BLUEPRINTS are a cornerstone of Jayne McGivern’s career. “I thought ‘if I could design any horse, that would be ‘Red’,” she reveals about her Quarrycrest Echo, fourth with Piggy French at the Land Rover Kentucky Horse Trials in April and on the gold medal-winning British team at last year’s World Equestrian Games.

“I grew up in Muscat, I love Oman. I think of it as home, even though I’m really a Yorkshire girl,” says McGivern who is the Madison Square Garden Company’s executive vice-president of Development and Construction.

“They are delivering brand new venues and have a vision of 10 of these around the globe. I run that whole division.” When is her next business trip to New York? “This afternoon!”

Compared to corporate hospitality at other venues, McGivern feels eventing falls down in looking after owners. “Nobody says anything about this but I’m more than happy to go on record that it’s time the sport woke up to what the owners bring to the sport and are looked after and respected accordingly.

“It is, on the whole, pretty appalling. It’s not being thought through properly and I get that, absolutely, at one-day events. The poor organisers’ are struggling to break even, so you rock up, watch your horse and buy your cup of tea. That’s absolutely fine.”

Kentucky was regarded as a complete eyeopener. “Firstly, everyone was so happy to see us, they could not do enough to help us,” she said, mentioning how access to a lounge, overlooking the main arena and stables all added to the first-time visit.

“I’ve always wanted to do Kentucky, it’s always looked like a fabulous event and it was. It’s a proper five-star.” The pair were unlucky with a slip on the cross-country course and detached stirrup leather costing valuable seconds.

On dressage day “[the] heavens opened in a monsoon, almost sleet-like, as they were warming up. Poor Piggy and Red were absolutely drenched, they were freezing when they went in to do their test. So the fact that he pulled out a 27 [dressage score] was pretty good. It’s taking nothing away from Oliver [Townend, who won on Cooley Master Class], I would never do that, but it was sunny and warm for his test. That’s eventing! It’s the luck of the draw.

“Neither Piggy or I think we’ve seen the best of this horse yet. Both of us came out of Kentucky thinking ‘We should have won that!’”

Olympic goals

So has she started learning Japanese? Jayne laughs, saying that while the European championships and Tokyo Olympics are part of Piggy’s plans, “She also has some other lovely horses. Plus there’s only three horses on an Olympics team. What will be will be and a year is a long time in the life of an event horse. Anything could happen.”

She regards French, who went on to win Badminton with Vanir Kamira, as “the most brilliant rider on the planet.

“Her father is a friend of my husband, that’s how I met her in 2013. She had gone through all of the disappointments that she’s spoken about often, with regard to the London Olympics. A lot of people deserted her and took their horses away.

“I looked at her and thought ‘This girl is one of the best riders I’ve ever seen’. She had a stable of, no disrespect, fairly average horses. I made it a bit of a mission to get her back to the top and did my little bit to support her with good horses.

“Irish horses are the best in the world, it’s my first port of call when I’m looking for a horse. I’ve had some fantastic horses out of Ireland, Red being one of them.”

Another favourite is Mickey or Seapatrick Dark Cruise, bought after Jayne switched to eventing from a point-to-point and National Hunt racing background.

“Life is too short for an ugly horse! That’s my overriding motto for horse ownership, they’ve all got to be beautiful. Red is very much his father’s son. Lots of people come up and ask ‘Is he a Clover Echo?’ He’s beautiful, much more so in the flesh than in photos.”

Breeding recognition

Red was bred in Glenties, Co Donegal by John Dooley and sourced as a six-year-old from Cooley Lands owner, Kate Walls. “Kate bought Red from Holly Gillott (now Smith) and brought him down to Piggy to see what she’d bought. Piggy popped him over a jump and I turned to Kate and said ‘How much?’”

A stream of framed photos are regularly sent to Dooley. “John is one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. I also genuinely think that breeders don’t get the recognition. It takes a lot of thought, effort, a lot of hard work. What do they say... ‘Breed what you get and buy what you want!’

“I’ll often say to people ‘How’s he bred?’ and they’ve no idea. They don’t know the breeding or can’t name the breeder and I think that’s quite sad.”

China Doll, Red’s Cavalier Royale dam, will be covered this year by the thoroughbred stallion Road To Happiness. “Hopefully the mini-Red that comes out of this plan will be heading over to Miss French in the future!” McGivern quips.

“Red’s got a bit of a fan club now, so I’ll always include John in all that. He’s as much a part of one of the best horses in the world and should be enormously proud of breeding that horse.”

Capable of dumping Piggy on the gallops when fresh, Red spends six weeks in the field on winter holidays with Jayne.

“I don’t wrap him up in cotton wool. He loves hunting and team chasing, it keeps his brain good. It’s as much about mental health as physical health and fitness.

“Eventing is hugely expensive. I have racehorses as well and it’s much more expensive running event horses than racehorses. I don’t insure my horses, it’s just ridiculously expensive, you just take the chance. I don’t want insurance companies telling me which vet I can go to, I’ll do the best for my horse immediately.

“In 2013 I could buy myself a fantastic horse for £25,000, maybe £40,000, if I was pushing the boat out. If I went to buy that same horse today, it can be up to £120,000 for an untried six-year-old. You don’t know what you’ve got until they’re eight or nine.”

Seven-figure investment

“The only way you can make money out of it is to sell your horse. If someone wants to rock up with a million quid for Red? Well, let’s just say I’d have to think about it. There are people I would sell him to and others, no matter how much money they had, that I wouldn’t.

“I train him out of taxed income. For every fifty grand I spend on Red, I have to earn £100,000. I’d say my investment in eventing, over six, seven years of owning him, is well into seven figures.

"I’m probably one of the biggest investors and it’s not just me, there’s multiple owners at top level. You put a lot of time, emotion and money into eventing, between buying and training horses.”

Free owner and Red’s registration fees (“I think that’s with him being on the team”) are the concessions offered by British Eventing.

“Nobody raises the profile of the owners. Nobody ever interviews the owners after the event, nobody asks ‘What’s the back story of this horse?’ You didn’t see Trevor Dickens with Clare Balding after Badminton. Trevor has had that horse [Vanir Kamira] since it was four, you don’t think that 10 years of attention and finance he’s put into that mare is worth a mention?

“If they want the sport to carry on, so riders and breeders can make money, they have to start treating owners the way racing or show jumping treats them, which is like a very valuable part of the sport. And that does not happen in eventing.

“We’ve got to do it better.”