Third generation breeder Cathal Shine (20) of Western Road Stud in Cork has a passion for breeding and selling Traditional Irish Horses.

Cathal, who is in his second year at Kildalton College studying stud management is following in the footsteps of his father Donal and grandfather Con before him who have both had their fair share of success at Western Road Stud over the years.

Western Road Stud has stood many top-class stallions including Battleburn in the 1960s. That thoroughbred stallion was the sire of Eddie Macken’s world famous show jumper Boomerang, bred in Grangemockler, Co Tipperary. Tudor Rocket was the sire of John Ledingham’s 1994 Hickstead Derby winner Kilbaha and stood at Western Road Stud in the 1980s with many of these bloodlines remaining on the farm to this day.

The Shine family currently have 15 traditionally-bred stallions standing for 2021. These include eight Irish Draught stallions with three of these by WRS Sun Rich, four traditional-bred Irish Sport Horses, two thoroughbreds and a 15.3hh traditional cob – the latter was bought by Cathal with his confirmation money and has proved very popular having covered about 50 mares last year.

Without a doubt, Cathal’s pride and joy is his own Irish Draught stallion, WRS Sunshine. He was bought as a foal after his sire WRS Sun Rich died the year before WRS Sunshine was born. Cathal and his father were keen to get some offspring to continue the line. Cathal entered WRS Sunshine for the Irish Draught stallion inspections at Cavan Equestrian last March, in which the 16.3hh six-year-old Irish Draught received the coveted Grade 1 ranking.

Traditional horses are at the core of Western Road Stud and they hope to have something to suit every rural breeder, with Cathal saying, “We have all old type stallions and we like to cater to all of the old rural breeders with our reasonable service fees.”

Social media

Like many breeders, Cathal takes full advantage of marketing and selling horses on social media.

“I sold about 100 horses last year through social media for our neighbours and local breeders. Social media is a big help. I sold a dun three-quarter Irish Draught to England too,” he said.

Cathal has even managed to break through to the American market through his posts on Facebook, saying:

“I advertised a horse for my neighbour on Facebook and an American lady, who had lost her own horse, wanted to buy an Irish horse for their temperament. She also liked the colour of this one so she bought him. He is being broken and produced over there now.”

One of Western Road Stud’s stallions, Renaissance Man (TB) (Galileo x Sadler’s Wells out of My Renee) was one of the chosen horses for the Horse Sport Ireland (HSI) training and development grant and he is spending three months with rider Alice Copithorne.

“The grant encouraged us to put the horse into competition. It is worth €1600 for three months of training and competing. Alice is delighted with him at the moment,” Cathal says.

Helping hand

The community spirit is alive and well down in Meelin, with all of the neighbours of Western Road Stud rallying around the Shine family after Cathal’s father Donal broke his ankle in an accident with a young colt and then suffered a blood clot two months later.

With 40 suckler cows on the 140 acre farm as well as the horses, it was a lot of work for Cathal and his siblings (Darragh (17) and Caoimhe (15)) to take on with while their father was out of action. Thankfully with the help of their neighbours, Cathal says things have been running smoothly for them. Like many young people in rural areas, the COVID-19 lockdown has meant Cathal and his younger siblings have lots of time to work on the yard and farm at home.

Cathal and his father have no intention of adding any continental blood to their breeding programme and they will continue to breed Traditional Irish Horses, “There will always be a market for the Irish horses because of their temperament and their brain,” Cathal says.

Cathal aims to breed horses that can turn their hoof to anything whether it is hunting in the winter or showing in the summer.