SOMEWHERE between Lanaken and Pau CCI5* seems an appropriate time to pen Gary Higgins’ obituary, marking two of the late Claregalway man’s numerous highlights in the horse world.

Breeder, owner, amateur show jumping, riding club, horse racing, sponsor - Gary wore many hats. And a hurling helmet too, from his early days with local club Menlo Emmetts.

That love of hurling paid off when he decided to head down to Ringroe after leaving a Salthill nightclub to get to the top of the Clover Hill queue with his Arctic Que mare.

Philip Heenan arrived in the yard to the early morning sight of Gary pucking a sliotar around one of the fields to entertain himself before ‘opening time’ and the end result, following an amicable exchange about Galway and Tipperary hurling stars, was a Clover Hill covering for the patient mare-in-waiting.

Gary later sold that end result to Clare O’Brien in Bedfordshire, who hunted the Irish-bred for 16 years with the Pytchley Hunt and whose sale funded his breeder’s purchase of his first JCB.

A civil engineer in his ‘day job’, his Higgins Civil Engineering company was a generous sponsor of many competitions, from his local Corrib Riding Club branch to the Galway County Show Grand Prix in its Clarinbridge heyday.

That Pytchley hunter was one of multiple deals. Others included the Goresbridge buys Electric Cruise (Joseph Murphy’s London Olympic event horse who was bought in partnership with Brian Cassidy Snr) and Badgerhill Cruise, who jumped at the WBFSH finals in Lanaken with Clem McMahon.

WCE Irish - or Fitzy to his considerable fan club - would also rank as one of his favourite buys. This was the horse that Gary won both the 2008 Farmers Journal final and the leading rider award at the Towerlands amateur show the following year with.

Ellen, his beloved daughter, summed her father up perfectly in her eulogy at his funeral mass: “Some of his happiest moments were spent going to point-to-points with my little brother David; on board his once-in-a-lifetime horse Fitzy who he travelled far and wide with; in the seat of a digger and the moments he spent sharing his jokes and stories and making everybody around him laugh.

“There is also no doubt in the world that your dear friend Frank Burke welcomed you into heaven with open arms, and had Fitzy tacked up and ready for you.

“Looking back at my fondest memories with my dad, it would have to be him seeing me off to my Transition Year ball. I wasn’t sure he would even let me out the door in the end, but he made it known how proud he was of me. I wasn’t gone five minutes and the pictures were up on Facebook.

“My dad was many things - a hard worker, a loyal friend and the kind of person who would give you the shirt off his back without a second thought.”

They say a good obituary should always include a first-hand anecdote and my own Gary Higgins tale is another about his trademark generosity and decency.

He had bought Pendle Watercolour, a Colourfield mare I’d bred, from mutual good friends, Billy and Breda Horan. In 2010, after he heard we had lost her Clover Hill dam, he instantly offered me ‘Penny’s’ foal that year - a Mermus R filly - as a replacement for an amusingly low price. That was Gary. Generous to a ‘fault’.

Thankfully, he kept her and Mermus R Diamonds instead went to Ros Canter and later Richard Coney, through agent Vere Phillips, one of his many customers. This plot twist resulted in his answer to the ‘Proudest moment’ question in Gary’s Breeders’ 10 feature in December 2020: “Definitely would have to be Mermus R Diamonds finishing in the top 10 at Pau this year. She’s only 10 and it was her and Richard Coney’s first five-star event. I was proud of her even going there, but to finish on her dressage score in a quality field was magical stuff. That’s what you dream of.”

Richard Coney and the Gary Higgins-bred Mermus R Diamonds finished ninth at Pau in 2020 \ Equigram Photography

We didn’t get to travel to Kentucky 5* when injury ruled her out of a run there. Life doesn’t always go to plan, as we learned this summer with the unexpected death of this larger-than-his-too-short-life character.

His favourite go-tos, such as Ballybrit and Dublin Horse Show, were and will not be the same without his presence and infectious good humour.

Gary Higgins’ loss is, of course, most keenly felt by his family. To Laura and Jack, Mikey, Gary, Ellen and David, his brothers Peter, Padraig and Micheál, sisters Carmel, Breegeann, Jacinta, Edel and Maura, relatives and many friends, heartfelt condolences. He really was one of a rare kind.

SF