EXCEPTING the country’s wind farmers, for whom the past week presented significant commercial gains, the blustery conditions of recent days have resulted in little but an inconvenience to daily proceedings.

There were moments when even the adage of ‘pigs might fly’, came very close to becoming a reality. So while the wind farmers were dancing around their windmills in mirth, the nation’s pig farmers were sprinting around their sties securing their livestock to the ground. How indeed one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

My own yard was something akin to a wind tunnel, with doors, fences and even dressage arenas engaging in some rather raucous behaviour. On the ‘upwind’ side, schooling young horses in an arena of moving obstacles certainly engages one’s brain and one’s stickability.

However, lest this week’s article become less of a glass half full, and more of a glass blown over, I will interject with the positive. There is an ancient Native American musing that credits the wind as the vehicle and origin of thought and action. In layman terms, the wind is the figurative bomb under the derrière, in a bid to evoke a positive response.

So it was, with the wind behind us and a vast realm of possibility in front, that we set sail early on Wednesday morning for the first leg of the ‘Stepping Stones to Success’, young event horse league.

Expertly hosted by Pat and Orla Roche of Wexford Equestrian Centre, this competition affords young event horses a very positive start to their career. A beautifully presented dressage arena exposes horses to the very real atmosphere of competition, while a superb mix of coloured poles and cross-country fences mimic the remaining two phases.

Bringing youngsters to their first combined event is accompanied by all manner of anxieties. How will they react to the dressage judge’s car? Will they baulk at a solid fence? Am I absolutely sure of the exact location of the eject button?

Fortunately, all anxieties on this occasion proved foundless as the young horses behaved impeccably. More positively again, two of them took first and second place in the four-year-old class.

The red ribbon went to Alice and Barry Kehoe’s Westwinds Navigator (known at home as Ozzie), a truly exciting prospect for the future. Out of their own mare Westwinds Clover and by Ramiro B, Ozzie is a full-brother to the three-star event horse Westwinds Hercules.

The judges were unanimous in their praise for this easy-going and loose-moving gelding. I feel very privileged to be part of his journey.

Second place in the same class went to my own gelding, Cooley BLM Cosmpolitan Diamond. Recently purchased from Richard Sheane of Cooley Sport Horses, he was spotted by my friend Katie O’Sullivan and at last I have a Cooley horse.

Only broken in November, he still has an air of immaturity about him. However, this is quickly forgiven and forgotten once he pops a fence. “Electric” is how the jumping judges described his front-end action. Yet knowing how difficult and unpredictable the road can be with young horses, I am trying to keep my excitement at a reasonable level.

With the younger horses starting to strut their stuff on home shores, my two older horses, Horseware Stellor Rebound (Rocket) and BLM Diamond Delux (Murphy), recently competed at Burgham International Horse Trials in northeast England.

I chose this event as it offered an up-to-standard CIC*** track but packaged up neatly in a two-day format. Also, I had previously met one of the event organisers, Martyn Johnson and his enthusiasm for it was infectious.

This well-organised event excelled in all aspects, despite some challenging weather conditions on Saturday’s jumping day. Fortunately, Friday’s dressage phase took place under sunshine and on super ground conditions. Based on their foot-perfect behaviour throughout the competition, I feel that Rocket and Murphy must have come to a joint agreement to make my life easy (for once!)

So it was that I headed into show jumping and cross-country day, holding second position with Rocket and third with Murphy. Alas, the clemency of the previous day’s weather had been replaced by vast swathes of rain and mud. So bad were the conditions underfoot that our truck had to be towed into the grounds so you can imagine what our ensuing send-off resembled.

While Rocket show jumped clear, Murphy knocked one of his only poles ever in an event. His winter Grand Prix campaign has seen him become accustomed to the manicured surfaces of the indoor show jumping arena.

Despite a super jumping effort, cross-country Murphy struggled a little with the greasy going and picked up a handful of time faults. As his first event in more than a year, I was very pleased with Murphy, and delighted to finish in 10th place. However, he will be doing plenty of galloping before his next outing at Ballindenisk International.

The real star of the weekend was Rocket, who really lived up to his name cross-country. I honestly could not have asked for a more perfect round from him, to finish in second place, a mere three penalties behind the winner Gemma Tattersall.

It is impossible to talk about my trip to Burgham without extending a huge message of gratitude to the extraordinary Chris Bartle. Not only did Chris walk the cross-country track with me on Friday but he also found me at the end of it all and provided unrivalled feedback on both my rounds. The Germans have all the luck!

Finally, let me take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy Easter. My first task on Sunday, prior to eating my weight in chocolate eggs, will be riding a lorry-load of youngsters around the Meaths’ hunter trials in Rahinstown. With only a few hunter trial dates remaining, I am eager to capitalise on this crucial training phase in the early career of my event horses.