A black-and-white photograph by Pat Langan could not fail to catch the eye.
Taken in 1983, it showed Mrs Brinsley Sheridan Bushe Plunket autographing a delighted punter’s auction catalogue at the sale of the contents of Luttrellstown Castle in September 1983.
Mrs Brinsley Sheridan Bushe Plunket had been born as long previously as 1904 and duly christened Aileen Sibell Mary Guinness, eldest daughter of Arthur Ernest Guinness.
When Aileen married her cousin Brinsley Plunket in 1927 her father gave her Luttrellstown Castle, a Gothic extravaganza on 570 acres, as a wedding present.
The Honourable Aileen was a party animal, who created a nightclub in Luttrellstown’s dungeon in the 1960s, famous for its floor parties, at which everyone – Princess Grace of Monaco, David Niven and Ronald Reagan included – sat around and ate on the floor.
Guests unwilling or perhaps unable to take their leave were put to bed in one of the many bedrooms, where they were awakened at 11.00am by a liveried footman bearing the requisite Bloody Mary. God be with the days.
Lest you begin to wonder what on earth the Honourable Aileen’s louche lifestyle had to do with the Sport of Kings, she did become involved through socialising with the More O’Ferrall brothers of Kildangan Castle.
Frankie was the bloodstock agent and Roderic the racehorse trainer.
Between them the brothers got Aileen into an animal named Millennium.
Millennium had won his first two starts as a two-year old in 1929, then owned by one Stephene Vlasto, yet another of the cosmopolitan socialite gamblers attracted to the ranks of ownership in Kildangan, where Count John McCormack, of nearby Moore Abbey, was the principal patron.
As a three yearold the chestnut won three more sprints, the last of those at Liverpool.
Having won once more in Stephene Vlasto’s colours, Millennium henceforth sported the ‘Gold, black epaulettes, gold cap’ of glamorous Aileen Brinsley Plunket.
The Honourable Aileen welcomed her horse into the winner’s enclosure at Naas and the Curragh in 1931.
However, it was when sent hurdling that Millennium really came into his own.
Twice successful in 1932 over a distance unknown today – mile and a half hurdles – he bagged a Manchester sprint in 1933, in addition to three further hurdle ‘dashes’, each time under weights equally unknown today.
At Baldoyle Millennium defied 13st 1lb, similar at Naas, before making light of 13st 8lb at Navan and a pound less back at Baldoyle, just 48 hours later.
At that point it seemed that this game entire’s only future lay over fences. As Roderic More O’Ferrall never soiled his string-gloved hands with steeplechasers, Millenium was transferred to Maxwell Arnott’s Clonsilla stable.
First time out for Maxie he defied 13st 12lb to win another Baldoyle hurdle ‘dash’, won at his first attempt over fences at Naas, going on to further ‘chasing success at Baldoyle, another hurdle at Dundalk, lugging 12st 9lb to victory over fences at Naas and then 10st 4lb to fl at success at the Curragh.
Millennium made his 1935 debut over fences at Baldoyle, set to carry 12st 12lb and conceding 48lb to the bottom weight. For the fi rst time in his amazing career Millennium came down, his injuries proving fatal.
In his autobiography, ‘Nearly Ninety’, Terry Chenevix Trench recorded his impressions of the pre-war Luttrellstown circle.
Bumping into Brinsley Plunket at an early-evening junket, Terry was roped in to dinner in Luttrellstown. ‘Brinny drove a Delage painted in his racing colours, black and gold. . . At dinner my neighbour turned to me, “I understand you are not interested in horses. Then what are you interested in?” – a difficult question to answer in a company whose sole interest was horses.’
Aileen and Brinsley divorced in 1940 and he was killed in aerial combat over Sudan a year later as a flight-lieutenant in the RAF.
When she had reared her daughters Aileen remarried, to Yugoslavian-born New York interior decorator Valerian StuxRybar in 1956.
Their marriage lasted seven years, exactly as long as Millennium’s heroic, ill-fated racing career had done.
Having outlived her younger sisters Maureen and Oonagh, Aileen died in London in 1999, aged 94. The Guinness connection with Kildangan was revived years later when Benjamin Guinness’s widowed mother married Rory More O’Ferrall.
‘Benjy’ subsequently succeeded Sir Percy Loraine as Roderic More O’Ferrall’s partner in Kildangan Stud Much of the foregoing comes from the history of Kildangan Stud, sadly still unpublished.
It would make a fitting memorial to the late Michael Osborne, whose pivotal role created the showpiece Kildangan Stud of today.