MAKING a living and making a profit from working with horses can show two different bank balances. Five years ago, Galway producer Damien Griffin made the smart decision to change around his Lissyegan Stables business, an approach that has since paid dividends.

The turnaround came from cutting back on breaking low-value horses. “As everybody knows, livery money creates cash flow but it doesn’t make any real money. You’d have a €1,000 livery bill, the owner might sell the horse for €1,400 and then you’d feel bad. I ended up taking money off the bill if the owner got a bad price for the horse, so you were out of pocket,” the Ballinasloe-based show jumper said.