OUR team has had a great start to the Winter Equestrian Festival season, I have a very exciting string of horses and great staff. The majority of my horses are eight and nine-year-olds, and I have planned to compete most of them in the early weeks of the circuit so that they can jump in the Grand Prix classes before they get too big during the five-star weeks.
All of my horses have been jumping very well so far. CHS Inception (pictured above) jumped in the Suncast 1.50m on Sunday and was fantastic. Ninparo jumped in the Grand Prix qualifier in both weeks one and two and my two mares Carlotta 168 and iDream have had great rounds coming up in the 1.40-1.45m classes.
I am lucky to have a great team to run the farm while I am at the show. Lisa O’Sullivan from Cork manages the operation, Ronan Joyce from Athenry moves between here and our Irish stable, and David Bolster from Nass is also here and will be returning to Ireland to manage Jenny Rankin’s horses for the season ahead.
Depending on sales, I normally have between 10 and 15 very promising horses in my stable to compete and I have some clients training with me for this WEF season. Jenna Barrow, a very talented young rider from South Africa, is over training and learning the business with me at the moment.
FACILITIES
Our facilities here are second to none. The barn is set on 10 acres and includes a 28-stall barn, eight purpose built cross-ties, three tack rooms, two feed rooms, two hay and shavings storage rooms, a veterinary treatment stall, three utility rooms, a rider’s lounge and an office.
The training facilities are state of the art, they include a 3.7 acre grass Grand Prix field, a 55m x 85m synthetic sand all weather arena, an Equine Aqua Treadmill and an eight-horse Kraft walker. Without a doubt the best part of our new farm is its location - just an easy 10 minute hack from the Palm Beach International Equestrian Centre.
A typical day at WEF is a busy one. Typically, and depending on my class times, I will ride the horses on the flat at the farm early in the morning then head in to walk the course and my grooms/riders will walk the horses into the show. If I have time between classes I go home and ride some more horses.
My day also includes networking and watching the horses that I have sold in the past, and we are always on the lookout for potential new horses to add to our string.
My main goal for this circuit is to successfully move up each horse into their next level, I have a stable full of mostly younger horses and I am hoping to have my coming nine-year-olds jumping the ‘Saturday Night Lights’ Grand Prix by the end of circuit.
I can’t pick just one horse that I am most excited about as I have three nine-year-olds that look really good - CHS Inception, an Irish Sport Horse gelding by Clover Flush; Ninparo (pictured left), an Oldenburg gelding by Nintender; and Charming Girl, a Hanoverian mare by Cassini II.
There is always sales and trade happening at the show. It may not be so apparent to the public eye, but the market is like no other in the world. We have a constant flow of enquiries for horses at all levels. The most important criteria is that the horses must be easy to ride, brave, honest and perform well in the show. There are a lot of the big dealers from Europe with representatives selling horses for them in WEF, so potential customers have a very wide choice right here in Wellington.
Unwinding from the horse show here is pretty easy here, Wellington has so much to offer.
On my day off I try to make it out on the ocean to go scuba diving with my girlfriend or go for a round of golf. I’m not very good at sitting around so we keep very active which is easy to do in the warm climate.
I am so happy to have both my parents (Deirdre and Richard Bourns) over with me this winter. My mum is here until the beginning of March - she likes to get back home to Lisbeg for the lambing. My dad will go back and forth throughout the season as we have a string of nine or 10 young horses going to Oliva Nova, Spain, this March so he will need to be there as well.