There aren't many people who reach the required level of financial security to own a racehorse, let alone one good enough to be named best winning two-year-old in 2011. But even fewer can afford to make this investment while confessing, "it's not something I'm big into." Brendan Kerr, sole owner and group chief executive of demolition and groundworks specialist Keltbray, is one such person. "Some of the Irish contractors are big into horses: after the wife and the business, it's the horse. But with me it's quite far down the pecking order." Yes, it's fair to say that, for a boy who left his Belfast school at 15 to undertake a carpentry apprenticeship, he hasn't done badly for himself. Now, 33 years later, he has achieved not only personal wealth through the purchase and transformation of Keltbray, but also the professionalisation of a part of the industry that was always looked on as rough and ready and a bit of an old boys club.
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