ON a once-off visit to Pine Hollow Farm in Wellington, Florida, two years ago, I got a feeling for the type of business Clare native David Blake (30) likes to run. Everything was pristine and perfect. While I wasn’t interviewing Blake on that occasion, a chat via a transatlantic phone call this week drove home how hard he has worked on his show jumping career over in the last 15 years.
There is no shortage of talent and success in the Blake family from Tuamgraney. David’s older brother Kevin pursued a career in civil engineering, while the youngest of the family, Frank, hit screens worldwide recently in the huge hit series Normal People.
“I am definitely a perfectionist and it is probably my downfall sometimes,” David, who runs Pine Hollow Farm in the USA, told The Irish Field. “I never feel like anything is good enough or perfect enough, but it is good also because it keeps me wanting to do better or more.”
Growing up, horses were always in the picture for David. His parents, Mary and Michael – who is the current Irish show jumping High Performance director – built East Clare Equestrian Centre in 1995 and the subsequent running of shows at the facility ignited David’s passion for the sport.
“My parents ran a couple of international shows when I was younger. Riders used to come over from England and there were a lot of good Irish riders there. I always found that very interesting and exciting and it definitely got me quite into the sport.”
Blake’s first 12.2hh pony was Pa-key, purchased from nearby show jumper Marie Burke. He gave him his first taste of success when winning the National Championship at Punchestown in 2002. A successful pony career followed and one very special mount was the Briscoe family’s Connemara Pony stallion Sillouge Darkie, who took Blake to his first European Championships in 2006, as well as being on the winning Nations Cup team in Fontainbleau.
David Blake and Sillogue Darkie
Focused
Despite the success that he was beginning to have, school and his education was still very high on Blake’s priority list and he earned over 500 points in the Leaving Certificate. “Always with anything I do, I try to do it well. I was interested in school and motivated to do well.
“I applied for Architecture and I got a very good Leaving Cert, 520 or 550 points, and I got accepted into the course. I was going well at the time with horses and I decided to take a year off, but I kind of knew at that stage that this was what I was trying to do. I am still on the year off!” he said.
The decision to concentrate on this career path worked out, and the success was almost instant. Blake got the ride on Paul Duffy’s Killard Horizon and the pair finished seventh individually at the Junior European Championships in Prague in 2008. That earned them a wildcard invitation to the international classes in Dublin.
“I was lucky enough that my father was very helpful in getting owners to send me horses. Michael Duffy was a little bit too young to ride Killard Horizon at the time, so I was very lucky to have him for a year or two.
“We purchased Fabienne who was a very good horse for me. She had jumped some bigger stuff but was quite a hot and quirky mare so we were able to afford her. I won my first international Grand Prix on her in Cavan. That was a very exciting time for me, there were a lot of good riders. I remember jumping at that show when I was in 12.2s and watching the riders and thinking that was the aim so to go there and so to win that was a big thing.”
Upskilling
In the winter of 2008, Blake spent some a short time with world champion Philippe Le Jeune in Belgium before working for William and Pippa Funnell in England for a year. “I went to Willie’s after my junior year. At that stage I felt it was a good time to broaden my knowledge a little bit and go to a bigger operation.
“It was brilliant. They had everything from four-year-olds to Grand Prix horses and I got to ride a bit of everything. Pippa was always very helpful on the flat and I was grateful for that. I was there for a year before I decided I would come home and take what I had learned and get myself some horses,” he explained.
Blake represented Ireland at the young rider European Championships in Hoofddorp, The Netherlands, in 2009 aboard Fabienne where the team finished fourth.
He had no shortage of supportive owners and nice horses to produce. They included Martin Walsh from Shannondale Stud, Billy Daly, Ronnie Hollinger, and Richard and Deirdre Bourns, among others.
“Billy Daly sent me Newmarket Clare. She was a great mare. She won the Derby in Millstreet and an international class in Cavan, and backed up Fabienne. I had Shannondale Rahona from Martin Walsh. She won the five-year-old final at the Dublin Horse Show and was then sold to the Army and jumped internationally with Captain Geoff Curran.”
He also rode Ronnie Hollinger’s stallion Camiro De Haar Z at 1.50m Premier Series level and earned qualification for the international classes at the Dublin Horse Show once again in 2011.
The American dream
The opportunity to go to Wellington and spend a winter working with Irish international Paul O’Shea came at the end of 2011 and after some consideration, he decided to go, with every intention of returning for the following season in Ireland.
“I thought I would try something different that winter to broaden my skillset and see something new. Early in my career, when I was starting out in horses, I spent a couple of months with Paul and it was my first introduction to a very professional system.
“He called me and asked would I be interested in going out there to help him, he had just gotten the new job with Skara Glen. I always wanted to see America and I had never been, but I was a little bit on the fence. At that stage, I never anticipated staying there.”
It wasn’t long before David’s natural talent was noticed and Shane Sweetnam came looking for a rider for the winter (WEF) circuit. “Paul said at the time he would love if I stayed with him, but said it was a really good opportunity so he wouldn’t hold me back. I did that circuit with Shane. He gave me nice young horses and a few older horses, and it was brilliant experience. At that time, it was very hard to get opportunity to jump in the ring at WEF.
“So at the end of that circuit, that was when I had a decision to make - whether to go home and get back to what I was doing there, or stay in America. I remember at the time, I didn’t know what to do.”
As it turned out, his roommate at Sweet Oak Farm, Michael Delfiandra, led him to Pine Hollow Farm and the decision to stay in America was quickly made.
“The Dvorkins called Michael and said they needed a Grand Prix rider. It was very good timing. Maybe it was meant to be, the fact that we were roommates.
"It was a difficult decision. I did have a good thing going at home and owners had been very very good to me. But everybody was very supportive.”
Pine Hollow Farm
Having joined in the summer of 2012, Blake now runs the extensive business at Pine Hollow Farm with Howard and Gwen Dvorkin, as well as training their 18-year-old daughter Carly, gold medallist at last year’s Maccabi Games, and producing horses to Grand Prix level.
“When I started, they just had one farm in Parkland, about 40 minutes south of Wellington in Florida, where they live. I remember getting down there and thinking it was a big operation. They had 60 horses, a full competition programme, a riding academy and a livery barn.
“When I started there, a lot of horses needed to be sold, so that was the main aim, to sell what was there and start fresh. For the first year or so I was building up some of the students that were there to a better level.”
David Blake and Keoki at Pine Hollow Farm in Tryon, North Carolina
The Dvorkin family own a share of the horse show in Wellington and Tryon, North Carolina, where they have their third base. “We started to buy some new horses for me to compete and a couple of years later we built a farm in Wellington. Howard and Gwen are great people; if there is something we need, they try to make it happen.”
One of the proudest moments for Pine Hallow came in Budapest, Hungary, last summer, when Carly Dvorkin won individual gold and team bronze with USA at the Maccabi Games, a multi-discipline sporting event for Jewish athletes held every two years, and every element strongly resembles the Olympic Games.
“Carly was in ponies when I started. She is now in college at Tulane University in New Orleans but competes all the time in the medium and high juniors 1.35m-1.40m level and is very successful. The Maccabi Games was a huge thing, a massive event. Howard said at the start of the year that the Games were a really big aim for them so to go and win it was fantastic.”
In an interview with The Chronicle of the Horse after her victory, Carly said of Blake: “David, my trainer, has always supported me in so many different ways. Seeing how happy he was today when I ended up winning was the coolest thing because he’s put so much work into me over the years, and really is the best trainer.”
“I do enjoy the teaching, when I don’t do it, I miss it. It is good for me as well, I learn from it. I get a lot of reward out of seeing students improve and reach their goals; that is a very good feeling,” he added.
David Blake and Carly Dvorkin of Pine Hollow Farm
Special horse
His own career has been reignited in recent years. The purchase of the now 11-year-old gelding Keoki in July 2018 has taken Blake back up to the top of the sport and he is currently ranked 98th in the world.
It may come as a surprise to readers that Blake’s senior Nations Cup debut came in February of this year. “I had a big gap in international competition. Binkie was my main horses and we had a great run of success for a few years.
“Then he had an injury and I sold a few horses and didn’t have anything at that level for a while. At that stage, I focused on training students, sales horses and building up the business, because competing at Grand Prix level does take your focus. So that was a good time to focus on building the business,” he explained.
Blake was on a shopping trip in Europe and at Bolesworth International to support his fiancée, British show jumper Amanda Derbyshire, when he went to try Keoki, owned at the time by Helen Cruden and previously ridden by David Simpson.
“I knew right away he was special,” he said of the Catoki-sired Holsteiner whose results at the top level have been building over the last year. They finished fifth in the $500,000 Rolex Grand Prix last March, were runners-up in a three-star Grand Prix in Tryon in May 2019, fourth in the Hampton Classic Grand Prix, third in the four-star World Cup in Lexington last November, fourth in a four-star Grand Prix in Wellington and double clear in the five-star at Tryon.
They had a successful team debut in Wellington when helping the team to finish runner-up with a clear second round and placed fifth in the final five-star Grand Prix of the WEF circuit in March, picking up a single time fault in the first round.
David Blake and Keoki during the Nations Cup at Wellington in February \ Sportfot
Is there more pressure now that his father, Michael, is chef d’equipe of the team?
“There is always a natural pressure there but it is quite funny timing that the year I have a potential Nations Cup horse, is the year he becomes the chef d’equipe.
"Considering this is the first proper Nations Cup horses I’ve had, it’s a funny dynamic. Everything was lining up this year with his results so nobody could have argued that. I only want to jump a team if I feel like I can jump a double clear.
“It’s very satisfying to jump at this level. Now that I am doing it, I want more. What gives me reward is definitely jumping the big Grands Prix and executing a plan. That is the best feeling there is.”
Team work
Blake is keen to give credit to the team around him. “It is not a one-man show. It is very important to me that I have a good team around me and we are stronger than ever now. David Power (former Army rider) started with me last summer and he will help to get back into training outside students and riding and competing the sales horses. He is a great addition and it is great to have someone like David on the ground for advice.
“Our barn manager is Elaine Horan and she is a very important part of the team, keeping everything running smoothly. I started training with David O’Brien (former Army captain) about the year ago and he helps me in the bigger classes. Any rider in the world now needs a set of eyes on the floor and I thought, when I got Keoki, to take it to the next level it would be a good move. We have had great success so far.”
David and Amanda call Wellington home and it was there they met. Amanda rides for the Gochman family at Baxter Hill Farm and is enjoying huge success at the top of the sport, including winning a team bronze medal at the 2019 FEI European Championships with the Irish Sport Horse Luibanta BH.
“Her story is similar to mine and it is funny how we only met here. I was in England for a year and she was there too, but we only met in Florida. We are both very supportive of each other’s career. She is competing for a different team but it doesn’t feel like that. And we definitely motivate each other to do well,” Blake explained.
Any wedding plans for the couple? “We are lucky we didn’t plan it this year [with the coronavirus]! Our calendar seems to be always very busy. I’d say next year we might have more time. I’d say we will get married on one of the Caribbean Islands.”
David also had a special mention for his brother Frank. “He put a lot of time and effort into helping me with the horses while I was starting off in Ireland, we did a lot of hours together.”
Did David find time to watch Normal People, the programme that everyone is talking about, in which Frank stars as Alan Sheridan?
“I did watch it, it was great. He is quite modest and he kept it quiet. I didn’t realise it was such a big deal, but I knew when I watched it that it would be massive. I would think, after a show like this, he will get the opportunities he deserves.”
Plans to travel to Europe this season are on the back burner because of the pandemic but Blake hopes to spend more time this side of the ocean in the future. “I like the feel of the sport in Europe, there is more tradition, more passion.”