European Exports With Cormac Breathnach

[Wandering Eyes]

European Exports is a series where we catch up with people who have left their home countries to make a new life in racing in America. Today we speak with Airdrie Stud’s Cormac Breathnach.

TDN: Where are you originally from?

CB: I’m from Galway in Ireland. It’s a medium-sized town in the west of Ireland with a famous racing festival in July. I grew up a racing fan from the time I was basically an infant, according to my parents. My father was a teacher there. I went to university in Galway, and then I moved over to Kentucky in 1996. I had spent the summer here in 1995 as an intern at Alltech, and then went to Graduate School at the University of Kentucky, starting in 1996, and I’ve been here ever since.

TDN: Was your family involved in racing?

CB: Not directly. We were fans, and my father and I would go racing all the time; we’d go to Leopardstown and The Curragh and all over the country. So we watched it and read the racing papers at the time, religiously, but we weren’t directly involved. Which for me was part of the reason I moved here; it was easier to get established over here, and find a career in the industry over here.

TDN: So you find there are more opportunities in the racing industry in the U.S.?

CB: There are more opportunities when you’re willing to work hard. You can get a foot in the door here early. I worked the September sale in 1995 for Jackie Ramos at Ashleigh Stud, for her consignment, and that was the first thing I’d done directly in the industry over here, and it just kind of went from there.

When I moved here in 1996 it was to go to grad school, so I did a PhD at the Gluck Center starting in 1996 and graduating in 2001. And then I did some postdocs for about six more years in Wisconsin, and then back at UK. Part of the reason I was in academia and research for so long was for visa reasons. My visa was tied to that career path, and then with marriage and everything came a green card eventually, and so in 2007 I made a leap out of the research field to just get fully immersed in the Thoroughbred industry.

I worked for myself for a couple of years, and did some matings analysis, and bought a few horses; I had a few horses in training in Ireland and so on. And then I got hired by Adena Springs in 2009, and was there for several years doing nominations. And then this opportunity at Airdrie came up, and it’s fantastic to be part of the team here. That was a year and a half ago.

TDN: How does your background in academia help you now?

CB: There are so many factors that go into how to make a good mating, and I think with that background in genetics you get a handle on maybe where the decisions are best made and what to focus on and maybe what to ignore. There are some theories out there that I wouldn’t ascribe to at all in terms of what makes a good mating and they’re commonly held, but they are things that I don’t think have much bearing on the outcome. So I try to look at it from a pretty practical point of view. Look at the foal being a product of its parents first and foremost, not necessarily something that’s six or seven generations deep, that may come through or in most cases will not. So, there are different approaches that I can try to take from that background.

TDN: Is there anything you miss about Ireland?

CB: Growing up in Ireland in the ’80s was sort of a slower pace of life and things. I do miss the neighborhood, and the friends, and the social circles and things that came through that period of growing up and through college. But it’s a very exciting, vibrant place to be over here; there’s just so many more opportunities, and really you can spread your wings and do maybe more what you want to do. Lexington is a fantastic place to live, in terms of getting around and having opportunities and things to do, and the new food cultures and everything else that are happening.

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