FIFTEEN years after he became the youngest rider to compete in the 128cms the final at Dublin Horse Show, Cormac Hanley Jnr’s career continues to rise.

Currently ranked 281st in the FEI rider rankings, the Mayo show jumper competed for the first time at Washington International Horse Show last week, getting into the prize money in two classes, including the President’s Cup World Cup qualifier.

“Two months ago, I was ranked 500, so it has climbed a lot because I’m starting to do more and more of these bigger shows. It’s hard, because you have to start off with the two-star shows and you have to do so many of those to get the points to get up into the three-stars. And then when you’re in the three-stars, you’re pushing to get into the four-star shows,” he says, explaining the painstaking rankings process.

In many ways, he’s a carbon copy of his grandfather and namesake in the way the pair follow dreams. “Obviously the Hanley family have been a huge influence but my mum’s [Sinead Slattery] side as well, they’re just as big in the horse world. I’ve been very lucky with the family I grew up with, they’ve all given me a boost.”

Cormac Hanley Jnr pictured with his grandfather’s Gabriel Slattery Jnr (left) and Cormac Hanley Snr (right) after winning the 2014 Connaught Grand Prix in Ard Chuain EC with Queen Carola. Photo Monica Flanagan

NEW HOPE

As have many others along the way from Claremorris to the small Pennsylvania town of New Hope, where he is now based at Chris and Thea Stinnett’s Heathman Farm.

“My parents [Charles and Sinead] did so much for me. They sat me on the best ponies they could find, ponies like Trina Cheile. We’d never have been able to afford to own a pony like that but he was owned by Ado McGuinness, who’s a good friend of my parents.

“I remember when I got him he was 16 or 17, really experienced and he had to be, because I was six. I remember we were driving to Necarne for an RDS qualifier. Ado was bringing the pony there and that was the first show I ever did with him. I was the youngest ever to compete at Dublin, now you have to be 10,” said the record holder.

“Trina Cheile did the most for me.” Even before that little legend was Hollybank Boy, a Christmas present and another schoolmaster that Cormac competed in under eight classes on. And then after the ponies, came decision time.

CAREER OPTIONS

“When I was a kid you played other sports; Gaelic football, rugby. Gaelic football was pretty strong in our family, grandad played in the All-Ireland.

“I was actually very good at rugby would you believe and had to make a decision when I was 16 if I would keep going with the rugby or horses. I was in the Connacht development squad but it was always show jumping. I think that was the family I grew up with too, it’s all we talk about.”

The sport can become all-consuming, however the fifth year student had another career option. “My parents had always told me this life is not a life. It’s too difficult. My mum really made me concentrate on school, she’s the reason I did as well as I did in my Leaving Cert, she kept me focused,” he said.

“Cormac did his Leaving Cert when he was 17 and got 510 points. He wasn’t a student but he knuckled down and put his mind to it,” recalled his father, Charles.

“College was the plan until I was halfway through fifth year and then I thought maybe I should give the horses a go. In the springtime, my uncle Gabriel [Slattery] broke his leg and was out for a long time. He had good horses at the time and I got my chance then. We’d have three, four horses in the Grand Prix classes and I started winning a lot in Ireland,” said the substitute jockey.

Captains Magic Touch and Captains Call, “All Captain Clovers”, plus the Quidam’s Rubin mare Queen Carola were some of the horses he campaigned then. “She was actually owned by Niall Talbot. Niall and [Cormac’s uncle] Cameron are best friends, Niall is godfather to Cameron’s kids and one night in Dublin, my dad, Cameron, Carl and Niall were talking and Niall said he’d send the horse over to me to compete. She turned out amazing and I won a lot on her.”

Cormac then made the move to Talbot’s Swiss base. “I’d see all these Irish riders getting on well abroad. All the top ones, apart from Greg [Broderick] and a couple of others, have left Ireland and I was thinking ‘Yeah, I need to leave Ireland and see if I can make it.

“As soon as I thought this is what I want to do, I deferred my place in Architecture for a year and that’s when I went to Niall’s. That was four years ago, I was 17 and I’m 21 now.”

MEDALS

“You get a little bit homesick. Switzerland was so different but I did love it and it made me want to work harder to get to the highest level. Soon I knew this is what it’s going to be for the rest of my life.

“That’s just me and my personality, it’s all or nothing. If I don’t think I’m going to make it to the top, I’d have found another path,” the driven youngster said.

“He loved it at Niall’s, he got loads of responsibility and would head off with a two-horse lorry and trailer to shows. Niall was very good to him and gave him Wido to ride in the European championships,” Charles acknowledges.

“Niall was a big influence on me for sure and he gave me some really nice horses to ride. He was the start of my international career. I jumped Caracter in the European championships too and we won silver in Austria, I’ve done four European championships, two Children on Horses and two Juniors.”

The next step was transatlantic after Cormac was awarded one of the Connolly’s Red Mills bursaries. “That was all credit to Michael Blake and Red Mills who sponsored the bursary. I was working for Niall at the time so it was to Niall’s credit that he allowed me to go to America and sent me over with a horse as well, which he sold! In fairness to Niall, he knew I wasn’t going to be with him forever.”

For many starry-eyed youngsters, the Florida circuit is Shangri-la, but it didn’t faze Cormac. “Florida is a bubble. The lifestyle, the weather, it is very different. But I always loved America as we’d been here a lot on holidays. And because I’d lived away from home already for a year and a half before I came here, I think it wasn’t that big a change or challenge for me.”

His first American opportunity was with Olympian Kevin Babington. “Kevin gave me a lot of horses. I was a junior at the time and junior classes are a big deal here. Kevin does a lot of sales horses and it’s good for him to have horses in the junior classes as people are going to want to buy him. There’s not so many young horse classes in America.”

Bursary over, Cormac returned back to Niall’s yard. “We went to the European championships that year with Caracter, then Niall heard about an opportunity with John Brennan and Missy Clarke in Vermont.

“Niall actually went to school with John in Kildare so they were friends. Between him and Kevin, they set the whole thing up.

“I came over and my first show was the Hampton Classic. I was still a junior and my second show was Saugerties. I was third in the biggest junior class in the world, worth a quarter of a million, and it just went on from there.”

BLOODLINES

Cormac’s stylish horsemanship caught the eye of his current employers, Heathman Farm’s Chris and Thea Stinnett. “Chris is from Montana and Thea from Oregon, where they originally had a farm there before moving east. I started catch riding a few horses for them.

Cormac Hanley Jnr and with Heathman Farm owners Chris and Thea Stinnett at Washington International Horse Show. Photo Susan Finnerty

“In Florida, that’s easy because all the farms are around and then they offered me a job, set the vision that they had and said they’d like to sponsor me and take me to the next level,” Cormac Jnr explained.

“For this year we did most of the shows on the east coast of America but next year, probably after Florida, we’ll go to Spruce Meadows. Chris and Thea’s daughter Stella is returning soon from Holland where she’s been competing for the past three months.

“I have two horses at the top level, 1.60m horses; Alma Z and VDL Cartello. Alma came from Carl, she’s an Oldenburg mare with Chacco-Blue bloodlines.

“Bloodlines do matter. Certain horses, you can tell what their bloodline is like, some produce different characteristics. I really like Chacco-Blue because he’s produced so many good ones and there’s not going to be so many more now, because he’s dead. He produces a lot of scope, normally. I do follow the bloodlines as well and at the farm too we do a little bit of breeding, which is kind of unusual in America. The idea would be to take an embryo or two off her.

“I’ll take VDL Cartello to Kentucky next week for the Grand Prix there. Even if you have the horses, you can’t go straight into a five-star show. The last two months is when I’ve really started to climb because of doing the bigger shows. There was the Hampton Classic, which is a four-star; Saugerties, which was my first five-star, then I did the American Gold Cup and that was my first World Cup qualifier.

“Harrisburg last week, then this week Washington, next week it’s Kentucky and then it’s on to Toronto. Once you start getting into those shows, it makes it easier to climb the rankings.”

His proud grandfather was amongst the spectators at another show Cormac Jnr competed at this summer. “I heard that Cormac was trying to get into Devon and I said ‘If he’s there, I’m going!’”

Devon, one of America’s most iconic horse shows, is held on the outskirts of Philadelphia and it was where Cormac Snr’s great granduncle Paddy Dixon, (“the Dixons were the horsey family on my mother’s side”), won eight out of 10 show jumping classes in 1951. He was also a famous competitor at Madison Square Garden with All Afire and Injun Joe.

“Paddy Dixon’s wife is 89 years of age and had her birthday at the show. Every Christmas we send cards with updates on our families,” continued Cormac Snr about the family’s link to the famous horseman, who was inducted into Show Jumping Hall of Fame in 1991.

The latest generation of successful Irish riders based Stateside includes “Shane Sweetnam, Darragh Kerins, Kevin Babington, Darragh Kenny, Conor Swail, Richie Moloney, the list goes on and on. Eric Glynn [Cormac’s cousin] he’s getting married just after Christmas and he’ll be back for Florida. His boss Andrew Welles is jumping at this show too.

“Normally they start out with the American national anthem before a class starts and a lot of the time it ends with the Irish national anthem” said Cormac, smiling.

THE EQUINE GOD

There’s one horse guaranteed to make him smile – Captain Caruso. “He’s god! I remember going out to the land with my dad to feed Captain Caruso as a yearling, then as a two-year-old. I always loved him for some reason, I don’t know what it was about him.

“I was the first one to ride him when he was a three-year-old. He was like a blood horse when he was young and I remember the second or third time I rode him and the dogs ran across the sand ring. I was on the lunge line and he took off bucking and buried me in the sand!

“Then as a four-year-old, he went to my uncle [Gabriel], he produced him on and went to Dublin. He rode him as a four and five-year-old and when he was a six-year-old, that’s when my uncle broke his leg. Then I took Caruso over and I jumped him in Dublin as a six-year-old. He’s 12 now and I’ve been riding him ever since.

“He’s followed me everywhere. We did the Grand Prix scene in Ireland and then when I went to Switzerland I brought him with me and he was jumping Grand Prix classes. Then when I came to America, he followed me here for under 25s classes,” Cormac Jnr said.

“Cormac took him over. It’s like a love affair that you couldn’t split up. Even though we’ve had huge offers for Captain Caruso, we’ve ended up not selling him,” said Charles about the home-bred Captain Clover son who is returning to stand in Ireland for next year.

There’s one well-bred daughter left behind at Heathman Farm. “Dauphine Libere Z, the mare that I started riding in the very beginning for Chris and Thea, got injured so we took an embryo from her and she had a filly foal this year. The dam has very good bloodlines, she’s Darco, Chatman, Cassini and she’s a three-parts sister to Winningmood.”

The internet has proved vital for looking up bloodlines and performance records. “Even to go and buy a horse now, you look up the record, you can see so many videos, you know exactly what the horse is, it makes our job so much easier,” said Cormac Jnr.

Of course the internet also continues to replace postcodes, letters and public phones. “When I was in Weinbergs, I’d have to walk up to the village and wait by the phonebox for a phonecall from home. Now I ring Cormac in America three, four times a week on Facetime. We’re very proud of him, at 7.30 in the morning he’s down in the yard schooling the first horse,” said his father.

“The social media aspect is very important but actually for a young person, I’m not so up-to-date on technology and computers. I’m kind of old school like that but I push myself.

“I try to be good at it because it’s the best way to promote yourself, if done properly. It’s a good tool and you have to keep up-to-date on Facebook and Instagram updating what shows you’re going to,” said this wise head on young shoulders, who had spent that morning on a city tour. For an architecture fan, what buildings stood out?

“The Capitol Building really caught my eye. It’s older style architecture and obviously when you think about DC, there’s the White House too but the Capitol Buildings caught my eye. It’s smack bang on the middle point of British Columbia. Out of the more contemporary work, I liked the Museum of African-American History.”

His grandfather’s vision saw him build Claremorris School of Equitation from scratch. The third generation of the Hanley family has plans too.

“Ideally it would be nice to spend half the year in Europe and the wintertime in America. For the time being I see myself in America. The dream is to go to the Olympics and win a gold medal. That’s what you’re always working for and to try and become the best rider you can become.”