TWO young women, previously more involved in show jumping, recorded their first wins on the point-to-point scene last weekend, one as a handler/trainer while the other struck in the saddle.
The trainer was north Co Dublin-based Abbey Stafford who saddled her first winner on Saturday at Lisronagh where her 18-year-old brother Tadhg registered his initial victory as an amateur jockey when partnering their father James’s Lawful Ruler to victory in the older horses’ maiden.
The six-year-old Rule Of Law gelding, who was having his second start for his current handler having previously been trained by her uncle Paul Stafford, is one of three horses Abbey has in work for the autumn season with two three-year-olds waiting, being prepped for the spring season. The three-year-olds were purchased at the August Sale in Tattersalls, where James has been the farrier on duty for some years now.
“We’ve recently put in a gallop at home (Hillview Lodge Stables), so are moving away from the show jumpers and more into pre-trainers and point-to-pointers,” said Abbey. “Dad loves breaking young horses so he is very much involved while my mother Haidee works full-time in the yard. Tadhg works most mornings for Conor Maxwell, for Gavin Cromwell one day a week and afternoons with us. My sister Becky, who also did a lot of show jumping, has a ‘real’ job!”
Abbey’s other sister Holly has her own horse at home, rides out for Abbey at weekends and she too has a connection with the Gavin Cromwell yard as she looks after the Co Meath trainer’s social media.
Much to the delight of her grandfather, legendary Fingal horseman Tommy Stafford who likes to have a finger in every pie, Abbey hasn’t moved away entirely from the world of coloured poles, although she was forced to the sidelines following a bad fall earlier in the year. “We always get a couple of nice home-bred three-year-olds each year from Willie Shanahan, who we break and then produce until they’re four or five, while I also have a nice young mare for Suzanne Garrigan,” concluded Stafford.