Harry Sweeney was a Kildare-based horse doctor in 1990 when he received an unusual request: would he take his veterinarian skills to remote northern Japan?
It was “very dark days for the Irish economy”, recalls Sweeney (55). His main interest in attending the interview in Dublin, however, was not the prospect of a new job but a night in posh accommodation.
“There were very few five-star hotels in Ireland at the time and I thought it would be the only opportunity I’d ever get to stay in one,” he says, laughing at the memory.
When his future Japanese employers promised him six times his then salary to become a farm manager, however, he and his wife Anne took the offer. “We thought it would be fun, an adventure.”
Thus, the couple found themselves in Hokkaido’s snowy farmland, squeezed between the island’s majestic mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Their few neighbours spoke no English. It was tough, says Sweeney, with no internet, mobile phones or satellite TV.
The only English-language newspaper arrived five days after publication; he had to follow the 1991 Gulf War on shortwave radio.
“I kept going outside in minus 15 or 20 degrees with the radio up to my ear trying to hear what was happening,” he says. “Anne was from Dublin 4 and had never been on a farm. It was a very, very steep learning curve.”
Still, the couple enjoyed the adventure and stayed for five years before moving to a bigger farm. They studied Japanese and had four children there, all boys.
Eventually, opportunity knocked again. In the late 1980s, wealthy Japanese people had been buying trophy foreign mares, along with golf courses, skyscrapers and film studios. As the economy tanked in the 1990s, Sweeney thought some might be willing to sell. “I remember thinking ‘I will broker these mares for repatriation and get a fine commission for it’.”
That was Sweeney’s entry into the racehorse business, and the start of his battle with the forces that control it in the country. He began to buy foals, rearing them and putting them up for auction in the United States. It was a gamble, he admits. “We had some spectacular success and some frightening losses.”
All was going reasonably well until he turned up at a Japanese auction to buy a racehorse. There was “total pandemonium,”says Sweeney.
After nine years in Japan, he had snagged a bureaucratic tripwire: No foreigner had ever been allowed to buy a racehorse in his own name.
“I was apoplectic and demanded to know why.” The bottom line, he was told, was that racehorse owners had to own farms . . . but foreigners were banned from holding agricultural land – a perfect catch-22.
Not one to take no for an answer, Sweeney got his farm though a legal backdoor that involved appointing two Japanese directors.
Then he bulldozed his way through more obstacles, eventually winning a coveted licence from the Japan Racing Association (JRA).
He considers that his greatest achievement. The JRA, he points out, is an elite club of just 2,000 racehorse owners – and he was the only foreigner.
Sweeney now operates from a sprawling 550-acre farm called Paca Paca (the onomatopoeic sound of a galloping horse) not far from where he first began to work 26 years ago. And he has had some remarkable successes.
One of his first originated during a family trip home after he spotted a mare galloping in the Mourne Mountains and took her back to Japan.
In 2001, one of her colts won one of Japan’s most elite races. He subsequently sold a full half-brother for $750,000 (€670,000). “We grew from there, buying better horses, better quality,” he says.
In 2012, Deep Brilliante, bred on Paca Paca, won the Japanese Derby, the country’s most prestigious race. Sweeney subsequently sold her sister for $1.79 million.
Last year, eight young horses fetched more than $2 million at a single sale. The Dundalk native now finds himself at the centre of an industry with betting turnover that is greater than that in the United States, Britain and Ireland combined, and where there are 24,000 horses in training – the third-largest number in the world.
“It’s a kind of racing utopia,” he says.
There have been sacrifices. When his eldest son turned seven, Sweeney and Anne decided to educate their children in Ireland. For years, they have split their time between Hokkaido and the family home in Dunshaughlin, Co Meath.
But Sweeney’s love affair with Japan is still fresh.
“I like it here; it’s a fantastic horse industry,” he says. “I love the farm, the scenery, the people and the food. I think I have a wonderful life, a home in Ireland and a home here.
“But you don’t have the same social life you could have at home. You’re always the outsider, you can never be fully integrated.”
Sweeney sees nothing sad or fearful about emigration. “There’s no need to be intimidated by travel any more. Now, with the internet, you’re never far away. Airline flights have got cheaper. It’s almost essential for everyone to do it.
“I feel sorry for people who don’t migrate or emigrate. Your life is so much fuller and more exciting.
“We should be proud that people can travel abroad and do well. At heart, the people who left will be Irish and they will always look out for Ireland and support Irish people.”
