Athenry trainer Keelan Dempsey has built a bank of equine experience during stints in the US and Australia. Now back home, he tells MICHAEL GLYNN about his career to date and the plans for his new Galway operation.

Horses perpetuate dreams and a young Galwayman who has fallen under their beguiling spell has just joined the small coterie of West of Ireland licensed racehorse trainers.

But Keelan Dempsey is no rookie when it comes to working with horses, having garnered vast experience with internationally-established names in the United States and Australia over the past ten years, including his involvement Down Under with a fine filly called Fake Love.

Having recently secured his trainer’s licence from Horse Racing Ireland after a succession of exams and inspections, he is up and running from his well-appointed base at Tobernavean, Athenry, from where he has already sent out his first runner.

The 30-year-old from Athenry town has no background in horses other than his father, Kenneth, “owning a couple with my uncles when I was a child”.

Whether it was that or not, something sowed the seed and, in no time, the young Keelan had started hunting and showjumping, trying to squeeze his activities in between hours of school and study at Pres, Athenry.

With Kenneth acting as his chauffeur to hunts and gymkhanas, it was only a matter of time before Keelan extended his childhood interest to riding out racehorses with the Murphys at Ryehill Stables – this family went on to produce Flooring Porter, the dual Stayers Hurdle champion at the Cheltenham Festival.

Keelan then converted his youthful passion into a career choice. After his Leaving Cert, he went to Equestrian College in Enniskillen where he continued riding out and, attaining an amateur jockey’s licence, duly rode in a handful of point to points.

The campus can accommodate 70 students and, in its purpose-built breeding unit, Keelan learned key skills, working with broodmares and their foals, and preparing and taking weanlings to the sales. That was in addition to the exhilaration of riding racehorses on the gallops and the thrill of schooling jumpers over fences at speed.

After graduating, he made the life-shaping move to Kentucky, working at the 800-acre Dell Ridge Farm, Lexington, a thoroughbred breeding, prepping, racing and training operation.

Just as overseas equine students are drawn to Ireland, budding Irish horsepeople are captivated by the Bluegrass State and spending time there is almost de rigeur for a CV. The Irish who don’t move on exert an enormous influence there and almost every stud farm of any standing has senior Irish management.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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