ONE of the stand out moments at the SemaLease Camphire International Horse Trials last summer was Sian Coleman’s victory in the CCI3*L. As one of only two Irish winners over the weekend, Coleman’s achievement was widely applauded, and was significant for being her first international success sporting the Irish flag. Standing proudly on the podium and hearing the Irish anthem played was a moment Sian recalled as “quite surreal’’ and left her with a special memory that will last forever.

British-born, Coleman’s route to this point and indeed her Irish citizenship has been through an intricate web of chance connections. It began with a meeting with Austin O’Connor, who later introduced her to the eventing and hunting enthusiast Kate Jarvey. This was soon followed by an invitation to hunt in Ireland which led in turn to meeting her future husband Patrick Coleman, and the supportive Coleman family.

Fast forward five years, and Coleman, who is now part of the Irish senior eventing Horizon squad, has 11 horses to event, has the yard of her dreams and is supported by a string of loyal owners.

Although not from a traditionally horsey family but most definitely a sporting one, Coleman grew up in Hampshire in the south of England, one of three children born to Kay and Paul Hawkes. Athletics were an early love, but having had a taste of riding at the age of seven, Coleman admits she was “bitten by the bug”. At the time the family couldn’t afford to buy a pony so the young Sian used to go to a riding school every weekend to help out. In turn, she was given free lessons, and so the passion began.

It strengthened after a visit to Badminton in the year that Pippa Funnell headed the field on the Irish-bred Supreme Rock and led Coleman to comment, “That was my first proper experience of eventing and I just wanted to be absorbed in it.” The following year Funnell fell with both her horses and Coleman, who was present and primed ready to take a photograph, reflected, “I was so sad I almost ran in under the string to help her. It’s only thinking back about it now that I realise how much of an impact going there and being so close to the horses in action probably had on my career choice.”

Passing her driving test a few days after her 17th birthday was another milestone, as it allowed her the freedom to work with horses. “I literally went from sixth form college to work and ride for Justin Morgan at his sales/breaking yard, and also for dressage rider Amy Stovold, show jumper James Fisher and eventer Zac Heydon. I would drive hundreds of miles every week just getting as much experience as I could and each of those bosses are now great friends.”

The French connection

It was through Heydon, that Coleman was offered a working pupil position with the inspiring Piggy March (neé French). She remained with March for two years, during which time she was given the ride on her European silver medallist Some Day Soon. “We won our first event together – it was an incredible opportunity,” she remarked.

“I really look up to Piggy. I learnt a huge amount from my time there and I like to follow her system now.”

In order to start earning some money, Coleman then moved to Oxfordshire, where she rode out racehorses for Lawney Hill and rented her own yard. Despite loving the experience, and indeed taking out a point-to-point rider’s licence, the racing connection was short-lived. From the gallops, Coleman could see a field full of tempting cross-country fences, and on investigation discovered that her new neighbour was none other than Irish Olympic event rider Austin O’Connor.

“A few phonecalls later and I had a lesson booked with him,” she said. Over the next year, O’Connor was a big help with Sian’s horses, which at that time, included the talented Mr West, a horse capable of moving up the grades. It was through O’Connor that Sian also met the Attington Stud owner Kate Jarvey, a lady who was to become so influential in her future life. An avid follower of hounds, and a joint-master of the Duhallow Foxhounds, a friendship developed and Jarvey invited Coleman to spend a few days hunting in Ireland.

Sian Coleman gets a hug from Kate Jarvey, owner and breeder of Lady Baton Rouge, as a delighted Maurice Coleman looking on \ Courtesy of Camphire International

She jumped at the offer, and it was on one of these days that she met her future husband Patrick. “I literally stumbled across Patrick when I almost got unseated over my first drain,” she laughed. “He was in the right place at the right time!”

Although the couple hit it off immediately, it was a year before they met again. Once more reunited through Kate Jarvey, they dated for a year going back and forth between Ireland and England. “It was mainly me travelling across here because I just loved Ireland – I never wanted to go home,” she said. Eventually Sian made the decision to follow her heart, and in a move she describes “as the best of my life”, she relocated to Cork in September 2015.

Married three years later, the couple now live on a dairy farm in Lombardstown, just outside Mallow. The farm has been in the Coleman family for three generations, while Patrick’s uncle – the renowned equestrian judge and Duhallow field-master Maurice Coleman – lives just 300 metres up the road. “Patrick’s mum and brother are even closer,” added Sian. “Patrick’s family have been so good to me. They are so close and such good fun to be with.”

Retaining her links with Kate Jarvey, Coleman began her Irish life by looking after Jarvey’s hunters in the mornings, before working with a few of her home-breds in the afternoons. She also had her own event horse Mr West on the road, who that year, picked up a top 10 placing in the under CCI3*U25 at Tattersalls.

2016 marked Coleman’s first full season eventing in Ireland, initially riding for Maurice Coleman, and also for Kate Jarvey. She won classes for both owners within a few weeks, and soon gathered more horses to ride. She is however, best known in connection with Maurice’s talented, if tricky, five-star horse Kilroe Hero, who propelled her into the big time and who was to give her a rollercoaster ride through the sport.

Recalling her first meeting with the horse, she relates, “Patrick told me Maurice wanted me to sit on two of his eventers. Maurice gave me his hunting saddle (in which he had ridden to win the supreme hunter championship at the RDS) and a big snaffle bridle and told me to go and have a play on them. The two horses were Kilroe Free and Easy and Kilroe Hero.”

Horse of a lifetime

After a few outings, the former was sold to America, while Hero having already run at three-star level was a seasoned campaigner. Angela Dennehy was his dedicated rider at the time, but heading off to university, she made the tough decision to give up the ride. “Maurice asked me if I wanted to take him on and what an amazing journey it was,” said Sian fondly. “I don’t think I will ride a horse as good across the country as Hero was. He just made any jump/combination feel easy.”

With over 60 runs under his belt, Hero was ready to crack on to the higher levels, but was beginning to find the increased demands of the dressage fairly challenging. “He found the flying changes very exciting and his apprehension would ruin our tests to begin with,” said Sian. “He loved to throw in a few extra shapes that weren’t required, so I used to wreck my brain to try and figure out a way to get him to relax.”

Achieving this goal was no easy process, but Sian was determined to find the key. “We trained in a big field behind Maurice’s house,’’ she explained. “As soon as we went in there, Hero would be prancing sideways and get into a sweat before doing anything. I spent every day up there until finally he would just go in and put his head down and eat the grass. I wouldn’t do any work until he was relaxed enough to eat. I would also have a packet of polos on me at all time – giving them to him to try to get him to enjoy doing some flatwork. Pure bribery!”

Patience eventually paid off and good results followed. Double clear rounds at Chatsworth CIC3* and Tattersalls secured the valuable five-star qualification together with the option to compete at Burghley. “I had said to Patrick that my dream was to ride at five-star level and I couldn’t believe that it was coming true,” said Sian.

Such is the nature of sport, these plans sadly fell apart at Camphire, where in their final prep run before Burghley, the pair parted company in the country. Landing on her neck and emerging with three fractured vertebrae, Coleman admitted: “I was very fortunate that it was stable and healed well but not in time for Burghley.

“It obviously wasn’t meant to be but I was disappointed for Maurice as he was so excited to be going there.”

Determined to get back competing Sian was given the all clear to ride in the autumn. The pair enjoyed a good comeback run at Ballindenisk, so the decision was made to complete the season in Pau.

“It was a very long way to travel but it turned out to be what Hero had been waiting to do,” she said.

“He was much better in a new venue as he didn’t know where to get excited. He did some really lovely work in his dressage as his changes were getting better all the time. The cross-country caused carnage so while my original plan was to take the long route in a few places, Hero just felt so on the ball that we ended up going straight everywhere. Poor Maurice was white when we got back as they hadn’t shown much of our round as William Fox-Pitt went before me and all eyes were on him.”

Although feeling tired for the first time ever after the cross-country, Hero was back on springs on the final day, completing the event with a double clear round.

With Pau successfully completed, Badminton was the natural goal for 2019. Tragically however, just a few weeks beforehand and a day after enjoying a successful pipe-opening run at Belton in England, Hero met with a catastrophic injury in the paddock at home.

“I still feel sick thinking about my poor Hero and what could have been. For Maurice, who had believed in both of us and supported us all the way, and to Patrick who was my rock throughout and helped me keep going, it was a really tough time.”

Loyal supporters

Event riders are nothing if not resilient, and hard as things were, Sian picked herself up and has since teamed up with string of talented horses and a number of new owners. With 11 horses to event when the season eventually kicks off, she is looking forward to riding Caroline and Charles Colthurst’s Blarney Acacia, who will be aimed for Le Lion d’Angers in October. As the former hosts of the much-missed Blarney Horse Trials, the couple enjoy their eventing and have since added another mare to their string.

“When Hero died, Caroline offered to buy me another horse,” said Coleman. “We went to look at a few in the summer and having specified that we wanted a mare, Marti Rudd from Monbeg contacted me about a four-year-old by Dignified out of a Cult Hero dam.” Now called Blarney Monbeg Pepper, and carrying similar a damline to that of Kilroe Hero, this exciting four-year-old has, according to Coleman, “the most amazing temperament and an endless jump.”

Sian Coleman at her Co Cork home with three of her event horses - Blarney Monbeg Pepper, Lady Baton Rouge and Poynstown Star

Another lover of the fairer sex is Sian’s long-time supporter Kate Jarvey, who owns the Camphire heroine Lady Baton Rouge as well as the national novice champion Hush A Bye Baby.

“I love producing the mares for Kate and building partnerships with them all,” said Sian. “Lady Baton Rouge was fantastic last year, and after winning Camphire, she gave me a great spin at Blenheim. I’d love to get on a Nations Cup team with her and maybe aim for Boekelo at the end of the season.”

Included among the other youngsters in Sian’s care are Tom Jones’s EI90 national champion Ivanhoe (by Wounderwall), Mary Rose Cooney’s home-bred Gonewest (West Coast Cavalier) and a four-year-old by Chilli Morning, owned by the Kiltinan Stud (Lady Lloyd Webber). She has also recently acquired the rides on Oliver Walsh’s Lux like Cruise and Sarco to Perfection, both of whom she describes as “lovely horses which have been beautifully produced by Nicola Ennis.”

Sian is lucky too to have the continued support of Maurice Coleman, who owns the three-star campaigner Poynstown Star, and enjoys spotting talent in the raw. Poynstown Star will be aimed for Blenheim, while a new project is an exciting Cavalier Lands-sired gelding sourced at the Monart sale last year. “I really enjoy producing the horses with Maurice,” said Coleman. “We’ve had a few lovely ones come through the yard over the last few years. Maurice is a man of few words but you can read him fairly well by his facial expression so you know what he thinks of your work quite quickly!”

Dream come true

The yard at home is expanding all the time and now boasts 14 boxes, a new arena, lunge pen and a walker.

“It’s always been my dream to have a yard full of event horses and it never feels like work when you are doing what you love,” said Sian. The land at the farm is also an appreciated facility, as are the all-important Duhallow banks which play a big part in the breaking of the youngsters.

“Watching Maurice, I still find it fascinating seeing the horses figure out their footwork and really push off their hocks,’’ explained Sian.

Largely due to her achievements with Kilroe Hero, Sian is a member of the senior Irish Horizon squad. “The coaching I have received has been invaluable,” she states. “You’ve got to push yourself to grow. Each time, after trucking up to Dublin at an unsightly hour, I always come home buzzing and looking forward to putting into practice what I’ve learnt. I think my riding has really improved since getting regular help from the squad coaches and hopefully one day, I’ll get to be on one of the senior championship teams. My Camphire result might have been different if it hadn’t been for Grant Wilson warming me up before our show jumping. It was a new situation for me to be the only one left in the warm-up, having to keep calm and have Lady Baton Rouge peak just at the right time to go in.”

Having met on the hunting field, Sian still finds time to hunt in the close season. “I do go hunting the odd day, mainly if they are meeting near Patrick’s farm and I can borrow a horse,” she said. “There is such a great bunch of people out hunting, and I can see why Patrick and Maurice come back beaming after a savage day. Some of the drains they jump are humongous, but it’s funny as they think I’m mad for jumping the things I do eventing, but at least they are actually built to be jumped.”

Life in Ireland has treated Sian well and the decision to ride for Ireland instead of GBR was an easy one. “Everyone has been so welcoming and supportive and I was more than delighted to be able to represent Ireland. I’ve made such great friends since moving over and I really feel I belong here,” she said. “I am also lucky to have a such a great team behind me – my owners, grooms, trainers, farriers and everyone involved in keeping my horses feeling and looking their best.

“I also love being able to call the owners or send videos of the horses going well after the efforts they have put in.”

While the immediate future is uncertain, Sian is enjoying the lockdown time spent with the young horses.

Badminton is still on the bucket list, as is Kentucky, while to represent Ireland on a team would be “the icing on the cake”.

Summing up, Sian concludes, “I believe my horses have the ability, so it’s just about producing them correctly and carefully while ensuring their owners keep enjoying the rollercoaster ride of getting them to the top of the sport.”