ARRIVING at Stall Fuchs as the head show groom just after the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio De Janerio, Dublin native Sean Vard has worked for the last four years with his eyes firmly set on 2020 for the Tokyo Olympic Games.

When the news broke that the Games had been postponed by a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Vard was admittedly heartbroken, but remains positive that the famous grey gelding Clooney 51, who he has covered almost every inch of the globe with at this stage, will be fit and ready for next year.

“Everyone’s health obviously comes first, but at the end of the day, I am still heartbroken, I am four years waiting for it,” he told The Irish Field just days after the news filtered through.

He was speaking from Martin Fuchs’ stable between Zurich and St Gallen in Switzerland, the place he calls home for now. It has been a winding road for Vard to get to this stage of his career. Strong willed with a business-like mind, he had a successful business in Ireland when he was just a teenager and has experience working in almost every part of the elite show jumping industry.

Growing up, in Stepaside in Co Dublin where his father Taylor, who is part of the senior Irish show jumping team management, still runs their home yard, Vard rode at a national level in Ireland, as well as building show jumps and tack lockers under the business name of Showjumps Ireland. A weekend in Holland to visit a friend resulted in Vard packing his bags to follow his dreams in Europe.

“I was riding up to national level in Ireland, but I didn’t have many horses. I had my own little business on the side, buying and selling and making show jumps, tack lockers for people. It was a nice little earner and kept me busy.

“I got to the stage after my Leaving Cert that I had to expand the business and make it much bigger. I needed to get a bigger premises, get more machines, more staff and so on, and there was a demand there to go bigger,” he explained.

“That summer after my Leaving Cert, I went to Holland for a weekend to visit Conor Drain who was riding for Angelique Hoorn. I had to make a choice to try and ride or stay at home and make my business bigger.

“I feel in love with the European system of riding and showing and so made the decision to pack up the business and go to Holland and follow through on my rider career.”

Finding his grove

Vard had his heart set on staying in The Netherlands and went to work for a breeder just 10 minutes away from Hoorn’s yard, where he rode plenty of young horses and even built a full course of fences for the farm, careful not to let his “old tricks of the trade” go to waste.

He then moved to the south of Holland and began working for Joan Kuijpers, who runs an international riding stable and JK Horsetrucks.

“There I rode mostly the young horses. I wasn’t the number one rider, his wife was, but I got a lot of experience from four-year-olds up to international level.

“One thing led to another and I got more and more involved in his other industry, buying and selling trucks. I’ll be totally honest, I wasn’t cut out to be a top rider on the level I wanted to be. I started doing long distance journeys for him, buying trucks, and it is something I find quite fascinating.

“I stayed there for two years, learning a lot about the business, dealing with customers, managing the stable, it was a turning point for me,” he said.

After leaving JK Horsetrucks, Vard started to do some freelance grooming and found that his experience as a rider was a big factor in being successful in the role. “When you have an eye as a rider yourself, you have more attention to detail and know what a rider would like in a groom.

“I had my truck license, that was another turning factor, and you can make nice money from freelance grooming,” he explained.

After some time freelancing, including a trip to the Dublin Horse Show, he took a job in Norway with a young amateur rider and stayed there for almost two years. “The first thing I did was build her a course of fences so we could have training show. This is a real passion of mine, as you can see.

“Then I decided I wanted to go more into the higher level of the sport so I went to Bertram Allen’s, and this is when my grooming career really sparked. I was the show groom for Jack Dodd. We did everything from two-star shows to the bigger Nations Cup shows. It was when he was peaking, and I was his side-kick,” Vard said of his friend, the late Jack who tragically passed away after a car accident in June 2018 aged 25.

“It was Jack that pushed me to take the big job [with Fuchs].”

Becoming a champion

Since joining Martin Fuchs’ team in late 2016, both Vard and Fuchs have shot into the limelight. You could argue that Vard is just as well-known as the rider who won gold at the 2019 European Championships, and silver at the world championships in 2018, and started 2020 as world number one.

“Since the day I stopped riding myself, I had the a model that if I can’t make it as a rider, I want to help a rider get to the top.

"Hand on heart, I feel I have played a part in helping Martin. From managing the horses, driving them to shows, flying them across the world…and I am quite proud of that. I cannot count how many five-star Grands Prix we have won together,” he said.

Fuchs of course in most famous for his gold medal-winning mount Clooney. The 14-year-old gelding, who he rode in Rio, achieved the following results in 2019 – winner of World Cup qualifier in Basel, winner five-star Grand Prix at WEF, second in World Cup Final in Gothenburg, winner of the FEI European Championships in Rotterdam, winner of the World Cup qualifier in Lyon, third in the GCT Super Grand Prix in Prague, winner of the Rolex Grand Prix in Geneva.

That roll of honour alone accounts to just shy of €1 million in prize money, while the pair were also part of the Global Champions League-winning London Knights team, pocketing a share of the €2.3 million prize money won by the team. Vard, who shares snippets of the grey on his social media pages, keeping his fans up to date, was at every single show with the horse.

And Fuchs is not a one horse wonder. The 13-year-old stallion Chaplin won five-star Grands Prix in Estoril and Madrid in 2019, and other big five-star results came aboard The Sinner, Silver Shine, Chica BZ, and others.

What stands out as the highlight for Vard? “The gold medal was great, but almost more so the silver medal at WEG [in 2018]. The gold medal was so deserved but the silver was quite special because the horse nearly passed away a few months prior from colic.

“The gold was almost expected,” he said with confidence. “In my eyes, he is the best horse in the world, with one of the best riders in the world, so there is no reason we don’t go there [to Rotterdam] to win. I am very proud that we got to number one in the world too.”

Vard and Fuchs have a close relationship and are similar in age (Vard turns 29 in June). “We get on very well…well, we are in each other’s face for four years now so we know when it’s time to walk away,” he says with a laugh.

“We think a lot alike. I know his system, he trusts me, we have a good laugh and a joke and both want to win as much as each other so it’s nice when we can celebrate a good result. He is still young, as a rider and a professional he is quite mature, but at the end of the day he is still quite young, becoming European Champion at 27!”

Modern-day grooming

Vard has sacrificed a ‘normal’ life by dedicating himself to horses at the top of the sport. The job is relentless and requires mental strength. As Fuchs’ only show groom, he travels to every show, meaning a lot of driving around Europe.

“It is a lot of hard lot work, a lot driving during the nights, a lot of missed sleep during the week, and travelling from show to show. It is almost impossible to explain but this career is not for the faint-hearted.

“Modern-day grooming has changed so much but the distances will always stay the same. In the past, grooms still had to drive 10,000km during the night but the chances are they had an easy week the following week.

“When you have a string like we do, you are week after week on the road, it is relentless. There were times, last year alone, when we did 17 weeks in a row, and I think it was almost all five-star shows, it’s no joke. Mentally you have to be so strong, and physically it can be tough too; days on days without proper night sleeps.”

And how does he manage with driving for long periods of time? “Everyone knows their limits. A lot of riders choose to have two show grooms, but I am motivated to do everything myself. I have to keep everything legal with the tachograph, which can be tricky at times!

“You have to plan weeks in advance. One week we could be in Helsinki and then the south of France the next week, so you have to organise stopover stables, vet certificates, ferries, trains and so on.”

Fuch’s stable is less than 10 minutes from his teammate and friend Steve Guerdat, and the pair will often double up and share the travelling depending on the show schedule.

“Trips that have been logistically impossible, we have managed to make it work but doubling with with Emma [Uusi-Simola, Steve’s groom] to share the driving. After Geneva last year, we had to be in London Olympia on Tuesday morning for the vet check. To make that work, a second truck came from home to Geneva with the London horses.

“So two hours after winning the Rolex Grand Prix, I would much rather be in a bar celebrating but I was 100km into the trip to London and this was planned weeks in advance to make that timeline.

“Planning is my strong point. I am a perfectionist. I like to know a few weeks in advance, when I leave, when I arrive. It can be difficult with modern day sport, anything can happen. I can’t control the horses, but once I have my general time, my truck packed and I leave on time, it normally works out me,” he said.

Future plans

Does he have any advice for a young person looking to get into professional grooming? “It is a life-sucking job! You need to be 100% committed to it, start at the bottom and work your way up. And you need a bit of luck too, to work with the right people and get a good chance.”

For the last two years, Team Fuchs have travelled to the Winter Equestrian Festival in Florida for some or all of the season in Wellington. “It’s much easier to have a normal live over there,” Vard said. “You can’t go to the restaurant without seeing someone you know, but I do enjoy the life over there, with a big group of friends.

“You finish early in the day and can do things in the evening. We are still there to win money and do the same thing as we do at home, but there is a little bit more down time.”

Getting home to Dublin isn’t always the easiest. “I don’t get home as much as I should, my mother will agree. When you give 100% in this sport for the results, when you are addicted to it, it is hard to find a week off.

“The only time I get a week off really is when we have a last-minute cancellation of a show, I might book a flight home. And I did get home for the last two Christmases,” he added.

With no shows currently happening due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Vard is confined to the yard in Switzerland, but is putting his past life to good use by repairing the national show lorry lamp. In terms of what the future holds, he is not looking past the rescheduled Tokyo Olympic Games for now. “I arrived just after Rio and Tokyo was very much the goal. We have medalled at everything else – the Europeans, Worlds, World Cup final, Super Grand Prix…

“The family farm is at home and this will play a major factor in what I do I suppose. I still haven’t decided what the future holds but I am still living the dream.

“Anything is possible! I feel fortunate to have many options, close relationships and such a passion for everything about the sport from logistics to event planning. But we want to win a gold medal in Tokyo first!”

That is the dream.