VINNIE? You could write a book on that man!” So says his son Alex, continuing the next chapter in the story about the Knockmore family.

Both Alex (30) and his younger brother Michael (24) are currently based on the continent, although all is quiet on the competition front there too, due to Covid-19 restrictions. Another key team member is their older brother Martin, who frequently travels abroad to support the pair.

“Without question, we’re all each other’s biggest supporters in every way. Martin helped me so much when I was in ponies. He’d school my ponies and train me, then I’d train Michael in turn. I was very lucky with the ponies I got after Martin.

“I’d some serious 12.2s; Parkmount Blue Boy and Turbo Boy, brilliant ponies. Martin had won at Millstreet and Dublin with them and I’d another really good 13.2 called Liam Gallagher.”

Moving abroad to gain experience and find horsepower is a near rite of passage for many Irish riders after stepping up from ponies. “When I came to Europe, I was a bit further on at that stage. I had good people and horses, so I didn’t really need to move away when I was younger.

"I never intended to move, it just happened. I’d already ridden at senior Nations Cup level when I was at home. That was partly my dad and how motivated he was with the whole business, always trying to get good horses for us.

“We also had very good people around, like Tiernan Gill for example. He had a very, very good horse called Flogas Ucorado B and he held on to that horse for me to ride. We had Sean Murphy’s Murchu, he started with me and Sean was always another great supporter, he held on with that horse too.

“Then there was Courtown, who I rode in my first Nations Cup. Conor and Susan O’Shea came on board and bought a half share, so that I could hold on to him. I found myself in the position that I didn’t need to move away for horses and I was getting a lot of help from the professional lads at home."

Alex Duffy and Courtown winning the Grand Prix in Cavan in 2009. Alex made his senior Nations Cup debut on the horse

“Conor Swail and Barry O’Connor helped me a lot when I was younger in Ireland, then I spent quite a lot of time with Shane Breen, who rode World Cruise, when he was based at home in Tipperary and then in Hickstead.

“When I did my first Nations Cup [Zagreb in 2008], Padraic Geraghty, along with Robert Splaine, was often our Chef d’Equipe. I remember Padraic bringing us off on teams and was always on our case for getting us to shows, he was a great help too.”

Four-year stopover

Back in 2011, when he was looking for a stopover between shows in France and Norway, Alex thought of phoning family friend Carl Hanley, who had then recently moved to Germany. “I didn’t want to go all the way back to Ireland so I rang Carl to see if he had stables. I was supposed to stay for 10 days and I ended up staying for four years!

“Myself and Carl hit it off, that was the time that Cameron [Hanley] got injured. He had his horses based in Carl’s place, so originally I said I’d stay on to help out for a couple of weeks while Cameron was hurt.

“We decided to give it a go, the two of us together in business. I kept two horses of my own but for the most part, the horses belonged to Carl. It was never planned. It wasn’t as if I wanted to live in Europe, it just all kind of fell into place.”

Did he master the German language? “I figured out the menus fairly fast!”

Alex stayed on at Carl’s yard in Osnabrück in northwest Germany until 2015. “Then I moved on, I always had it in my head that I wanted to set up my own business and place. I spent a year with Bertram because at that time, he had started to do the bigger shows.

“He’d been to WEG the year before with Molly Malone and had a bunch of younger horses to bring on. I had my own yard and a couple of my own horses, then at the start of 2016, I set up my own business, not far from Bertram, near Dusseldorf.”

The link between Alex and Kildare man Niall Talbot began then. “You have to surround yourself with good people. When I started my own business, Niall sent me horses to ride straightaway in 2016 and it kind of went from there.

“Myself and Niall have been working together since 2016 so this is our fourth year of working together. For the first three years, I had a yard in Germany, then I moved to Switzerland at the end of November 2018 because Niall has a fantastic place with really good facilities.”

That yard in Gempelen, 90 minutes from either Zurich or Geneva airports, is 775 kilometres south of his first European base at Carl Hanley, where his younger brother Michael is now based. From Carl to Bertram and Niall, his current business partner, Alex is quick to credit them all for their role in him building up his own business.

“Niall has done it all himself, he’s ridden at the highest level, won Grands Prix and won big classes in Oliva at the back end of last year. He has a great eye for a horse, he’d always, always have quality horses and has sold horses at every level. You won’t meet better on the road than him.”

Best laid plans

Any commercial yard seesaws from competing a horse at top level to keeping a yard afloat. “There’s a lot of dealers and dealing riders, they love selling horses. Like myself we live from it. We live from buying and selling horses. There’s that side of it.

“As a sportsman, I want to do the sport and go to the highest level with that. The moment we get there, we may need to sell the horse for our business and for a living, but we also want to keep the horse to compete. It is trying to find a balance with that.”

“Does pedigree mean anything to me? Not really. I like to know the breeding of the horse because with certain lines you’ll see a lot of similar traits. I’d have one or two lines that I don’t like but that can just be the rider being unlucky and having two horses from a certain line that are not good horses or not good characters. It’s very easy then to think they’re all like that when they’re not.”

‘Luck’ is a word that crops up frequently speaking with both brothers and Alex is thanking his lucky stars his team of horses had travelled home before horse shows ground to a halt and strict cross-border travel restrictions were put in place.

“I was down in Oliva in January, I got three weeks there, then I was home for a couple of weeks and went to Valencia for two weeks. I just got home the week the shows started to get called off and was lucky enough the horses were already back in Switzerland.”

Alex Duffy and Fantastico

“It will be unreal to see where all the chips fall in the end,” he said, regarding the prospect of shows starting up again. “Pretty much all the businesses are closed here. The same guidelines are in place, like social distancing. Apart from the supermarkets and whatever is essential, pretty much everything is closed.”

What were his 2020 plans? “What I planned to do was spend the earlier part of the year with the younger horses trying to get them up the levels. I’ve very good nine- and 10-year-olds; Big Bang des Genets (Mylord Carthago) belongs to Denise Wilson. The 10-year-old is Killossery Konfusion, owned by Niall and Nicola FitzGibbon.”

Incidentally, the Irish Sport Horse Killossery Konfusion, bred by Frank and Laura Glynn, is by SIEC Livello, the same sire as Michael’s top horse, Lapuccino 2, and competed in his competition years by Cameron Hanley.

“I’d spent the first two shows getting them to do the bigger classes and then my plan was to go back to Oliva in April with those two horses and my older horses FTS Elliot (Cicero Z Van Paemel) and Fantastico (Flamenco de Semilly). I’d planned to start them in April, that was my plan but sure, that’s all on hold now.

“My favourite horses would have to be the ones I have at the moment; FTS Elliot and Fantastico B, he’s owned by Denise Wilson and Trish and David Dodd are involved with him as well, and Killossery Konfusion.”

Living the dream

Looking in the opposite direction, what are his career highlights to date? “I was on the Nations Cup team in 2009 at Lummen when we won, myself and Shane Breen, Billy Twomey and Denis Lynch. To ride with those three lads on that team and win a Nations Cup, that was a special day.

“Last year was a good year, I won two Grands Prix and a night that sticks out in my mind is when I was third in the Grand Prix at Amsterdam. That was with Cameron’s horse, Living The Dream. I rode that horse from when he was a five-year-old right the way through and that was the last night I rode him in Amsterdam.

Cameron Hanley and Living the Dream jumping in the Mercedes Benz Nations at CHIO Aachen in 2014. Alex Duffy produced the horse until he was nine

“I remember John Whitaker had won the Grand Prix with Argento, it was great to be in that company but it was more the fact of having brought the horse to that level.”

The Toulon gelding continued his career with Cameron and in fact, competed at the Longines Masters in Los Angeles that autumn. “He was fifth in the Grand Prix there,” recalls Alex. Coincidentally, his first Nations Cup horse, the Clinton gelding Courtown placed well in the two-star classes there with new American rider Karrie Rufer, including a win in the Accumulator class.

“Number one for me would be to be on a winning Aga Khan team,” Alex replied, when asked what his ‘living the dream’ ambition is. With the Duffy clan cheering in the grandstand? “Exactly!”

Both brothers are as affable and easy going as their father, Vinnie. “Being around my dad, he’d give you confidence at all times, he’s just that kind of character. My mum [Sandra] as well, that’s what it was like growing up. You were never in doubt about anything with Vinnie, there was always that positive energy about him.

“I’d always send him the videos when I’d be at a bigger show and he’d call you in the evening. Even when things were not going well, you’d come off the phone feeling better. The first thing he’d say is ‘You’re riding great’ and you’d say ‘But it didn’t go so well’ and he’d say ‘Ah, you’re nearly there,’ he’d always give you a great boost. He’s such a positive person, you can’t help but pick that up off him when you’re around him.”

Christmas bonus

Another person Alex and Michael look up to is Steve Hadley. “He had some feeling for show jumping. I remember one day watching and Marcus Ehning was riding. He jumped his round and Steve didn’t say anything, didn’t say a word and then at the end of the round, he said ‘Well, what can you say about that?’ He knew exactly when to talk and when not to,” Alex remarked about the commentary craftsman.

Vinnie had also mentioned in last week’s feature how his five-year-old Kaiden Leva WD is the subject of a light hearted bidding war between Alex and Michael over who competes the Kannan stallion in the future.

“I wouldn’t say no if he was coming my way! But the lad [Brendan Murphy] that’s on him at the moment is top class, he’s doing a masterclass with the horse. I think it would be very hard to think you’d do a better job than him. Brendan can push on and keep doing what he’s doing,” Alex said.

“I know my father is very fond of him and they get on very well together. Brendan is a talented lad. Anybody who’s been around my dad and puts in the hard work, they’ll always get opportunities. With a horse like Kaiden under him, he just needs to keep going.”

One opportunity presented itself at Christmas 2018. “Michael and I were home for Christmas. We got up one morning and I had my jodhpurs on and I said to Michael: ‘I’ll ride a horse or two, are you coming up to the yard?’ and he said ‘No, I’m going golfing with my friend Rory’.

“And I said ‘Fine’, rode a couple of horses in the indoor, including one I really liked called Gaslight VDL, owned by my dad and Alan Robertson.

“It ended up I took the horse to Switzerland. He’s still young but a very promising horse. We’d have very high hopes for him and think he’s going to be a 1.60m horse. Michael saw him last summer at a show and said ‘What’s that horse?’ I said ‘I got him off Vinnie. Remember the day you went golfing?

“Last Christmas, Michael was in the indoor every morning before me!”