Edmond Mahony: ‘You Have To Love The Horse; That’s The Most Important Thing’

[Wandering Eyes]

If you bump into Edmond Mahony over the next few days at Park Paddocks and congratulate him on his ITBA Wild Geese Award, the chances are that it will be greeted with mild embarrassment and an assertion that there are other more deserving recipients out there.

Mahony is famously averse to fuss. He has, equally famously, guided the good ship Tattersalls to extraordinary growth, even through some choppy waters, in his long-running tenure as chairman. There was the not insignificant matter of a global pandemic which somehow the bloodstock sector navigated its way through. Collaboration and innovation meant that horses were still traded, even if it was in a manner which would hitherto have been unthinkable. 

“We had two streaks of luck, really,” he recalls of that time. “One was that Matt Hancock was the local MP here and we had a direct line into him that otherwise we wouldn't have had. I know Matt has been criticised hugely since, but I have to give him credit where it's due, and he recognised that the racing industry needed looking at and he did his best for us in that regard. 

“I think we were also lucky because we own quite a bit of [Australian auction house] Inglis and they had pioneered the online platforms. Since the pandemic, with Kat Sheridan and Ross Birkett, we've developed it further. Now, I wouldn't say it's mainstream, but it's not far off it.”

The development of Tattersalls Online has been one of a significant number of changes to have occurred in almost 33 years since Mahony became chairman of Tattersalls. In 1993, a total of 3,401 horses were traded at the Newmarket auction house for 41,412,398gns. Fast-forward to 2025 and the adjusted figures of 5,212 sold for turnover of 426,389, 509gns tell their own tale of the reach and stature of this world-renowned brand.  

Further change is afoot, but mostly only subtly. While Mahony remains in his position as chairman, he has stepped down as chief executive, paving the way for Matthew Prior to have become managing director from January 1, along with the appointment of three more new directors to the Tattersalls board in Jason Singh, Harvey Bell and Tammy O'Brien. The latter was already a member of the board of Tattersalls Ireland, of which Mahony is also chairman, while Simon Kerins is chief executive.

“I think all of them are outstanding individuals,” Mahony says. “Matt's a great leader. You've got Harvey and Tammy and Jase, and Caroline [Scott] has done a fantastic job since taking over the finance department. We've still got the old heads around the boardroom table, with Gav [Davies] and John [Morrey] and myself, so I think it's all positive.

“Tattersalls is a big beast now compared to what it was in 1993. It's a better model in that both Simon and Matt are reporting in to me and they're both running the shows on a day-to-day basis, which they're well able to do.”

One change which has not been met with universal approval is that from this week's February Sale, Mahony, along with fellow auctioneer John O'Kelly, will no longer be on the rostrum. For one so obviously reticent about being centre stage, Mahony has long seemed an unlikely auctioneer but he was to the manner born, following the example of his father Denis, who was an auctioneer at Ballsbridge. His style is a magic combination which manages to be both understated and commanding at the same time. He will be missed.

“We introduced a company policy a few years ago that auctioneers stood down at 65, which is as good a time as any, really,” Mahony explains. “But I have to say, I didn't realise there was going to be quite the reaction there has been, because I have had a lot of correspondence from people saying I made the wrong decision. There's never a good time, but there's definitely a right time, I think.”

Of the importance of getting it right, particularly on behalf of the vendor, he adds, “You're advocating the horse in front of you for two and a half minutes and it's taken someone possibly three years to produce. So I was always very conscious of that, particularly for the smaller people, they were always the people that I felt most badly for when it didn't go well, and probably I've had more correspondence from them than anyone else.

 

Edmond Mahony in action on the rostrum | Tattersalls

 

“I think the most important thing is to have engagement with the audience you're with and have empathy with them, too, which is something I always try and instil in the people I'm teaching. I'm at the stage now where I'm trying to pass on whatever I've learnt. You've got to thank people, you've got to recognise people's efforts. And I think what actually sells horses, funnily enough, is rhythm. People bid to the rhythm that you're selling in, so I think that's probably the most important thing, but after that, it's having empathy with the vendors and the purchasers.”

A horseman down to his boots, he knows however that the business is as much about people and, increasingly, politics. Last year, Mahony strayed from the norm in his closing address following the December Sale, warning unequivocally of the “perilously uncertain” future faced by the industry. 

“I suppose the background to it was that I was concerned that a government minister at the end of the 2024 sale had basically touted Tattersalls sales as a reason that the racing industry did not need any help. And I was very uncomfortable with that because I think it was obviously a complete misrepresentation of the situation,” Mahony explains. 

“I thought that I would take an opportunity to set that record straight, and I had a few goes actually over the year, but nobody really picked up on it. So I thought, right, this is the time to do it because I'm stepping down as the chief executive. I had a lot of people message me saying it needed to be said.”

He continues, “I'm very conscious of how small breeders are suffering at the moment. We've tried our best to help with sales races, supporting the TBA with their initiatives on the fillies' bonus schemes, and we've thrown a lot more into sponsorship. We sponsored the Middle Park and the Cheveley Park when they didn't have a sponsor last year, but realistically there's only a limited number of things we can do, because we are buffeted by the political headwinds that we're facing.

“I'm very concerned at the way the present government are handling the economy. They came in on a pledge to look after business, which clearly has not happened. If anything, they've done the opposite.

“The situation with the non-doms is probably the most worrying for racing, and we've got the perfect storm of rising taxes, rising inflation, all the extra costs they put on business – even things like VAT on school fees is sucking money out of the economy that otherwise would be spent on incremental businesses like racing.

“I know we had a slight victory with the betting tax, but I suspect that was a pyrrhic victory and that it's going to come back to bite us.”

While Mahony says that he is not usually pessimistic, he points to the lack of engagement with the racing industry by Britain's politicians in comparison to Ireland as a cause for concern.

“I've never gone down this road before but I am now because I think I need to,” he says. “Ireland's a completely different economy. They've got politicians that are seriously invested in racing. The real contrast is something like point-to-pointing, where the Irish government are putting in somewhere between €3-to-€4 million every year, and the government here are trying to stop it. I mean, if nothing else illustrates the gulf, it's that.”

And yet the two countries have a necessarily symbiotic relationship. What happens in Britain will affect the Irish racing industry eventually, and perhaps nowhere is this felt more keenly than in the sales companies which operate across both jurisdictions. 

“People always say that Tattersalls is a very British company, which I don't altogether recognise, because I always think we're an Anglo-Irish company,” Mahony notes. “Not only do we have a huge base and a huge investment in Ireland, also the majority of our shareholders are actually either Irish-based or from Irish extraction. So I think we see ourselves very much as an Anglo-Irish company, if not an international company, so I find myself very interchangeable in that regard.”

 

Tattersalls Ireland's Simon Kerins with Edmond Mahony | Tattersalls

 

Despite spending plenty of time in his native country, Mahony has for many years resided just outside the British racing heartland of Newmarket, a town which he says is “the most undersold resource – there's nowhere in the world like this”.

There was a time early in his chairmanship when moving the company from Britain to Ireland was under serious consideration. Lobbying of then-Prime Minister John Major ensued and, despite the acknowledged disconnect, there is often to be found the odd government minister touring Park Paddocks. Recently that has included former Home Secretary Priti Patel and current Leader of the Opposition Kemi Badenoch. From EU harmonisation back in the 1990s, to its fracture through Brexit over the last decade, and the aforementioned Covid pandemic, there have been plenty of storms to weather. 

“I've gone through periods of recognising how much damage and how much good, to be fair, politicians can do to industry and business,” Mahony says. “During the pandemic we nearly got closed down a couple of times, and if not for the intervention of various politicians, we probably wouldn't have had any sales.”

While it has long been acknowledged that the top tier of the market, with its lure for world leaders and billionaires, is to a degree immune to financial crises, Mahony acknowledges that a continued partial shrinkage of the thoroughbred population is inevitable, and he is concerned for the lower echelons.

“The breeders that are breeding nice commercial horses that ordinarily would be finding buyers that are giving economically viable prices – that's the area that I'd be worried about,” he says. “The stallions that are standing for nominations of £10,000 and under, their offspring are no longer making the £30,000, £40,000 that they need to.”

The breeding game has already changed significantly in recent decades and it is easy to imagine that more small breeders will be lost in the coming years.

Mahony recalls, “In the early 1980s we had hundreds of small farmer vendors who had two or three yearlings every year. You'd go to a county and spend nearly a week in it looking at all these horses. Now it's the complete opposite. Those people have been replaced by huge farms that have, in many cases, hundreds of yearlings. I think that's probably the biggest change.”

Yearling inspecting is still, however, one of the most enjoyable aspects of the business for the chairman whose spare time, when he has any, is devoted to producing show hunters. He has enjoyed Anglo-Irish success in this sphere at Royal Windsor and the Royal Dublin Show.

“It's where I started,” he says. “My mother was very keen on horses and I was very lucky and enjoyed the energy that she had in doing it.

“I think if you ride to a certain level, you pick up things automatically, on conformation, good and bad, and how it's not nice sitting on a horse with no front, and that sort of thing.

“But I think you just have to love the horse; that's the most important thing. And that's why I'm keen on the RoR. We came in early on when it started off and sponsored the show series, and I think it's been a great success.”

RoR – the Retraining of Racehorses charity – has a showcase to kick off proceedings at 11am at Tattersalls on Thursday ahead of the popular stallion parade, which Tattersalls stepped in to rescue when the TBA discontinued its support. The February Sale gets underway in their wake and, though a lower-key beginning to the sales year at Tattersalls, it invariably provides an engaging couple of days ahead of the start of the covering season.

Over the years, Mahony has seen all horses great and small sell from his vantage point on the Tattersalls rostrum. He particularly recalls the transaction involving subsequent treble Group 1 winner Chief Singer, a large colt by Ballad Rock who was “sandwiched between a Mill Reef and a Habitat in the Airlie draft”.

He says, “I remember thinking, am I going to get this horse sold? And suddenly Richard Galpin threw his catalogue up in the middle of the ring, bought him on the reserve of 10 grand. And his first start was in the Coventry.

“Richard Galpin was an unbelievable judge of a horse – an absolute genius.”

Plenty of similar compliments were paid to Mahony by his peers at the ITBA Awards on the last weekend of January, but he says modestly of his award, which is given annually to someone who has represented Ireland with honour abroad, “I'm sure there were more deserving winners on the night than me, but it was very kind of them to recognise me, and I appreciate that.”

Political concerns forgotten for now, he adds, “It's still a business that is so enjoyable. It's a way of life, isn't it? I look back on my life and think I've been incredibly lucky to work in my hobby, basically, and I think that's the same for most people in this field.”

 

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