From "PROVINCIAL FARMER"          "An Eye for Star Material..." Michael Slavin talks to local breeder Fintan Branigan about his success with Irish Draughts. With delightful realism, Navan and Drogheda businessman and horse breeder Fintan Branigan admits: "It is very hard to be first". Hard or not, more often than not, Fintan has managed over thlast 14 years or so to breed good Irish draught horses that have a knack at coming first. In fact during this past season products from his Crosstoen yard near Drogheda have come first in no less than seven major championships - including at the RDS; the All-Ireland ID Yearling championship at Roscommon; the Supreme National ID Championship in Mallow, plus a host of foal titles won by progeny of his stallion "Crosstown Dancer." In reality it all began with Crosstown Dancer's mother, called "Tara Sky"...........by champion stallion "Pride of Shaunlara"......Somehow "Tara Sky" fulfilled Fintan Branigan's ideal of what the Irish draught should be when he visited Suma Stud that day back in 1984. And he has not really looked back since then. As he himself put it, "She had the limbs to match her body and had great life in her, I just had to buy her." Fintan Branigan has certainly proved a point to those who doubted the accuracy of his eye or the wisdom of the decision to go for a new type of Irish draught that had quality as well as size. Fintan is now joined in his endeavors by his 24-year-old son Stephen, who has taken a great interest in continuing this new tradition...(and)...he shows their youngstock at events around the country. That he has done with supreme success in '98 and will no doubt he and the 'Crosstown Dancers' will be heard from again in 1999 and beyond. From "THE IRISH FIELD"          "Fintan's patience rewarded..." Heading up a new generation of Irish Draught horse breeders are Fintan Branigan of Crosstown, Drogheda and his 24-year-old son Stephen. Using their own innate talents, and finding their way within the Irish Draught World, they have produced the material that no whas them in a prominant position in the RID showing scene. The foals and youngstock, plus progeny of their stallion country, have brought their breeeding decisions to the fore in just about all the major showing championships of the last two seasons. "I had a real interest in the Draught. I felt they were a wonderful kind of horse, but I was looking for a special one that would be both strong and athletic at the same time" Fintan notes earnestly. Crosstoen Dancer won his class at the Kerrygold Horse Show as a foal in 1990. He won the RID stallion class in 1994 and the following year returned with Damien McDermott in the saddle to take the new Irish Horse Board five-year-old class, which qualified him for the world championships for young horses in Laneken. In that event he jumped clear in both qualifiers and was through to the five-year-old final, where he had a single fence down to place 13th overall. In the meantime, the stallion had been given Approved status in the IHR studbook and his first foals were registered in 1996."