IT has been a meteoric year for Richard Howley and his Yorkshire fiancee Morgan Kent (their combined initials make up their HK Horses business name) with an engagement and three major wins.

Morgan, who met Richard when they worked at Michael Whitaker’s yard, won the Balmoral Grand Prix on her first-time appearance.

Richard scored a five-star success in the Gijon Grand Prix with Dolores, followed up by his gold medal win at Lanaken with Uppercourt Cappucino.

Their Weatherby yard, with up to 80 horses, is now minus two of that trio. Balmoral winner Drumconnick Verdi, bred by Clive Pratt in Co. Cavan was sold to Mexico and Jan Tops acquired their Lanaken winner. More of the Howley selling philosophy.

“When we started off, I had a broken back and very little money. There was just myself and Morgan, no grooms and now we’ve built up a business, so its been quite a dramatic change in five years.”

How, or even can, the two autumn wins compare?

“They were both special, you can compare them as major wins on two different scales,” said Howley. “We grew up very succesful in ponies with a great bunch of friends. It was a great grounding and a great way to grow up. The minute you leave ponies though, you really have to think about your riding.”

“We don’t do many qualifiers with the young horses, just try to produce them as correctly and quietly as possible.”

As a dealing stable, their aim is to produce “a nice horse up to two-star level” before deciding to keep or sell.

And where do their markets come from? “Very rarely English, mostly European. Morgan is doing more eventing now so that’s another market for us. We also do some teaching but tend not to have too many horses in livery.”

“Owners and breeders really need to sit down and see the cost the riders have to pay to produce horses to top level. We have five full-time staff so that’s quite a big wages bill for starters.”

The couple own several broodmares and buy up to 10 foals per annum. “There’s no particular stallion that we use, we usually cross them with a mare’s weakness and stallion’s strengths in mind. The mares have jumped to a high level and we’ll get an embryo also from a mare if we like how a cross worked.”

And future plans? “I like to set goals that are reachable. The plan is to aim for the Europeans next year. Chinook [second in a 1.55m HOYS class] and Dolores are both very competitive and I believe that’s achievable.”

“We’ve a busy couple of weeks ahead first. There’s a three-star show at Zwolle next weekend, then the World Cup qualifier at Lyons with Dolores and Chinook, they’re in great form. After that there’s Maastricht and Mechelen so it’s pretty full-on but they only jump two classes at every show.

“Ronan Clarke, a very good friend from Sligo, is fantastic at picking the right shows. Everything has to be calculated, why did that horse jump well at that show? What was the build up? - to see what worked towards a particular result,” he said, before adding “What you put in, you put back.”

A business mantra built up from climbing down off Tom Fleming’s pony to deliver his first assessment.