The Ryans and Scarteen are fabled names to every foxhunter in the world. In addition to the many visitors to Ireland who have experienced the magic of following their pack of Kerry beagles—bred for more than 300 years by succeeding generations of the Ryan Family—both Chris Ryan and his late father, Thady, are well known in North America where they have visited over the years to judge hound shows, hunter trials, participate in panel discussions, lead clinics, and promote Irish tourism.
Chris Ryan, MFH and huntsman, Scarteen, takes his hard-hunting pack of Kerry Beagles to the draw. / Catherine Power photo
The name of Chris Ryan is synonymous with all that is good about foxhunting and the famed Scarteen Black and Tan hounds. He is the eighth generation of the family to carry the horn, a tradition that goes back all the way to the late sixteen hundreds.
Bloodstock and racing were Chris’s first loves upon leaving school, and he spent a year in the bloodstock world. That sedate occupation was never to be his ultimate calling, and his quest for speed and excitement took him to Lambourn, England and the yard of famed and flamboyant trainer, Tom Thompson-Jones, who had trained the great Tingle Creek.
Chris spent two years there, much of it as “second head lad” and had numerous rides as an amateur over the point-to-point racecourses. The learning curve for the young aspiring trainer was exponential as Scarteen had never been a racing yard. Lester Piggott, widely regarded as one of the greatest flat racing jockeys of all time, was a regular, and Chris remembers Piggott as being just as competitive on the gallops as he was on the track.
So anxious was Chris for rides, he would remain around the jockey’s room waiting for fraught owners of moderate jumpers who could find no jockey willing to take the ride. More often than not he returned from these outings in the back of an ambulance. Eventually the boss called him in and in no uncertain terms told him that the yard was not a recovery station and that he was needed on the gallops and not in the ambulance room.
After two years Chris returned to Ireland to take up the role of head lad for the great Jim Bolger. “My job,“ said Chris, “was to have seventy horses ready and able on the gallops every morning.” Among the charges was a filly they thought the world of but had failed to live up to expectations. The filly was Stanerra, owned by Frank Dunne of Dunnes Stores fame. She never shone in Coolcullen and it was decided to bring her home to be trained privately in Hamwood, Frank Dunnes fabulous yard near Dunboyne. “Frank was a genius in genetics and training methods; nevertheless he remained behind the scenes,” so it fell to Chris to make the day-to-day decisions as well as acting as principle work jockey.
Her form in 1982 was sufficient to get an invite to run in the then fledgling Japan Cup. She ran well coming a creditable fourth but it was just a portent of the brilliant year that awaited her in 1983. She put up a scorching performance in the Royal Ascot winning the Hardwicke Stakes on day-one and breaking the course record. Coming back to the winner’s enclosure Chris was approached by Lester looking for the ride later in the week. However, they remained loyal to their jockey, Brian Rouse, who completed the double by winning the Prince of Wales Stakes on the Friday.
The best was still to come. They were again invited to the 1983 renewal of the Japan Cup, and the intrepid pair with their entourage to follow made the trip to Tokyo. Stanerra didn’t travel well and in the quarantine yard she locked up and couldn’t get any fast work, but Chris would walk her in hand for upwards of six hours a day. As race day approached she loosened out but it was only on the eve of racing that she was able to be given some really decent fast work. On race day she was generally judged not to be at her best, but it was good enough to get her nose in front. To this day she remains the only Irish winner of the Japan Cup.
While she was fifth in the Arc (from a bad draw) and having won the Joe McGrath Memorial at Leopardstown, the owners decided to retire her to stud. Though she delivered plenty of foals, her career as a broodmare was not a success. It was while Chris was in Hamwood that he met his wife-to-be, Sue McCullen, who was then working for Lady Cleague in Collinstown Stud.
Chris decided it was time to return to Scarteen. He set up as a trainer and enjoyed some decent success particularly with a horse called Townablase who won two useful races in the Curragh. After an unpromising start in Ballinrobe the Mrs Myles Valentine-owned Rustic Glen won the two-year-old Handicap in Leopardstown by two lengths. Meanwhile Chris enjoyed some success as a jockey winning two bumpers, one for Jim Bolger on Some Nerve and for his cousin Geoffrey Thompson in a hotly contested race in Ballinrobe.
For all that, hunting was in Chris’s blood and in 1986 he decided to relinquish his license upon being invited to take up the role of Master and huntsman at Scarteen. His father, Thady, had been hunting the family hounds for well over forty seasons, having been passed the horn from his father, John. These were never going to be easy shoes to fill. Thady had been looked on as Ireland’s premier huntsman as well as being chef d’équipe to the Irish Three-Day Team in two Olympic games, Mexico and Tokyo. As if that we not enough, he was a much sought-after judge of both hounds and horses and had filled both roles with distinction all over the world.
All the greats, including Martin Molony and Lord Oaksey, were regulars, all in their turn coming to hunt with Master Thady. To a man, foxhunters went home wondering just how Thady did it, so the bar was raised very high indeed for Master Chris’s debut on his first day in Knocklong. And guests at Scarteen were not limited to only the foxhunting greats. Foxhunting Life editor Norman Fine recalls he and Joan seated at Thady and Anne’s dinner table on separate occasions with such non-hunting guests as RAF Chief Marshall Sir John Barraclough from Britain and Mr. And Mrs. David Rockefeller from the States.
There were many who said Chris was both too young and too inexperienced, and indeed he was both. But he had one secret weapon at his disposal—the long-time whipper-in and kennel huntsman, Tommy O’Dwyer. A lesser man than Tommy might have resented the young pretender who could not even blow the horn properly, but Tommy became his mentor, never imposing his opinion but always on hand to offer advice and steady the ship in choppy waters of which inevitably there were plenty. An outstanding horseman an even better houndsman, Tommy was a crucial part of the new team, as he had been for Thady. Also, on hand were the three Joint-Masters who remained in a supporting role: Americans, Semon Wolf, Ian Hurst and the Texan, Bill Hobby, whose day job was Lt. Governor of Texas.
Chris had inherited his father’s favourite hunter Jacko, but the veteran steed didn’t take kindly to the demands made on him by the dashing master whose approach to a bank with more wire than an Electric Supply Board station was to gallop at it and let impulsion and luck take them to the other side. Hunting is all about hounds, and Thady had just got a stallion hound called Hyder whom he had seen hunting on Valentia Island off the southwest coast of County Kerry. Hyder produced the great Highlight who became the foundation sire of the modern pack.
Chris Ryan in flight / Catherine Power photo
His second bit of good luck was acquiring Keelo, a horse of outstanding ability. Keelo had been bought from Maurice Coleman by Semon Wolf as a hunter prospect but, not surprisingly, found him difficult in the field.
Chris takes up the story: “Keelo was fantastic, but he had to be in front; if he wasn’t you neither had brakes nor steering. I recall a day out at Cullen when hounds found in Breen’s covert in Ballinacree. It was a screamer and Keelo just took everything in his stride. A well wired up bank he would just power up over the wire, somehow get a leg down on the bank and be gone over the other side. As the day progressed the field got less and less and we eventually finished on our own with hounds.”
Personally, I recall another day from the same meet, when after a quiet morning hounds found in Burns Bog and absolutely flew. There aren’t many walls in Scarteen country but as we galloped down Longstone hill with the hunting vista looking from County Tipperary into Limerick, I saw this wall well wired up. But the wire wasn’t the problem; rather the wall itself as it measured later at over five feet, recalled to me the hunting verse…
Hard and tall stood the rasping wall
That lay below us yonder.
It had to be taken at speed or not at all.
Better to fall than to ponder.
Chris and Keelo took it as if it was the final fence in the Hickstead Speed Derby and were gone, closely followed by Tipperary solicitor Niall Kennedy (riding out of his skin that day) on a retired grand prix show jumper. Things just went downhill from there. Tommy (not on best horse) took it from the roots and was absolutely planted. Undaunted he remounted and pressed on but as a result of the delay the field were struggling to stay on terms after that. Four or five miles further, such was the number of causalities that our distinguished veterinary surgeon, the late Des Barnwell, decided to set up a field dressing station and Niall Kennedy was seen leading his horse back for attention. On enquiry as to what had happened, Niall’s reply simply was, “He did twenty minutes with Keelo.”
There were many great days, and through the good offices of Joint-Master Roger Dungworth, contemporaneously Joint-Master of the Cottesmore in Leicestershire, an invitation arrived to bring horses and hounds to hunt High Leicestershire. It was something of a military operation with many meetings often going on late into the night. Eventually thirty horses and thirteen-and-a-half couple of the Scarteen Kerry Beagles were loaded up and the adventure began.
There were one or two introductory days, but the big one was going to be Goadby Marwood near Belvoir Castle. The style was only fantastic as huntsmen from all over England came to see how the “the Irish chaps” would hunt in the Shires. Charlie Gordon Watson as Field Master was in trouble from the get-go, as the Irish Delegation led by our Field Master Val O’Connell (on a retired race horse) with Enda Bolger, Shane Breen, and Tom Byrnes, VS, plus many others in a supporting role, all were determined to show how it was done. Early on, as Neil Coleman and Martin Thornton, Cottesmore and Belvoir huntsmen respectively, were struggling to open a difficult gate, Chris and his new horse, Jake, the flying grey, popped out beside them over an “unjumpable” post-and-rail and were gone. At second horses as the English hunt staff were changing, Chris was asked if he need a change.
“Well, my fellow is barely rideable yet,” Chris replied.
Shane Breen takes up the story. “Chris is the best huntsman I’ve ever had the privilege to follow—a fearless, sensitive, caring horseman. To see him ride across the amazing natural Scarteen country and the most awe-inspiring banks always on a perfectly balanced stride shows the horseman he is. To follow him into a big gate wondering if you can hit the stride as he had is something else again.”
Ted Walsh reminisced. “Chris would ride a horse out through the eye of a needle. He is just the complete package—a diplomat, a horseman, and above all a huntsman. It’s a good job he never became a jockey or he would have put most of the top lads out of business.”
Chris admits to being frightened only once and that was with the Wards from Stamullen, riding a horse of Paul Carberry’s. Paul describes the day: “I was on my best horse who would jump anything and we came to this bank with wire everywhere and a big trench to the rear. There was nothing for it but to gallop at it. My fellow made it and amazingly Chris also. Not surprisingly, no one followed. I’ve had some great days with Scarteen, particularly on a horse of Shane’s that could only be mounted in the stable.”
As Tommy O’Dwyer was winding down, young Michael Ryan (Minor) became second whipper-in and during the off-season rode the Scarteen eventers. In due course he moved on and represented Ireland in the London Olympics. “Chris just has an instinctive link with his hounds, and even still they will go to him before anyone else.” Michael still hunts with Scarteen as often as he can, acting as second whipper-in while Chris’s brother Hughie occasionally hunts hounds. As Michael moved on, the role was taken up by Joe Taylor from nearby Knockcarron. Joe was generally judged to be an outstanding cross-country rider and an excellent houndsman to boot. Sadly, Joe passed away after a short illness.
Chris no longer rides to hounds and the baton was passed first to Mark Ollard and now to Raymie O’Halloran who was brought up withing earshot of kennels. Chris describes him as the most talented huntsman of his generation. Frisk Jones, always beautifully mounted, serves as whipper in.
Hunting isn’t all about adrenaline-fueled days. Chris is very proud of the fact that the Scarteen is essentially a farmer’s hunt. He has built a rapport with the farming community, rarely missing a funeral and calling personally on as many farmers as possible during the off-season, days often resulting in copious cups of tea and general farming chat. Nowadays Chris spends his summers at the microphone commentating all over Ireland, USA, and even faraway Poland.
As I write, Kate Jarvey, after many seasons, has stepped down as Master. The present Mastership consists of Chris Ryan, Oliver Ryan-Purcell (Chris’s cousin), Roger Dungworth, and Daniel Crane, this team recently joined by Shane Been of Hickstead with two of his friends, Jane Millan and Lee Middleton. The future at Scarteen looks secure.
Posted May 30,2020