Shamrocks In The Bluegrass: Ken Donworth

“We bought the bar with a credit card,” recalls Ken Donworth. “Forty thousand bucks, credit card debt at 20 percent. And we paid it off in three or four months.” He shakes his head. “That was 1998. I don't think I'd do it now. So we did take risks, no doubt. But we didn't get caught on any of those slippery slopes.”

On the contrary. In a college town like Lexington, Donworth and his partners soon figured that policing their customers' age was more trouble than it was worth. So in 2001, right after 9/11 when the confidence had gone out of everyone else, they bought a parking lot instead. After 14 years, they were able to cash out the land to the university.

“So much of it is timing,” Donworth says. “Timing, and relationships. We didn't have enough at the time, for that parking lot, but we had friends help out with the downpayment.”

And, with the years, those relationships have paid off to make Donworth a unique case in this occasional series on Kentucky's Irish diaspora. Yes, it was the Thoroughbred that first brought him here, and continues to capture both his imagination and his spare funds. But he has meanwhile adapted a personable and industrious nature to parallel opportunities–above all in property, whether as realtor, landlord or speculator–with remarkable success, even by the standards of a community united by endeavor.

“But you just go back to Gerry Dilger, Robbie Lyons, David Mullins, James Keogh, Padraig Campion,” Donworth says. “If they'd been couch potatoes or bums, those guys wouldn't be here in the first place. So then people back home saw what they were achieving, and next thing were up and at it themselves. Success breeds success. Those people definitely set the standard high. And now I feel that we all give the younger guys, coming over today, something to strive for too.”

He was in their shoes once, after all. Donworth's father and uncles were small breeders in County Limerick, so when he left school at 16, in 1988, he started as a groom at Coolmore. (His barn foreman was a certain Paul Shanahan.) As soon as he was old enough, Donworth came out to Ashford. He had seen Brian O'Rourke coming home to the neighboring village every Christmas, with money to spend, just from breaking yearlings out in Kentucky. When Brian's brother Garrett was hired by Juddmonte, Dermot Ryan accepted the chance to take over at Creek View, and his young pal was soon aboard, too. For the next four years they shared digs, and Ryan is now godfather to Donworth's daughter.

“But it was still a fairly small farm we were on, 380 acres,” Donworth recalls. “Everybody helped out doing everything, because we lived next to the stallion shed. El Gran Senor had to breed at night. He had a few fertility problems, so had to breed when the mare was ovulating. Storm Bird was there, too. Wonderful memories, and all those guys are still great friends.”

But besides horsemanship, Donworth had another useful genetic inheritance. His grandfather had been a real entrepreneur, founding a steel company outside Cashel and later renting out Dublin property. “His example had definitely got me out of that frame of mind of being stuck in Knockainey and accepting your limits,” Donworth says. “His attitude was always that the sky was the limit.”

Sure enough, Donworth's brothers soon followed him to Kentucky: Richard via Australia, Barry after starting as a butcher in Limerick.

“But he soon realized he wouldn't be going too many places doing that,” Donworth says. “Now he has a horse transport company and a couple of bars, and Richard has a farm. There's no way we'd have done all this at home. Here there was opportunity.”

Gradually Donworth raised his own sights. At the end of 1996, after a couple of years in night school, he declared himself done with the horse business.

“I felt there was a ceiling and you were always going to bounce off it,” he explains. “I really appreciated the way I'd been treated at Coolmore. But you know what, this horse stuff is tough. It's a grind. Seven days a week, you don't earn much, and you couldn't see the light with so much competition. I just felt I needed to try and figure something out for myself.”

He had already evinced a flair for enterprise, screening Gaelic football matches in a local bar.

“Nobody had the signal in the Tri-state, and the internet was new and spotty back then,” Donworth recalls. “So we charged 20 bucks and people would come on a Sunday from Tennessee, Ohio, Kentucky, to see Tyrone matches especially, they had a strong team at the time.”

And it was from Tyrone that he next landed a marketing job with Powerscreen, manufacturers of crushers and aggregate equipment. “Which I knew nothing about!” he says. “I'd know a little bit more now: I've been with them ever since.”

Crucially his role left Donworth flexibility, at nights and weekends, to develop a real estate sideline. “I could never have done that without the Powerscreen work,” he admits. “And dealing with their high-value machines gave me confidence with big numbers. So nothing fazes me now. Whether it's a hundred grand house or a $20 million farm, I can go in to both the same.”

Lindsay Donworth and Ken Donworth | courtesy of Ken Donworth

Needless to say, his first sale was on the cheaper end of that spectrum. But it set a template, his client being a compatriot working in bloodstock. Before long Donworth was emboldened to invest in some rental properties–first for himself, then for buddies doing well in the world he had quit.

“And one thing leads to another,” he says. “You do a good job for those guys and they say, 'Well, Ken sure knows what he's doing.' And I'd be managing their properties as well. So they're working on the farms and every month get a check for the houses. Everything has become a lot more expensive. But this is going back 15 years, and a lot of the guys have their houses paid off now.”

In turn, when wealthy Americans came to town and needed help with real estate, the Irishmen managing their farms knew the very guy.

“So really the stars just aligned,” Donworth says. “It was a good little niche that kind of happened almost by accident. Most of my work comes from horse business referrals. I don't advertise, don't do social media. But anybody of any account in the horse business will typically recommend or refer me.”

The point was that Donworth had learned, in the Thoroughbred industry, that your word must be your bond; and the same was true in what he was doing now.

“This is a small community,” he says of the Bluegrass. “And your reputation is your life. I've one client in the horse business who has bought five houses from me over the years. That's a huge compliment, really. Because with real estate, things can and will go wrong. So loyalty is huge. All those things: reputation, honesty, confidentiality… you can't buy that stuff. So you just keep the head down. Like they say, loose lips sink ships.”

It is no secret, however, that Donworth handled the $15 million sale of Shadwell to John Stewart. He has long been comfortable with transactions at that level, not least after hooking up with Sotheby's nearly 20 years ago. The benefits have been reciprocal: a prestigious international brand raised his profile, while he could provide a finger on the local pulse.

“Last year was incredible, and a lot of the guys were giving me stick about the money I must be making,” Donworth says. “And I said, 'You know what? When people were lining up for their bloodstock license, I was in the real estate line–with nobody else in it. And there were 100 of you!'”

But Donworth never abandoned his first love. And when the commissions started coming in, he began to wheel some of it back into Thoroughbreds.

Hootenanny (center) | Horsephotos

“And it's worked well, so far,” he says. “Of course I've also seen the downside. I have too many horses, really. But for the last 15 years or so we've had a syndicate of Irish guys: David Cox, Richie Galway, Ben McElroy, and a buddy, Tony Dardis in New York. And we've had good success, basically pinhooking foals. And also with Des Ryan, with mares. We've had good years and bad years, but the amount of winners we've had off Ben's little farm has been pretty incredible, really.”

One recent graduate was Valiant Force (Malibu Moon), winner of the G2 Norfolk Stakes at Royal Ascot last year, albeit he had proved a marginal pinhook ($75,000 foal/$100,000 yearling). And, on the face of it, things had turned out much worse, back in 2012, with a $120,000 colt from the first crop of Quality Road.

When Gatewood Bell bought him the following September, for just $75,000, Donworth found him in the bar and said: “Good job buying that horse. But there's no way you're leaving without me taking a piece!” So he reclaimed a leg, and then the other lads came in to split it up, and Wesley Ward bought the remaining 75 percent. They called him Hootenanny.

“And he goes and beats one of Michael Tabor's hotpots first time out at Keeneland,” Donworth recalls. “He was beaten in the slop at Pimlico next time, but then Coolmore bought him to send to Ascot. So we went over and he won the Windsor Castle Stakes. An experience you'd never forget: we took the money, got a kicker, and partied. It was awesome.”

In addition, Donworth has a few mares spread between his brother Richard; Rick Howard; and Des Ryan. He has the odd horse in training, too, as one of the earliest patrons of Brendan Walsh.

Brian McCarthy, Lindsay Donworth and Ken Donworth | courtesy of Ken Donworth

“Brendan was living on Archie St. George's couch at the time,” Donworth recalls. “So he's another great Irish success story. And it hasn't come by accident. Like so many of the Irish guys over here, he's driven. And really that's what makes this world go round: if you have that passion, that drive, and can figure out your little niche.”

Many contributors to this series, however affectionate to their homeland, have suggested that they could never have found equivalent opportunities but for crossing the water. Donworth is no different.

“When I left, in the early '90s, Ireland really wasn't booming at all,” he reflects. “And if I'd stayed and been caught up in the whole Celtic Tiger thing, I would probably have ended up broke or in jail! Look, I have good friends in Ireland who have done very well for themselves. But the fact is there's more money over here, and more opportunity. And everybody wants to see you do well.”

There was certainly something in the blood, anyhow, and Donworth sees a familiar appetite for work in daughter Charlotte and son Patrick–already a budding tycoon, at just 15. Of course, the dam side contributes too: Donworth emphasizes the support of his wife Lindsay and also her father Pat Sullivan, with his expertise as a real estate lawyer.

“Patrick has a vending machine business, a power-washing business, and also sells sneakers!” says Donworth. “He definitely likes making money. But, again, he has to create his reputation, show up and be honest. And he gets that. Nobody in our house sits around on their ass. And that's huge, because you can't teach work ethic. You either have it, or you don't.

“We grew up on a farm in Knockainey, with a population not even 100. And when we go back, you really can't begin to explain what it's like here to the guy in the pub that farms and struggles and barely survives. I know I just got lucky. But if you put yourself in the right spots, it can work out.”