Dunmore's Niall Power (1959-2021) An Adopted Australian of Charm and Gentle Manner
DUNMORE East native Niall Power, whose skills in the thoroughbred industry took him from Coolmore Stud all the way to Australia, died on Saturday last, February 20 following a battle with cancer. He was 61 years old.
Born in Waterford on March 17, 1959, Niall’s parents, Kathleen and Stanley, were the proprietors of the popular Ocean Hotel in Dunmore. Niall could actually ride a horse before he could walk, offering an early indication of where his future lay.
Sibling to Stan and Joyce and educated at Clongowes Wood College in County Kildare, Niall’s professional association with the thoroughbred industry began at the famed Coolmore Stud outside Fethard in South Tipperary, where he worked as Stud Manager.
As a 19-year-old, Niall enjoyed a working holiday in Australia, not knowing the extent that the continent would play in the rewarding years that lay ahead.
Ultimately, Niall, his wife Imelda – a nurse from Tipperary – and son Robert, then aged one, switched hemispheres, departing Ireland for Australia, where he was appointed Stud Manager at Brian Agnew’s Wakefield Stud in 1987.
Five years later, the Power family, by then also including daughter Lisa, returned to Ireland before ultimately and permanently returning to Australia in 1997.
Since 2012, Niall had worked as Australian Racing Manager of Highclere Thoroughbred Racing (HTR), a successful international operation which offers shares in racehorses they put together to form racing syndicates.
In addition, Niall was Director of Sire Custodians Ltd, “the leading supplier of syndicate documentation and management consultancy services to the Australian thoroughbred industry”.
As his biography on the Highclere website notes, Niall operated “his own IT Company with a thoroughbred industry focus…Sire Custodians Ltd is the leading supplier of syndicate documentation and management consultancy services to the Australian thoroughbred industry. Niall is the Authorised Representative for Xcira in Australia, the Global Leader in Live & Timed Auction Technologies.