The €600 bargain filly that landed a €110,000 windfall

THE Doyles have been dairy farming in Enniscorthy for three generations and also keep a few mares for breeding purposes.

This is not unusual for farmers in Wexford where hunting is part of the rural landscape.

Nicky takes an interest in local point to points and breeds some hunters.

“We’ve about 10 horses on the farm and two mares. We breed and sell — we are talking about sales in the €7,000 to €17,000 region and I breed from the cheapest sires I can get,” he says. But occasionally the sideline can land a substantial windfall.

Two years his “horse mad” dad Nicholas Snr had an extraordinary stroke of luck. He bought a Westerner filly from a friend for a mere €600.

The bay filly, who already had two points to points in the bag, was sent to the St Patrick’s Day sale at Cheltenham where the gavel came down at €110,000. Bingo.

The filly, Three Swallowsnick, was bought by Michael O’Leary’s Gigginstown operation and is currently in training with Gordon Elliot.

Nicky says that his father “still makes the annual pilgrimage to Galway and is totally taken up with the horses.

“That’s why we still have a few horses on the farm.”

Nicky and Anne Marie have five children: MJ (25) who is in Spain working as an English teacher; Helena (22) who works with a local yoghurt manufacturing firm; Nick (20) who is studying agriculture at Carlow IT; Patricia (19) a student nurse in Waterford and Sarah (18) who is currently facing into her Leaving Certificate.

And all help out on the farm when time allows.

It will be interesting to see how the next generation carry on the horsey tradition, but for now their main sporting interest centres on the GAA fields of Wexford, especially Nick who is making his mark this year with the Wexford senior football team.