I DIDN’T have the start that most people have in Ireland with their parents or extended family being involved with horses. My older brother Eoin was quite sick as a child, so when he recovered, my parents said they’d get him a present and he asked for a pony.

After having a lot of fun riding around the farm, he joined the Iveagh Pony Club, and it went from there. I hunted with the Newry Harriers for a few years, but it wasn’t until I was in my last year of ponies that I really started getting into competitive show jumping.

I first trained with Eamon Rice, then moved on to spend a few years with Dermott Lennon. Dermott has been a massive influence on me and someone I really admire.

He gave me horses to compete at National Grand Prix level and in my last year in Ireland, I qualified two of his horses for the international seven and eight-year-old class at the Dublin Horse Show.

It was a great environment to be involved in, the Lennon family are all great people and not every young rider gets to learn from a world champion. We’re still very good friends and it’s nice to see him with a nice group of horses for this year.

At the end of 2011, I came to America to help Rebecca McGoldrick, who is a client of Dermott’s, with her horses. I was only 20, I came for three months and I am still here. My mum still hopes I’ll be home to finish college!

SWEET OAK FARM

I was extremely lucky to get the chance to come and work for Shane and Ali Sweetnam at Sweet Oak Farm. When I started I was helping Shane’s head groom, I went grooming at a couple of shows then I started riding more.

I jumped my first two-star Grand Prix in my third year here, and I’ve gone on to three, four and five-star Grand Prix classes since, so I owe Shane and Ali a lot. I’ve learned so much here and they’ve given me a lot of great opportunities, I always seem to have at least one horse to jump at international level.

Like Dermott, Shane is someone I really look up to. He’s obviously been a vital part of the Irish team in recent years and is hugely successful individually so I’m very lucky to get to work with him. I’m with them almost seven years now, we’ve a great relationship.

WEF is always busy. For 12 weeks it’s nonstop, but it’s great. We have over 60 horses here at Sweet Oak Farm so it keeps us going. There’s a mixture of competing my own horses or schooling a client’s horse in a class early in the week so they are ready to compete at the weekend.

Our farm is only five minutes from the show, so I’ll always ride a few a day at home between classes when I have time. This past few years, I’ve got more involved with the coaching side of it, and it’s something I’ve grown to really enjoy. Friday, Saturday and Sunday is when the amateur classes go, so our day starts early to ride in the morning before the first class at 8am. Then training clients, walking courses, and so on, makes up the rest of the day.

There’s nothing easy in this game. If you look at the opportunities here in the USA, I think that’s the biggest thing; the prize money on offer and the shows.

I can go to a smaller show here in the summer and the Grand Prix is a $25,000 1.45m class.

As well as that, it’s more of a business structured around training here. I think if I could do what I’m doing here, in Ireland, I probably would never have left. I love it here, but Ireland is still home.

We’re very lucky, I spend my winter in Florida. The weather is great, there’s a great bunch of Irish here too, and we all spend a lot of time together. Some of us go golfing together on a Monday and have dinner a couple of nights a week. We’re all pretty close and look out for each other.

Then I go to Lexington Kentucky to Spy Coast Farm for the summer. Again, there are a lot of Irish people there too, involved in racing.

FUTURE PLANS

Hunters Conlypso II, or Hunter as we call him, is owned by the Dacantos Group and he has been my best horse for about 18 months now.

I jumped a few five-star Grands Prix with him last year, he placed in the Hampton Classic Grand Prix as well as a World Cup qualifier. I’m glad he’s continued that form in Wellington; he’s been clear in both WEF Challenge Cup classes and followed that up with a clear in the four-star Grand Prix last Saturday.

I’m looking forward to the rest of the season with him. Seamus McKeever, another Irishman based here, looks after him and is a big part of our team. I’ve also started riding for a new owner, Southern Arches LLC. I ride two horses for them, Charlie and Stealing Home, hopefully we will be competitive over the next few weeks.

I was on the senior winning Nations Cup team in Ocala at the age of 23. That was an amazing day, it’s the first Irish team at any level that I competed on so that was pretty cool. We had a great team, I was the youngest and my good friend Darragh Kenny was also on it. To represent your country is a privilege, I hope there’s many more team wins in the future.

I had a great horse back then, Diktator van de Boslandhoeve. He’s breeding at Spy Coast Farm now, I’ll always remember him and that win.

On the podium after winning the Ocala Nations Cup

I need to keep improving, and to try build up a string to go to the bigger shows with. It’s been a while since I was on a team, I want to get back there and I have a horse now in Hunter that is capable to produce results at that level. I’ll hopefully do a few shows in Europe this summer, it would be great to get home and jump at the RDS in August!

In the long term, I want to represent Ireland at championship level and win a few medals. It would be nice to follow in Dermott and Shane’s footsteps!