TREVOR Gaffney has lived in the USA for almost 10 years, but the Sligo native never forgets where he came from. He has long established links here and under normal circumstances would make the trip home to Ireland several times a year.

Trevor said: “We have 12 or 13 horses with Olive Clarke and David Scally in Four Seasons Stables in Co Galway at the moment. Some of them I bought as a foal and they are now two- and three-year-olds and I’ve barely, or in some cases, never even seen them in real life.

“Olive sends videos of them, and I have complete confidence in herself and Scally, but we need to start making decisions about where and what we need to do with youngsters, so we are all looking forward to the resumption of normality.

“We are heading to the World Equestrian Centre in Ocala, Florida in a few months and I’m hoping to persuade Olive to come out to us and compete here for a while.

“We’ve been kept busy over the past 18 months and have bought a number of horses. I have a half-sister to Cian’s Olympic horse Kilkenny, she’s two years old out of the same mother by Diamant which we bought in Cavan.

“She was bred by the Brennans and we bought her from them. We have her here and brought her in to handle her recently, we gave her a little jump, she looks super scopey. We’ll take one or two embryos from her when we get back from Florida and then get her going a little bit under saddle.

“Our seven-year-old stallion Blade Runner (Air Jordan x Guidam) won the National championships in his age division just a couple of weeks ago. He was the only horse to jump clear every day.

“We bought his full-sister, the yearling FF Moonraker, from Tina McDermott at HVL Stud earlier this year, so she’s in Ireland with Olive at the moment and will be coming to the States at the end of the year.

“We have one who is just three this year in partnership with Olive which she thinks a lot of. He is Tangelo x Douglas. We bought him from Matthew Breen, he was the top seller in Cavan three years ago so will start getting some work this year.

“We also have another one who is almost four, FF California, she had a foal and is coming back into work now so she should be exciting.

“Our four-year-old FF Uno Tinus was sold to investors, they want to leave him here to be produced so that’s fine. We also have a very nice three-year-old that Gabriel Slatery bred called Castlelawn Diamant by Diamant de Semilly x Kannan. She seems to have plenty of scope.

“Jill will jump our two seven-year-olds, FF Olive and Blade Runner, over the next few weeks. They will do some small 1.40m Grand Prix classes, the goal being that they are ready to step up in Florida this winter.

“I think things are starting to change a bit in the States with regard to the amount of nice competitions available to young horses, they are getting a little bit more like what is available in Europe. It’s slow but I think it is happening,” said Trevor.

Another to look forward to is Freestyling Farm’s most recent purchase. Stephen Reilly’s Tangelo van de Zuuthoeve filly foal topped the Cavan Elite Foal Sale last week where Gaffney, through agent David Scally, paid €35,000 for the eye-catching filly.

FF Knockroe Lady pictured at Trevor and Jill Gaffney's Freestyling Farms, Ohio, USA, she is a half-sister to Cian O'Connor's Tokyo Olympic mount Kilkenny (ISH) \ Trevor Gaffney

Swings and roundabouts

Last summer Trevor and Jill had some unfortunate news with the forced retirement of one of their top horses, Carlton Cafe.

“It was our first show back after Covid. We were at the HITS show in Lamplight. She was second in the big class on Thursday, and Jill rode her on the Friday morning and she felt fine. We were getting her ready for the Grand Prix on Saturday and within 10 minutes of coming back to the stable, she dropped to the ground. Ninety minutes later, she was on the table having life-saving colic surgery.

“It was an anxious time but thankfully she pulled through. She is 15 years old and was probably coming towards the end of her competitive career so I made the decision to retire her. We owe her nothing. She has been fantastic for us.

“We said if we can put her in foal we will. We took semen off the seven-year-old Blade Runner stallion we have and as we speak she is four months in foal to him, so all going well we will have a nice foal; the mother Jill rode in several World Cups and the father was seven-year-old National Champion so that is something to look forward to.

“We have 26 stables on 60 acres here and also have another 40 acres we rent in Kentucky to turn the youngsters out on, so it’s quite like Ireland there. Up and down hills, open streams the perfect place to just let them turn out and grow.”

The Gaffney's Freestyling Farms, Ohio, USA

Interesting careers

Trevor began his career in Calliaghstown where he did his BHS exams. After a brief introduction to life in the States courtesy of an invitation to spend some months at a yard in San Francisco, he returned home and began working for Paul O’Shea then operating a yard in Loughshinny, Co Dublin.

Following that Trevor went to work for Belgian rider Phillipe Le Jeune and in 2010 was in charge of Vigo D’Arsouillies when he won the World Championships.

At the start of 2012, Trevor was working with Paul Estermann and was reunited with an Irish-bred horse he had worked with in O’Shea’s yard years earlier, the brilliant Castlefield Eclipse.

O’Shea had bought her from Ger O’Neill as a five-year-old, competed her on the National circuit before selling her to Estermann. It had come full circle; and when she went to the Olympics, Trevor was with her.

At the end of 2012 he got the opportunity to go back to the States to manage the Coulter family’s yard, they had been training in Europe with Markus and Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum, and it was on his return to the USA that he met his now wife Jill in California.

Jill grew up competing in California and was a very successful junior rider winning the Reserve Championship in the Large Pony division at the National Horse Show in New York at just eight years old. Jill has also managed, trained, and competed internationally, including working for Jan Tops in Holland and John Gray in Belgium.

Together Trevor and Jill have 30 years of experience, all of which they put into setting up and running their Freestyling Farm in Batavia, Ohio.