IT’S hard to believe at times that Cathal Daniels is only 22. From Tynagh Pony Club right up to winning a team silver medal at the World Equestrian Games last year, it has been a self-made career, already packed with highlights, for this talented young Galway rider.

The youngest in the field when he made his Badminton Horse Trials debut in 2017 and again at Tryon last year – where he celebrated his most recent birthday – Daniels has come a long way. Although in the seven short years, since his first The Irish Field feature after a double gold medal victory at the 2012 FEI European pony championships, the Tynagh prodigy still remains the same hard-working, unassuming youngster.

Back then, after winning team and individual gold medals in Fontainebleau, Daniels, with the full backing of his parents Gerry and Marguerite, had made the decision not to return to St Brigid’s Vocational School in Loughrea. One year off, that was the original plan, as his father had explained: “He went into school for a couple of days and then decided he really wanted to make a go of it. So instead of doing Transition Year, Cathal is working with horses full-time.”

Did he intend going back to his schoolbooks after the year out? “We’ll see!” Cathal had replied then.

Seven years later, was it an easy decision to concentrate on horses instead of returning to study? “Very!” said Cathal with the same grin last Sunday. Even on a rainy morning, it’s all business at his base at Orchard Lodge as he gets ready to jump Dartans Quality Brigade in the Spring Tour round at Broadmeadows later in the day.

“It’s all gone very well, it’s all gone as good as I’ve expected,” he said, talking how his career plans have worked in his favour since his decision to focus on horses. “I’ve been very lucky to have very good owners like Mags and Frank Kinsella, who stayed with me after ponies and juniors right through to seniors, so it’s a matter of being lucky enough to have a good background team around you.”

WORK ETHIC

“I’ve built up a good team of horses and I’m based in a very nice yard. We have about 20 horses altogether, all in ridden work. We start at eight o’clock every morning, not too early and work our way through the day then. All the horses are on different regimes but we manage it. We’ve a bunch of nice young horses and some good older horses.

“We get a lot of horses sold, the main market would be England and America,” he said, pointing out one of the horses across the aisle that he’s preparing for sale: a Dignified Van Zorgvliet – Courage II youngster.

Being pragmatic about selling horses is a part of equestrian business and another to have helped shape this acumen was his first mentor, Ralph Conroy. “It has to be a viable business and we are a selling nation. Cathal has a great work ethic. I drove him very hard and he worked very hard and he never once complained,” he had commented about the stylish young rider.

“I’ve been very lucky with mentors. I started off with Ralph, he taught me everything from ponies upwards. I learned a lot, rode a lot of different horses for him and gained a lot of experience,” said Cathal, reflecting on the year he spent with Ralph after escaping the classroom.

Brian Morrison’s Boekelo Nations Cup horse, Global Milchem JJ, was one of the in-house youngsters schooled by Cathal back then. And it was at Milchem Equestrian Centre that the Daniels family had first found Master Murrose, the brilliant grey pony that had brought both Cathal and his older sister Regina to the European pony championships at Fontainebleau (2012) and Pratoni del Vivaro (2005).

“Regina passed ‘Text’ down to me and I passed him down to [younger sister] Leagh. He’s still at home, he’s got a home for life and is happily retired,” he said about the first of his gold medallist partners.

Cathal and Master Murrose were one of only four combinations to finish on their dressage score to take the individual gold medal at their championship debut. “He was class,” his pilot said, summing up the pony of unknown breeding but suspected of having a large chunk of thoroughbred blood in his pedigree.

Having bonfires blazing at the crossroads became something of a regular occurrence around Tynagh as the parish turned out to welcome home the local hero. By 18, Daniels had won five FEI championship medals as he stepped up to Junior and Young Rider championship level, with the feisty chesnut mare Rioghan Rua.

LADY IN ‘RED’

Bred by the Kinsellas, Rioghan Rua was originally produced by Rachel Power, before the Daniels got a phone call from Margaret about taking on the mare. The pair soon clicked and the following year, were members of the gold medal winning team and individual seventh at the 2013 European Junior Championships, held at Jardy.

That second medal-winning result at European level happened after a winter spent in Florida. And at this point, the story could have taken a different path. Was he tempted to join the many Irish living and working out there? “Yes, definitely. Michael Blake sent me out on a SJI bursary and I was out there in David Blake’s yard.

“I was definitely tempted but I had nice horses to come home to, it might have been a different story if I hadn’t got those horses. Regina is still out there but I had a plan and wanted to follow through and see where it got me.”

Where it got him was more winning team appearances, one after the other. The following summer at the European championships, hosted cross-channel at Bishop Burton, Daniels and ‘Red’ as Rioghan Rua is known as, won their second team gold and individual silver medals. Also on the team squad was his girlfriend Shannon Nelson, then competing

Gina Van De Neerheide, after another medal-filled career with another brilliant pony in Millridge Buachaill Bui.

Breeders and owners of Rioghan Rua, Margaret and Frank Kinsella with Cathal Daniels after the Irish team won a silver medal at the 2018 World Equestrian Games (Photo: Judith Faherty)

Progressing next to Young Riders level, Daniels and ‘Red’ were on their fourth European team for a fourth year in a row when part of the bronze medal team at Strzegom in 2015. Then the pair made the crucial step up to senior ranks when in October that same year, they were members of the winning Irish Nations Cup team at Boekelo, a result which saw them on the long list for the Rio Olympics.

Then there was Badminton in 2017 when the electric atmosphere in the dressage arena proved too much for ‘Red’. Although the combination tailed the field after dressage, they breezed around the cross-country to record one of only 20 clears and leapfrogged from 82nd to 33rd place in the final standings.

There was good news later that year when the Olympic Council of Ireland awarded him an Olympic Solidarity Scholarship to help with the costs of qualifying for the 2020 Olympic Games.

Cathal, the only equestrian competitor amongst 11 other athletes, was delighted with the news. “I’m on a bursary and it’s a great help for travelling abroad for competitions and training.”

FUNDRAISING

British Eventing’s High Performance Manager Chris Bartle may well have caused a few jaws to drop open at the Horse Sport Ireland Breeders Conference last December, when he spoke about the multi-million budget available to equestrian sport. For example, UK Sport has allocated £15 million to equestrian teams on the road to the Tokyo Olympics.

It was a more laissez-faire approach that helped the Irish eventing team train and travel to Tryon last year, with the riders and their back-up teams organising a number of fundraising events. “We had to do a bit of fundraising to get ourselves out there but we were very well supported. People came out in the lashing rain and on the cold nights and watched us do our demos. It all helped, it got us out there.”

What helped his cause to claim a team place was an amazing double at Chatsworth International last May when Rioghan Rua and Sammy Davis Junior won classes there. “It was a special year and winning the two CIC3* classes in the one year at Chatsworth was brilliant. I think it has been done before. I was talking to Oli Townend, he won the other three-star class there and he said he’d done it years ago.”

Rioghan Rua added to the significant number of Le Lion d’Angers ranks that graduated to world championship and Olympic level when she and Cathal were named on the Irish team. The pair finished in 26th place and more importantly, as he succinctly put it: “We qualified for Tokyo and got a medal in the bag.”

One place above Cathal and Rioghan Rua at Tryon was USA rider Lynn Symansky on the thoroughbred Donner with the pair earning the princely sum of $500. The stark difference between eventing and show jumping prize money was further hammered home with gold medal champions Allstar B and Ros Canter earning $54,000, compared to the $94,660 take home pay for DSP Alice and Simone Blum.

Another contrast was the widespread media coverage of the women hockey silver medalists last August, coupled with an announcement at Dublin Airport by Sports Minister Shane Ross of an additional €1.5 million package to support teams in their Olympic and world championship preparation.

The Tryon heroes may have received a less razzmatazz reception on their return, however that didn’t faze the down-to-earth Daniels. “It’s big for the sponsors, it’s big for the owners but for us, it’s about going to do the job we were sent to do. I was very happy with the welcome when we got back. I wouldn’t be looking for anything bigger.”

“We’ve a great team spirit. Sally [Corscadden] was the Young Riders chef d’equipe and then she moved to the senior team, so we’ve worked together since. Ian Woodhead is super at the dressage and Ian Fearon has trained me from Juniors right on, we’ve done a lot of championships together and now we’ve a new show jumping coach called Grant Wilson, he’s a Kiwi.”

New Zealand was where he spent a working holiday in November. “I’d met a group of people from New Zealand at WEG and they were good friends of the people who organised Puhinui International three-day event and they said I should come over. They sent me an email afterwards to see if I was coming over and I said ‘Why not?’ They booked my ticket, flew me over and I competed two young horses there.”

THOROUGHBRED TIMES

Kiwi groom Grace Thompson is another member of the Orchard Lodge team and is busy brushing over ‘Red’. The little mare, of intermediate working hunter size, is by the Swedish-Irish stallion, Jack Of Diamonds out of the Flagmount King mare, Highland Destiny. She went back to several well-known thoroughbred sires in Sky Boy, Wilton House and Mythical Sprite, giving Rioghan Rua’s pedigree a thoroughbred percentage of 54.49%.

What does Cathal think of the current debate about thoroughbred blood in event horses? “For me, quality just as important as the amount of thoroughbred blood. When I’m buying horses for the yard, I don’t look at the page straightaway. If I see a horse that is blood type and sharp, athletic, even if the blood percentage is very low, I’d still buy it. It wouldn’t worry me. I’ve often had horses that are low on blood on paper but their type is blood, they’re sharp, they’ll go all day long.

“Young riders, three-star amateur horses, three-star horses… they don’t need to have a high percentage of thoroughbred blood. Obviously, at the end of the day, if you’re at a five-star now and if you’re going cross-country and you have a horse with massive thoroughbred blood, it’s easy.”

An interesting addition to his yard is the five-year-old thoroughbred stallion KMS Timeless, owned by Ivor and Olive Broderick. He’s by their own Watermill Swatch, who won the Croker Cup in 2008, the same year as Oh Jackie, KMS Timeless’s Zaffaran dam, won the La Touche Cup.

“I’ve had stallions the whole way up, it’s nothing really different. It’s just like any other horse and we’ll aim this fellow for the Stepping Stones league,” said Cathal, who often exercised the Broderick’s other stallions before school, when based at home in Tynagh. He also notched up his first senior international win at Camphire on another stallion, Barnaboy Freeman, owned by Margaret Hynes.

Moving to Kieran Connors and Michelle Nelson’s yard in Calverstown was a logical decision for Cathal. There are no Eventing Ireland one-day-events in Connacht and in the pre-motorway era, it often took the family seven hours to travel to northern fixtures, such at Tyrella.

“See, that’s the problem. It was hard enough for me when I started out eventing horses. They brought out a rule that under-18s could only ride three horses at an event, normally you can ride five, and that put me down a little bit when I could only ride three. So we ended up on a Saturday going north and on a Sunday having to go south, it was tough at the start.

“The travelling was one thing and lack of competitions. The facilities are there, west of the Shannon. There’s really good jumping venues for schooling, some cross-country but it’s just that the competitions weren’t there. Now, we’ve got a motorway to the north of us and another to the south. And for clients flying in, we’re only 40 minutes from Dublin Airport so for people coming to buy horses, it’s very easy.”

“There’s excellent facilities here and I’m really grateful to Kieran and Michelle, they own OLS King Aragon and Dartans Quality Brigade that’s jumping the Spring Tour Grand Prix classes at the moment.

PLANNING AHEAD

The home-bred OLS King Aragon has an interesting pedigree, being by the Ramiro B son Samgemgee out of Just Beauty Queen. That Seamanship mare competed at the Sydney Olympics. “She also done a World Equestrian Games and Europeans with Sue Shortt,” Cathal mentioned about the promising gelding that placed 10th in the seven-year-old final at the young event horse world championships at Le Lion d’Angers last year.

DHI Galant, by Indoctro, finished two places above his stable companion in France and Cathal has high hopes for the pair this year.

Cathal Daniels and Michelle Nelson's OLS King Aragon placed 10th in the seven-year-olds at Mondial du Lion 2018 (Photo: Equus Pix)

What are the plans for the team this year, will his main Tokyo hopefuls of Rioghan Rua and Sammy Davis Junior be wrapped in cotton wool in 2019?

“To a certain extent, but they both need to get qualified for the Olympics. Every horse isn’t qualified from the start of this year, even after Tryon, so they both have to do a CCI four-star now or a CCI five-star. The plan right now is to have hopefully have five horse qualified by the end of the year for Tokyo.”

“That’s ‘Red’ and Sammy Davis Junior and then I have the two horses I had at Le Lion last year [OLS King Aragon and DHI Galant], and one other mare, LEB Liath’s Jewel, a nine-year-old by Limmerick. She’s quite special as well.”

“Badminton is a little bit too early this year.” Would he go back again with Rioghan Rua? “Maybe later on in her career! She remembers though, she’s very intelligent. When she got the fright there, I wouldn’t like to bring her back until she’s older.”

While he’s attended his deserved share of award ceremonies since 2012, Cathal was an absentee at the Irish Horse World awards last month when his Tryon teammates won The Irish Field/Gain Equine Nutrition ‘Stars of the Year’. It turned out he had a horse with colic.

“I had a sick horse that day. It was a little bit of a disaster but the horse was fine. I thought I’d get to it but the horse comes first.”

Spoken like a true horseman.