or the injuries. They enjoy their success and take defeat on the chin - more luck to them.

How have the hunt committees been coping with the pandemic and do you see the current restrictions having a long-term impact on point-to-points? Many hunt clubs rely heavily on their point-to-point as a fundraiser and the loss of their spring fixtures has been a financial blow to hunt committees. Hopefully they can retrieve the situation with the expanded autumn season.

Unless there is a dramatic worsening of the pandemic, I think point-to-point fixtures should be safe enough, after all it's an outdoor sport and social distancing is very achievable. Racing, showjumping and eventing fixtures are currently being held, which is very reassuring.

To my knowledge all of the hunts that have been allocated fixtures in the autumn have taken them on the basis they will be held behind closed doors, and obviously in line with stringent protocols that the IHRB will have in place. Needless to say, we're all looking forward to seeing the flag fall for the start of the first race of the autumn season.

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