Island Life Magazine Ltd February/March 2012 | Page 42

INTERVIEW

Cattle and horses keeping
Michael young at heart
By Peter White

championship is THE thing to go
In the second of this two-part special
for; it is the one everyone wants to
on Michael Poland, Island Life talks
win. I have been fortunate that we
to the successful Island businessman
won it in 2006, 2008, and then again
about two of the greatest passions in
last year. It is a very historic cup, and
his life - cattle and horses.
only two people before me have won
On the large acreage of conservation
it three times, and one of them was
land near Wroxall where he and his
The Queen. I have a very good team
wife Carolyn have their Island home,
around me, which is what you need.
magnificent Highland cattle graze
freely, and Michael likes nothing more Without them I would be lost.
“In 2010, to my great amazement, we
than to be out there with them, calling
also won the Royal Highland Show at
to each one by name.
“Both here and at our home
in Oban, Scotland I have the
freedom to walk out of the
door and walk amongst my
cattle. I love that and it is
important to me,” he said.
Michael first bought land at
Wroxall in 1998, followed by
the farm, and then the farm
house. He employed Barry
Isaacson as farm manager, and
began building and breeding
his Highland cattle fold.
“At the time prices were bad,
Michael and Carolyn Poland with King's Theatre
and we were getting about
Edinburgh with a two-year-old heifer,
£150 for a steer, so I decided to go
and we won it again last year with
pedigree, and at a sale in Scotland I
bought a champion heifer, and the bull another two-year-old. It is very rare
to win it two years running, especially
calf she was carrying. The bull became
someone from England! It is a very
champion at Oban in 2006, which
popular show, with about 50,000
came as a great surprise. I have also
people going to it. It is still a real
had a number of champions from the
agricultural show.”
fold I bought from Islay in Scotland.
Horses have also been an integral
I have about 200 head of Highland
part of his life, and the former Master
cattle here on the Island and another
of the IW Hunt was within little more
70 in Scotland,” he said.
than a length of part-owning the
“We have been very successful
winner of the world’s most famous Flat
showing cattle. The Oban Bull
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race, The Derby.
He recalls: “A horse named King’s
Theatre was a top two-year-old, and
went into training with Henry Cecil,
and we had a top jockey in Michael
Kinane. In 1994, as a three-year-old
he failed in the 2000 Guineas and
flopped in his Derby trial, but I made
a case for him to go to Epsom.
“There is only one place to be
in the Derby and that is first, and
he was leading until just before
the finish when he was
overtaken by Erahab, beaten
by one-and-a-quarter lengths.
He was also second in the Irish
Derby, but went on to win the
King George VI and Queen
Elizabeth Diamond Stakes,
which was great fillip, but no
one remembers who finishes
second in the Derby.
“I was still Master of the IW
Hunt at the time, so we invited
all the Island farmers to go to
Epsom for the race. There were
235 of us, and we took two
coaches full of food. I chartered a boat
to take them over, and it was a very
happy day – and if the horse had won
I think there would have been a riot!”
Michael and Carolyn have always
shared a passion for hunting, and he
says modestly: “Hunting is the only
thing I can claim to know anything
about. When I retired as Master of the
IW Hunt in 1994 I would have classed
myself as expert. My father had a pack
of beagles, and I had my first day’s fox
hunting in about 1946.