I GREW up on a farm outside Athy in Co Kildare. Despite no huge family interest in matters equestrian, my calling from an early age was always to work and be around horses. With much pleading, my dad, Finbar, duly obliged. I think it’s an interest or even an affliction you are born with and can’t be without. As the old adage goes “There is something about the outside of a horse that is so good for the inside of man”.

Having trained with Gisela Holstein for a number of years, I then spent time in a yard on the Swiss-German border, where much emphasis was on behavioural issues and the retraining and rehabilitation of horses. I returned home to start my own livery, training and rehabilitation yard.