Douw Coetzee and Dean Macaskill off to the Emerald Isle

With the beginning of the year being slightly more quiet than the rest, it is the ideal time for Summerhill staff to travel and gain some more international experience. 

Douw CoetzeeSummerhill’s Assistant Broodmare Manager, Douw Coetzee, is off to Ireland to for six months to attend the World famous Irish National Stud course.   Douw joined us last year after working for Sequel Bloodstock in America for a year and a half.  Another proudly South African and ex-Summerhill intern, Dean Macaskill  (son of retired jockey, Fred Macaskill) is also attending the course.  Dean completed a year long internship at Summerhill in 2007, where he prepped yearlings for sales, worked with the broodmares and foals and also broke and rode 2 year olds for our Ready To Run sale.

Dean MacaskillThe Irish National Stud in County Kildare, Ireland is the home of one of the best-known equine training programmes in the world.  The first Thoroughbred Breeding course was held in the Irish National Stud in 1971 and many of the best-known studs worldwide are owned and managed by graduates from Tully and still send students to the course on a scholarship basis.

The aim of the course is to educate young people for a career in the breeding industry, although graduates have also been prominent in racehorse training, bloodstock sales and insurance and the media. Three graduates have gone on to train Breeders’ Cup winners: Eoin Harty, Frank Lyons and, in 2006, Brian Meehan.

The course consists of practical training at the Stud itself as well as evening lectures. Students are accommodated at the Stud and the course runs from February until July every year.

Posted by Annet Becker