I had, in a way, no horse background in Germany, except my granddad was in the German cavalry in the Second World War. I spent weekends and holidays with my grandparents, who lived in the countryside, riding around on the heavy working horses their neighbours still had.

Farm holidays got very popular for families, so we went down to Bodensee. I went back to that farm every holiday and this is where it all started to come in the right direction. That farmer - Karl Keller Spiesshof - was like my stepfather and we still have regular contact. I have already put October 15th in my diary for the local riding club’s 50th anniversary show, as I was a foundation member.

I wanted to be a vet but missed out by 0.1 points, so they didn’t take me straight away. I started to ride full-time, got my own horse up in the north in the Hanoverian auction in Verden. And, after three and a half years, suddenly I had a letter, ‘You start in Giessen [veterinary college] in a week’. That was a shock!

I financed college through horses, riding lessons, all things. I had seven, eight months to go when I fell out with a professor over a diagnosis of a lame horse. This went on for another four months, so I signed a contract with an ex-German dressage team member, who had always wanted me to work with him. I’ve done my FEI Level 1 coaching exam, my masters as a racehorse trainer, competition rider and stud manager. Only three people in Germany have all those exams, so I became well respected.

I’m also a show jumping and cross-country course builder and listed dressage judge, evented to four-star level and managed equestrian centres. I first came to Ireland 31 years ago, I’d buy three or four horses in the Wexford and Limerick areas, then came over for good.

I stayed with Noel Roche, who lives in Cleariestown. Best man to find horses, he was a special agent for Max Hauri. After three months, we moved nearer Tullibards. That’s where the placename came from, before we later moved to Coolrain in Co Laois. I was very quickly accepted by the Irish, because I trained racehorse winners, we were eventing, I was a superstar in dressage, only because I got a horse on the bit!

All my children excelled in the sport for Ireland. Benny, Jessica, Jenny and Brian competed up to European level in eventing and show jumping. I was not such a good jumper as any of them, but everybody knows that I’m very positive and always look forward.

They want me to retire soon at home, but I just worked on the application for this new TAMS grant to build a few stables! I still have the dream too that maybe Jessie and Jenny will join one day; Jenny rides the horses and Jessie manages the whole business.

1. You bred Tullibards Lux Likea Benny, another Stage 1 stallion at Cavan. Tell us about him?

This exceptional horse reminds me of Benny’s Legacy. Everybody sees this horse, looks twice, three times and thinks, ‘Did you bring him back from America?’ I feel this horse has even more than his sire, jumping and pedigree-wise. He’s so trainable, he’s a dream horse.

I got a few offers before, in and after Cavan, but I’ll really try to keep him and see how far he will go.

We won’t use him for natural cover. When the weather comes better, he will be trained for the dummy. He’s far better-bred on the dam’s side than his sire, this horse has all the back-breeding.

Benny’s Legacy was always special to us. Benny must have thought something when he bought him from an online auction. He had never seen him, as this foal arrived in Ireland after Benny died.

We kept him as a colt and suddenly, as a three-year-old, Benny’s Legacy turned around completely and came back out of the field like a star. Jessie rode him in the age classes and by the Cavan six/seven-year-old final, I had to lock myself in the toilets as there were so many buyers, even Shane Sweetnam was calling from Florida.

Richard Bourns was the one who found the agreement: they buy him, but we keep him for another two years until Jessie was finished in juniors. Then he went to Jenny Rankin and next, Adrienne Sternlicht to win five-star Grand Prix and World Cup qualifiers.

Hans, who first came to Ireland to buy horses 31 years ago, pictured at Cavan \ Susan Finnerty

2. Proudest breeder moment?

I was sitting, thinking for hours to give you the right answer. I bred racetrack winners, Paul Tapner’s Badminton horse Kilfinnie II (Tullibards Shakespeare), Jenny went with Tullibards Benny’s Special to Lanaken, where the horse was bought in the warm-up by Stephex, Stepping Stones to Le Lion d’Angers - we are everywhere!

Anywhere the Tullibards prefix is carried is a proud moment and I think the right answer.

3. How many broodmares do you have?

Too many! Around 12, all strong lines, not just a nice mare.

4. Biggest challenges for breeders?

X-rays are a disaster. This - and €50 for a bale of hay this winter - will break us. As a breeder, you work with your own product and suddenly, the vet destroys the whole plan. X-rays, kissing spine, it happens more and more.

We sell mostly four/five-year-olds, but now to find the riders? And the idea that there’s something wrong with a horse if I take one to a sale, instead of selling at home. When we go to a sale, people think, ‘Why is Hans bringing this horse?’ But sometimes we must, because we need money and turnover.

5. What’s your view on prefixes?

It’s ridiculous how this is handled by national federations and the FEI. We pay for our prefix, then when someone has too much money, they buy a FEI passport. When a few guys here in Ireland, like Sportsfield or Richard Sheane, buy off each other, we don’t throw a prefix out, it may be added on.

I hate it when monied people, who don’t like the prefix or don’t want people to know where the horse comes from, just change it. That’s not fair and it could be easily handled if the FEI, or even a national federation, would say, ‘Stop’.

6. Internet - good or bad servant?

In the last couple of years, I had to learn to use the internet and answer emails. I’m not on Instagram, Facebook is okay. So, I try my best to keep up to date.

7. If you could have bred any horse?

Again, sitting here with so many choices. I would say Marcus Ehning’s For Pleasure and Willi Melliger’s Calvaro.

8. It takes a team. Who’s on yours?

It’s still the whole family. [Wife] Julia is the head. Brian is doing Agricultural Engineering, he’s happy to walk around with the toolbox. Jessie is now studying International Business, she helps me with the accountancy, and Jenny and her boyfriend Cathal Daniels moved down last September. We’re still looking urgently for another rider, but can’t find one.

9. Paris Olympics medal predictions?

I think the team that has the luckiest team manager to pick three riders, because it will be a lottery. Eventing is worse.

10. Best advice you could give?

From my point of view, the mare has more than 50% of what you breed. No sense when you use one of the best stallions in the world on a Mickey Mouse mare who hasn’t done anything.

And you need the blood percentage or you won’t have a horse with a little bit of spirit, that accelerator. More in eventing, where I hate only warmblood. When they cut out the long format, the Germans or Belgians were celebrating, ‘Now we win every medal, now we win the dressage’.

And that is wrong, completely wrong, because you need the brain of the Thoroughbred on a shorter cross-country course with the same amount of questions asked.