The Importance of Mentors: Cathal Beale

Who has been the biggest inspiration in your career?

CB: I've been very lucky to have worked for great people along the way. Ken Bolger got me started in Redmondstown. Sally Carroll was a huge influence and gave great encouragement to so many of us who came through her hands at the Irish National Stud. Likewise, Clodagh Kavanagh and Joe Osborne from the Godolphin Flying Start Programme opened up so much for me. I worked for Dermot Cantillon for seven years and there's no doubt I learned many a lesson from him before joining the INS, and having the good fortune to work for John Osborne. Luckily, I would still count all of them as friends and mentors.

Before all of that though I think I was inspired by my parents. Like many people in Ireland at the time, both of them left school before they were 14 years old and never had the opportunity to go to college, or to the Irish National Stud Course or Godolphin Flying Start. They worked all their lives to give their kids the chance they never had and I suppose that's what drives you.

What's the best advice you've ever been given?

CB: Oh God. That's a tough one. Maybe following on from the previous question my good friend Gerry Duffy once said to me, “luck is the intersection between hard work and opportunity.” I don't know which milk carton he read that on but it stuck with me. I also like, “the best way to straighten a leg is to win a Group 1.”