‘If I’m not excited by something, I wouldn’t still own it' – Michael Doherty

If you could bottle Michael Doherty’s passion for breeding horses and sell it you wouldn’t be long making a small fortune. Based at his family farm in Co Sligo, which was originally a dairy farm but now focuses on horses and sheep, Michael lives and breathes animals and breeding.

A read through his Quarryfield booklet, which showcases his mares in the most beautiful and professional manner, before our interview clearly shows his dedication to becoming the best breeder he can be.

The first page reads: “It’s all about the mare”, and after our chat, I quickly learned that Michael not only talks the talk, but he also walks the walk.

A graduate of the equine business programme at Maynooth University and a previous marketing executive at Horse Sport Ireland (HSI), Michael has been focusing solely on his breeding and farming at Quarryfield since 2019, alongside helping other breeders in the industry with marketing and mare selection, there is great variety in his many jobs. well-bred Michael’s breeding programme began in 2013 with the purchase of Knightfield Mena (Touchdown x Irco Mena), who was in foal to the previous year’s World Cup winner and Olympic Games competitor Flexible.

Bred by Dr Noel Cawley, Knightfield Mena was a daughter of Noel’s mare Irco Rain - dam of Mullaghdrin Gold Rain, Mullaghdrin Touch The Stars and Touchable, to name a few.

Tragically, Michael lost Knightfield Mena last year, but her final gift was a fantastic filly by Ganesh Hero Z, which he has retained.

“The breeding programme at Quarryfield focuses solely on high-level showjumping, and is centred around a core group of well-bred, well-related mares, some of which have competed to a high level themselves.

”The majority of the horses that I’m involved in are owned or bred in partnership with others. This has allowed me to build a breeding programme, and to get involved in mares, that I would not have been able to afford to do alone,” Michael explains.

Michael is quick to point out the fact that it isn’t a one man show at Quarryfield, saying: “I’m exceptionally lucky to have the moral and physical support of my parents and sister at home in Quarryfield.

“Just having an extra pair of hands makes the world of difference. When I was living in Dublin, my dad was running the show for me.

“Our farm has a number of additional businesses, such as my sister Kelly’s English language holidays ‘Sligo Language’, which offers self-catering accommodation and farm experiences.

“Kelly and our father Gerald have also recently gotten involved in social farming, which offers people who are socially, physically, mentally or intellectually disadvantaged the opportunity to spent time on a family farm,” Michael explains.

At the moment, Michael only sells privately, saying: “I don’t breed for auctions, it’s all through my own marketing and social media and occasionally through some existing contacts that I currently sell my horses.

“The majority of foals I have sold over the years have been sold unseen but I am always very honest in selling. I will tell clients the good and the bad.

“One of the biggest challenges we face in our industry is transparency. Being transparent in your words and in your actions is so important as a breeder. If you can be really honest with people, even when you need the sale, that will pay dividends in the long run.

“All we have is our reputation. As Warren Buffet put it; ‘It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it’. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently,” Michael says.

On the topic of marketing, Michael points out: “I was visiting lots of places in Europe with amazing facilities and thinking, we’re just a glorified sheep farm in Sligo! How am I going to get the place up to the standard that I need to?

“I thought I was going to need to add more bling to the place to satisfy higher-end clients coming to buy horses.

“I said this to Alan Waldman once when he was visiting the farm and he told me ‘forget all that, make the place safe and spend your money on breeding good horses’.

“This was really helpful to hear that and it just refocused my mind. Now my priorities are just making the place safe, it’s not about trying to have flash,” Michael says.

“Irish people visit various high-end stables in Europe and we’re envious of their facilities, but they come here and they’re envious of our fields and our grass,” he says.

Stallions

When choosing a stallion, Michael will speak to the breeder, the owner, the rider or someone who has close hand experience with the horse.

“I don’t pick them off rankings, and I’m not overly concerned with what’s deemed commercial. If there is a stallion that is jumping at a high level and looks super, I will try to find videos of that horse when it was younger, at four, five and six years old or just under saddle, because what that horse looks like at that stage of their career, is what you’re going to get.

“What that stallion has naturally will be showing itself in its younger years. That’s the non-manufactured version,” Michael says.

It’s a stud farms job to show the stallions best bits, so Michael uses ClipMyHorse.com to find videos of horses from their entire career, not just their highlight reel.

“When I’m attending the likes of the Young Horse Championships in Lanaken, I will spend the majority of my days at the warm-up arena. You will get as much of an education on that horse watching how everyone interacts with it in the warm-up, how it behaves itself and you will get an insight into that horse that you can’t watch back on ClipMyHorse.

You have to go a little bit further and get closer to the horse. By doing this, you can get a greater insight into what that horse is actually like.

Michael’s dream for Quarryfield is to breed horses that are capable of competing at the highest levels of show jumping.

“It’s not just about breeding one good horse, I want to consistently breed horses for the highest level of the sport.

“I’d want to get to a situation where I can live comfortably off selling my home bred horses from Quarryfield,” he says.

Mares

Michael’s four main mares are Apple (Diamant De Semilly x Carnute) who is being bred in partnership with Eden Valley Farms in Florida. April Moon (Quinar x Landwind) who will be bred in partnership with her owner Silver Raven Farms in California, Cassitta SR Z (Cassiano x Cash) who is owned with Waldman Horses in the Netherlands and Mirette Du Bosquetiau (Albion Du Chene Brule x Elegant De L’Ilse).

Michael says he is yet to make a final decision on whether to breed directly, or do embryo transfer on three younger fillies; Cora Jada Edil Z (Corico Z x Zahr Adelheid), Flecha Hero Z (For Pleasure x Exxon Hedonist), both owned in partnership with Alan Roberston, and Pina Colada Hero Z (Perigueux x Kassander van’t Roosakker).

“Embryo transfer [ET] is a lot of additional work and cost, so it’s important to be really convinced of the quality of your mare before heading down that route.

“This year, I hope to get one or two embryos from Apple and April Moon. As Mirette Du Bosquetiau is old and I don’t have anything from her at the moment, I intend on doing a session of Ovum Pick Up [OPU].

“I’d love to get a filly from her to continue the line, but it’s not fair to expect her to carry a pregnancy at her age. I will probably do ET on one or two of the younger fillies, if funds permit, during the summer,” Michael says.

Exciting horses

“If I’m not excited by something, I wouldn’t still own it, so I’m quite excited by all of my young horses. Of course I sell many of the horses that I’m excited about too, but I have to really believe in anything I keep or own. I’m always drawn more strongly to the fillies, as they can play two roles in my programme,” Michael says.

“I was particularly happy with last year’s filly foals; a Ganesh Hero Z out of Knightfield Mena and then two from Apple - by Tangelo van de Zuuthoeve & Vigo D’Arsouilles.

“If I had to pick stand out fillies from the older ones, based on what I’ve seen from them so far, it would probably have to be Cora Jada Edil Z, bred by my friend Eddy Vrijsen, and Pina Colada Hero Z, bred by another friend, Luc Henry,” Michael says.

Advice

Michael is keen to share his own knowledge with breeders, or those starting off in their breeding programme. He says: “Firstly, you need to clearly define what you are setting out to breed, not only the discipline you are breeding for but also the level within the discipline. I found that once I became clear on what I wanted to breed, everything else became much easier.”

“A lot of the time you can see people are heavily influenced by the opinion of others, so make sure if you are taking advice it is from the right people.

“When I set out breeding, I looked at who had bred the type of horses that I wanted to breed, then I studied them, reached out to them, and visited them where possible and that made a huge difference for me,” he continued.

“Surround yourself with like minded breeders, it’s a lot easier to stay motivated when you are surrounded by people who want to achieve similar things.”

Michael points out that you don’t always have to start from scratch, saying: “Invest in the hard work of successful breeders that have gone before, by buying into their good mares and damlines.

“You could start off with the family pet at home and spend 30 years of your life trying to breed her to the stage where you want to get to, slowly improving each generation piece by piece.

“Alternatively, you could go out and buy a filly from somebody’s top broodmare or top family and you’ve saved yourself decades.”

Never straying from his marketing and business background, Michael says: “When you finally have your good mare and subsequent foals, market your breeding products like a luxury good, not a commodity. If you look at a lot of the advertising in the industry, many people put in such a worrying lack of effort into how they advertise their horses, then they expect someone to give them x amount of thousands for it.”

Michael is a big advocate for asking advice from the best in the business. “The large majority of breeders are happy to welcome you to their farm and talk about horses, especially if you are enthusiastic about learning,” he says.

“It’s all about the mare! The majority of top breeder’s success is attributed to the special mares in their breeding programme, not what stallions they use.”

Influence

Michael has spent a lot of time travelling to different farms around the world, learning from the best in the industry, but one person stands out for him.

“Of all the breeders that I have met on my travels, Luc Henry has had the greatest effect on me. Through our friendship and business dealings over the past seven years, Luc’s influence has positively changed me as a breeder and as a person in general.

“Some of the main learnings from Luc have been; the importance of observation, to have full belief in what you are doing the need to only breed with top natural talents, be that mares or stallions and to never lie to yourself about the quality of your horse.”

Michael is determined to put breeders under the spotlight. Apart from regularly applauding Irish breeders on their successes across his social media channels, he also runs his own podcast Big Talk For Breeders, which he started in September 2018.

Big Talk For Breeders is a podcast-based series of interviews with successful sport horse breeders. The aim of this podcast is to bring the breeding world closer by sharing insights into the experiences and influences that have brought the world’s top breeders to where they are today.

“Recognition for sport horse breeders in Ireland is still lacking quite significantly. Many of the simple solutions to remedy this costs little or nothing to implement. They just take people to care.

“At an absolute minimum there should not be a start list printed for any competition in Ireland without the name of the breeder on it. We then need to ensure that every show commentator has a copy of this and is encouraged to mention the breeders in their commentary.

“If pedigree information is supplied, by HSI or otherwise, to the auction houses running elite type sales, then a condition on that should be that the breeder’s name is printed on each lot. A continued failure to do that suggests that there is a deliberate intent on the auction houses’ behalf to not recognise the breeder, as this has been highlighted previously.

“In addition to this, I would like to see a ‘Breeder of the month’ for the sport horse industry, as is already in place for the thoroughbred industry for quite some time. Breeding horses is a long-term and sometimes testing endeavour, and I feel it’s very important to shine the spotlight on successes of our breeders wherever possible,” Michael says.

Finally, Michael says he would like to see DAFM launch a new tranche of the knowledge transfer programme, “The initial programme had a considerable positive impact on the participants that were open to change and learning.

“For some reason there appears to be an ongoing disregard for horses in certain DAFM schemes, specifically Targeted Agriculture Modernisation Schemes [TAMS]. There is currently a large disparity between equine and the other agricultural sectors that fall within DAFM’s remit.

“It is difficult for Irish breeders to raise and showcase their horses as desired without these additional supports in place,” Michael says.

Looking forward to this foaling season, Michael is expecting foals by Tangelo van de Zuuthoeve and Stockholm van’t Roosakker, but he says: “My mating plans for 2021 are still to be confirmed.

“Stallions in the mix at this stage include the likes of Carinjo HDC, Cornet Du Lys, Dourkan Hero Z, Junior Du Seigneur, Ganesh Hero Z and Grandorado TN, but that could all have changed by this summer!”

And who knows, maybe Michael’s Olympic dream will be among this year’s foal crop.