Let loose the horses

Showhouse condition Wakefield is perfect for those looking to train horses — or not, writes Tommy Barker

HORSES get looked after almost as well as humans at this east Cork homestead called Wakefield, built in the early 2000s, fully finished, but in almost unlived-in showhouse condition. Built to a French country house design by a couple with Carrigtwohill roots, it is a mile or so up the hills above the burgeoning east Cork village, within a walk of its new rail station.

But, it is all about flesh and blood horses here rather than the iron horses of railway locomotion: one of the owners had been a jockey, and then a horse trainer as well as a businessman, and clearly knew what he was doing when he set out this equestrian centre and family home, on about 10 acres.