YOU could say that the measure of a good yard is not only the success of the horses and riders it produces, but also the length of its waiting list.

In over 30 years of business, James O’Haire’s Hawthorn Farm in Co Kildare has never once had to seek out clients. His reputation alone has attracted owners and, maybe more impressively, once they are involved they don’t tend to leave.

James spoke to The Irish Field this week about his life in horses and teaching his sons to be ‘proper horsemen’.

“I was born into it. My mother Hazel (nee Hicks) was the first qualified international instructor in Northern Ireland, and my father was a racehorse trainer and Master of the South County Dublin hunt. So from the time I could walk I could ride a pony.

“I grew up in Newcastle, Co Dublin, we always had a yard full of horses - hunters, racehorses, liveries. I left school at 16 and went full-time at them. I’m lucky, I’m 47 now and have never had to advertise for horses.

“We have 27 stables and they are always full, I have a waitlist of four or five. To ride in a point-to-point, you have to be 16 to get your licence. I went for my licence when I was 15 and they said I could collect it on my 16th birthday.

“I went to the Turf Club on a Wednesday, collected it and I finished third in a point-to-point on the Sunday in Summerhill. I rode a couple of youngsters in a non-registered event on the Saturday and that was it, all my life.

“It wasn’t full-time eventing; it was always schooling and breaking and that sort of thing and then Patricia Heffernan, who is still one of my main owners... I had broken a couple of horses for her and she asked me would I event them.

“I would normally just go to an unregistered event, be placed and then sell them. So I was like ‘go on then’ and she asked me to hold on to hers and I had a lot of success with them. So then it just grew from there.

“It is lovely. Patricia bought China Doll as a foal and I had her her whole life. We did the five-star in Pau, we did the five-star in Luhmuhlen and Badminton. I was on two Nations Cup teams with her.

“My eldest son Jack won on a horse named Christopher Robin II, owned by myself and Patricia, last Saturday. In their last three runs, they have won two and finished sixth at Ballindenisk international.

“My younger son Tadgh (14) and I are only back from an event in Holland, where he finished fourth. With a bit of luck, he will be selected for the European pony team and Jack will make the young rider Europeans.

“My middle son, Darragh, is probably the best rider of all of us, but he has no interest in horses. He’s mad about hurling and he’s captain of the Gaelic team and captain of the soccer team,” James explained.

No pressure

“We are lucky that our house is here in the yard and my wife, Ciara, always says ‘the ponies are here in the paddock right in front of the house and we never made the kids ride the ponies or anything like that. We never made them.

“If they wanted to ride the pony, they rode the pony, if they wanted a lesson, I gave them a lesson, but the one rule we had was that, if they wanted to go to a show, the pony had to be fit, so it was their call after that.

“Ciara used to compete herself; she’s from Clare so she’s used to jumping stone walls all her childhood, lots of hunting. It’s real family-orientated here. My father’s bungalow is here beside us, my mother passed away in 2016, so Dad’s house is next to ours. It’s a real family-run yard.”

Young horses

“My whole thing is I don’t understand why people push young horses. We’ve produced numerous horses that have been to Lanaken, been to Lion D’Angers, been on Nations Cup show jumping and eventing and we’ve never rushed any of them.

“We are lucky. We have an indoor arena, an outdoor arena, a derby course, a sand gallop, and a woods right beside us for hacking, so our young horses do something different every day of the week.

“On our derby course all the distances are different, some are too long, some are too short, and there’s nothing too big.

“Jack or I, or whoever, go out there and just ride with a good leg and a soft hand and leave them on a long rein. We let them make mistakes and they learn from it. They are out there having fun. Leave them alone and they get great brains, no matter what they are doing.

“Let them be young horses and they become nice and confident. People are too fond of three-year-olds having to hit the lights, and making four-year-olds jump clear rounds. I’d rather go round with a nice soft hand and, if the horse has a fence down, he has a fence down, but he has learned from it.

“That’s always been our way. When my dad was training, if he had a horse that was strong and pulling too much, he’d put my mother up, he had jockeys in the yard but mum would hold the horse better, she had a super pair of hands and would just switch a horse off.

Making horsemen

“I’ve always focused on turning Jack and Tadgh into horsemen, not just a show jumper or an eventer.

“When they were kids, we used to play a game; I’d set up a single fence on the longside of the indoor and they had to tell me, as far away from the jump as they could, were they meeting it on a long one or a short one and it got them brilliant eyes, rather than sticking them on numbers; ‘go down there on five, go down there on six’ they rode on a long rein and further and further away from the jump they could tell me ‘oh bit long here’, or ‘he’s going to get in close’ that’s the way we do it. I’m full-time at it 30 years, just letting young horses be young horses.

“Every horse is different. Prime example; I had two lovely four-year-olds from the same man here. They had been reared together, done everything together. I sent one home two weeks before the other.

“One of them was the bully of the two and breaking it, you had to be strict and put manners on it. The other one was relying on the other fella to tell him what to do. It needed reassurance. When you taught it something, you had to give it an extra day or two and then step it up; just so it was very confident of what it was doing.

“People get focused on riding in an arena and, as soon as they clear a jump, it has to go higher; why would you go higher? The horse is not going to have to jump that for another four years anyway, why would you do that?

Busy yard

“Jack and Tadgh are flying, thank God. Jack won the bursary at the end of last year and went over to Tom Brinkman in Holland and straight after Millstreet this year, where he is hoping to make the Europeans with Jamaica Rose, he is going over to Billy Stud for a month’s schooling with Pippa Funnell. I actually competed Jamaica Rose’s mother Nancy Belle.

“These days, the eventers have taken over. I don’t have time for the point-to-pointers if I’m not here. We’ve 27 in. Maybe 14 young eventers and schoolers, a couple of breakers and liveries. I have three broodmares that are close to foaling.

“Two of the broodmares are horses I used to event up to four-star and the other is very well-bred - OBOS Quality x Cruising.

“During Covid we bought a colt from Holland and used him to cover the three mares, so we have yearlings, two-year-olds and three-year-olds by him in the fields. He is by Andiamo de Semilly, a son of Diamant de Semilly.

“I gelded him, not because he was getting coltish, he was staying chilled out, but I have mares in for schooling and they were all coming into season, so I had to say ‘sorry son, it’s not happening’!

Superb owners

“I’m very lucky to have superb owners in Patricia Heffernan and Penelope Guiness. Both ladies have been with me for years and I’ve had their stock from foals and I’ve never once been told ‘I want the horse to go here or there’. Both ladies enjoy the whole journey. They get as much fun out of a four-year-old going well at their first competition as they do as seeing them at a five-star event.

“I’m very fortunate to have great horsemen that I can call friends. Mike and Trish Ryan, two Olympians, pure horse people, international judge David Lee and top-class army rider Geoff Curran, who are always there for a chat.

“We are also lucky to have the support of sponsors Berney Brothers, frontrunnersportstherapist, Tredstep and DMC Consultancy.”