PADDY Hughes is one of millions looking forward to the return of ‘normal’ life as Level 5 lockdown restrictions began to lift this week in Ireland.

Terms and conditions apply though. There’ll be some changes in the future for this upbeat character and frequent flyer, who, on average, was on board a plane one in every six days during 2019.

The Winter Equestrian Festival (WEF) in Wellington will still be an annual pilgrimage to check in with his numerous American clients and friends – one and the same to him – and his constant search of yards for new prospects is a given.

A self-confessed “workaholic”, he still claims “I’ve never worked in my life because I love what I do. I’m blessed, I really am.”

It could have been a different story. Although his father Paddy owned several broodmares and bred point-to-pointers, his son was the first generation horseman in his family.

Growing up in Newry during the troubles, a new course set up by William Micklem was the gateway to Paddy eventually owning two successful start-up businesses; Carlingford Horses and Horse First supplements.

“The course was the Irish Certificate in Horse Production (ICHP). It was directed at the real salt of the earth horse producers, not coaches - unique - including beefed-up young horse training, breeding, youngstock management and riding,” recalled Micklem.

“Most importantly, it included a year’s apprenticeship with a Master Trainer (in Paddy’s case, it was John Micklem), who had to be directly involved in young horse production and sales, with modules away for study. It had huge potential but Bord na gCapall collapsed with only one ICHP course done.”

Thomastown was the scenic setting for this innovative course and both the hinterland and the Micklems left a lasting impression on Paddy. “I knew very quickly how lucky I was to have met the Micklem family and to have left the madness of the north and found Kilkenny/Carlow and its amazing horse community that I often refer to as my second home these days,” Hughes said.

Viva Vivaldi

“The first Sunday I was there, we all piled off for 11.30 Mass in this little chapel and I remember saying ‘That was a great wee Mass, wasn’t it?’ And the next thing, we realised we were in a Church of Ireland church!”

Ecumenical matters aside, he soon made a lasting impression on his second family; the Micklems. “I do not know of a better ambassador for Team Ireland than Paddy Hughes. From the time he came to my brother John’s yard as a 16-year-old to the present day, he has been a beacon of positivity. He is also a great student of the sport horse world, his eyes and ears always hard at work gathering information,” noted William.

Among the young horses Paddy came across in John’s yard in Borris was Derby specialist Vivaldi (Imperius). Bred by Mary Hughes in Kilmanahan, he became one of the greatest Derby specialists in show jumping history, first recording a Hamburg Derby treble (1992-1994). Two years later, he and Nelson (Neco) Pessoa won the Derby at Hickstead, where Paddy was to meet up again with his former charge.

“The story of Vivaldi came back to me many years later in Hickstead. Neco was lunging this bay horse at the back of the ring and I says to Neco, ‘Is that Vivaldi?’ He said ‘Yes, I have to lunge him for an hour before I can ride him.’

“I said ‘I rode him as a four-year-old,” and he replied ‘You’re some man, he can still buck me off at 20!’

“We did break a lot of horses together over the years I was with John, such as Carroll’s Flight (Highland Flight xx), Flagmount Diamond (King of Diamonds) and Karen O’Connor’s good horse, Biko (Beau Charmeur xx).

“John single-handedly made me the man I am today. He taught me how to listen to people with knowledge when they spoke and how to respect experience.

“John had many sayings that stuck me, these are just two of them; ‘If you’re going to do a job, do it right or don’t do it at all’ and ‘When you think it’s clean, clean it again.’”

It wasn’t ‘all work and no play’ either for the Thomastown students. “What happened in Mrs O’Reillys or the Bridge House Bar stays there! Lots of fun and memories, poor Faith Ponsonby had the hard job of not only instructing us but trying to control us.”

After winning a scholarship to Iris Kellett’s yard, Paddy moved from Thomastown to Kildare. “A very strict lady but had great patience with me and let me ride some very nice young horses. I had a lot of fun with John Hall as well.”

Paddy competing on the Cruising offspring Carlingfords Organic in the Boomerang final at Millstreet, moved indoors due to bad weather

Boom decade

“Peter Leonard was the top rider at Kelletts when I was there, a very natural rider to a fence and great friend. When he said he was going home, I went with him to Newcastle West.”

It was the start of both another lifelong family friendship and gleaning tips from Peter’s father, Michael.

“Ringwood and Michael Leonard started a whole new adventure in the horse world for me, buying and selling horses. I rode a lot of different horses everyday but also spent endless hours in the car every day, driving all over the country looking and learning from a master.”

“He could see past the mud and long manes, spot a weak, young horse who would turn into a star in no time. I gained a lot from the time I spent with the soft-spoken gentleman.”

Among the many top international performers produced by the Leonard family is the great Ringwood Cockatoo (Peacock xx), two more Olympic eventers in the Master Imp pair of Master Crusoe and Ringwood Magister, plus Limestone Grey (Try Time), the top-ranked Irish show jumper in the World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses (WBFSH) rankings.

Another Leonard graduate is the late Ballynoe Castle RM (Ramiro B), the horse that finished his career as the United States Eventing Association (USEA) all-time top points earner.

Hughes was among the spectators at Rolex Kentucky four years ago when owners Carl and Cassie Segal and rider Buck Davidson retired their Irish-bred in front of a packed grandstand.

The Newry man reckons he’s sold 30 horses that have competed at that Kentucky five-star event but back to the beginning when, after another solid grounding with the Leonard family, he returned home.

However, he didn’t dwell long in his hometown as an opportunity arose to work for Robert Smith. “I had to go as I knew I had so much more to learn.

“I worked for Robert for about a year, riding the young horses and dealing horses. This is where I started to help and teach others as Robert had many students but was away traveling a lot at the time.”

The 1980s was a boom decade for Irish-breds on the UK show jumping scene with the Smiths, Nick Skelton and Whitaker brothers featuring consistently in the British Show Jumping Association’s top-20 horse rankings.

The Irish backer

“Robert’s best horses then were Brook Street Clover (Clover Hill) and Bal Harbour (Artic Que). I think both these horse were a little tricky, to say the least, but the Smiths had many ways and knowledge on how best to manage these horses and get the best out of them.

“I then rented the yard beside Robert and had a very happy and successful business; teaching, producing and selling horses all of all levels, which I bought in Ireland every week. I met a lot of the top riders in the world during these times, as well as customers, who have become lifetime friends and supporters.”

One of those lifetime friends is Michael Whitaker. “My biggest friend in show jumping is probably Michael, you wouldn’t see one without seeing the other.

"As Michael Tucker said on TV one night when he was commentating and spotted us walking the course, he says ‘There’s Michael and there’s his Irish backer!’”

Among the graduates from Paddy’s new yard was Hunters Level, the Irish-bred that became John Whitaker’s top speed horse and Derby specialist at that time.

The horse was originally part of a package deal. “I went to buy an event horse and I had to take this three-year-old as well. I didn’t really want him. He was a chesnut cob and I gave the man £400 for him and the following spring, I got £25,000 when Liz Sargeant bought him from me.

“I went with an open cheque from Cecil Williams to try to buy him as a five-year-old but Liz wouldn’t sell. They lost the papers for him but he came out of Ballinasloe Fair as a foal.”

Another lucky buy for Paddy was the ‘big, brown mare’ In Clover. “She was one of the first Clover Hills that did anything. I bought her in Co Offaly out of a bog, from Sean Farrell. I broke her and sold her on in the spring to Tony Maguire. Two years later she was second in the Foxhunter final with Adrian Marsh.

“The problem with Clover Hill... they hadn’t enough blood or if they had enough blood, they were too sharp, like Brook Street Clover. But I think he is the greatest sire of broodmares. I think he, Cruising and Diamond Lad left a line of broodmares that should not be lost in this country.”

Had 2021 gone to plan, it would have been Paddy’s 32nd consecutive visit to Wellington. “When I first went, it was four tents and two red barns and anything beyond Pierson Road was swamp. You could buy 10 acres of land on Pierson Road for $10,000 an acre and I think at the moment it’s $14 million an acre.”

The American way

His first taste of the Florida circuit happened in January 1987 when, on a visit to the Winter Equestrian Festival, he got a job offer from Jeffrey Welles. “I was sitting on the fence one morning watching the riders warming up on the flat.”

Paddy struck up a conversation with Welles when he recognised the Olympic short-listed rider was on board a French-bred. When he heard the horse’s age, Paddy’s quick-witted advice was ‘Don’t ride him. What are you going to teach him at 14 years of age? He knows everything!”

Welles offered Paddy a job on the spot and the initial ‘couple of weeks’ soon stretched into 24 months in the States, where he worked and trained with the likes of Rodney Jenkins, Michael Matz and George Morris.

Among the horses Paddy rode for Welles was his American Grand Prix Association’s Horse of the Year, Webster, and the Hannoverian youngster, Serengeti.

“I had a great time working for Jeffrey. The American scene was a complete eye-opener. They have their own style, their own way of doing things and their training system at that time was so much more advanced than ours. I fell into the American way of training horses on the flat by doing lots of technical, gymnastic exercises.

“The style of their riding I admired a lot, they had amazing riders at that time.”

Conrad Homfeld, the two-time World Cup champion and silver medallist at both the Los Angeles Olympics and 1986 World Championships in Aachen, is one such rider rated highly by Hughes.

“He was the most classical rider I’d ever seen and against the clock, he was like a wasp. You couldn’t catch him!”

Paddy Hughes, William Micklem and US eventing legend Jimmy Wofford \ Susan Finnerty

Lost the plot

Going to America is a near-rite of passage for numerous Irish riders. Was he tempted to stay stateside? “I spent 24 months in America and absolutely loved it but no, I was never tempted to stay there. I had always wanted to work for myself.

“I’ve always been a fan of America, I’ve a lot of American friends and I love the American horse scene but unfortunately, it’s not what it was.”

In what way? “Well, there’s people schooling horses in Grands Prix. People used to school all week to win the Grand Prix, now they’re schooling horses and riders in the Grand Prix instead of to win.

“I’ll ask anyone the same question; when Beezie [Madden] quits and Laura [Kraut] quits and McLain [Ward] quits and Kent Farrington, what other ones can win classes in Europe?

“I think personally they’ve lost the plot a little. I’ve a description of what’s wrong in America at the moment; they’ve beautiful riders and beautiful horses but when they get a puncture, they can’t fix it.”

He feels true horsemanship is waning in today’s quick-fix culture. “The term horsemanship I feel comes from a wealth of knowledge on how to overcome situations, whether the horse is not performing good enough or the horse needs help to believe in himself or if the horse has a problem in its training and your job to find the key to the horse’s problem.

“They’re creatures of habit, it’s up to us to teach them the good habit. When we teach them a good habit, it’s repetitive, it’s easy for them and it goes back to the old days when the secret of success is communication.”

“I think you can stand at the side of the ring in Cavan and watch 40 young riders on the flat and ask each one of them, ‘What did you do for 45 minutes?’ ‘Ah, I rode him.’ ‘But did you ask him to get better to the right in the canter, did you work on going in a straight line, did you stop the drift you had in the ring yesterday?’” is his take on what to achieve schooling on the flat.

“I always have this conversation with William [Micklem] I’d love to write a book someday and call it Becoming a Thinking Rider.”

And if that happens someday, that would be a mighty interesting bookshelf with a row of Hughes, Micklem and Wofford titles.

Next week: Part II