Damien Griffin of Lissyegan Stables combines his love of farming with running a profitable show jumping business with the support of his family.

“I started a livery yard business when I was in fifth year in school by pure chance. My first pony happened to be a 14-hand racing pony, bought from Declan Glynn in Ahascragh. So I actually did pony racing for a year first. Then I started to fall for show jumping and we bought a Clover Hill pony, called Genor Clover from Eugene Brady. I won the Shannonside League on him that first year and qualified for Dublin the following year.

“For practice, I’d record the RDS every year and actually watch the videos the whole year round until the tapes broke. I’d compare the riders’ styles and listen to the commentators.

“Then because I had the racing pony, a neighbour gave me a pony to break and within a couple of months it escalated. My grand-uncle Paddy Griffin broke all the carthorses in the village. My father said that Paddy was a great horseman, so I suppose it skipped a generation.

“I got a very good reputation for taking hardy horses and while a full yard looked very good on paper, it wasn’t very profitable. The reality of it was you were working a lot of sales horses that weren't worth a lot of money. Then you’d feel bad and ended up taking money off the bill if the owner got a bad price for the horse. So you were out of pocket.

Turnaround

“We turned the business around in the last five years and tried to focus more on quality. Currently there are 30 horses in work, I’d say 14 of the 30 are owned by people in America, Belgium and Holland. Then we have a few very good Irish customers that I’ve been dealing with since I opened and they’re just as important.

“Celtic Hero Z was sold to an American rider, Heather Caristo-Williams, she’s just tipping away, doing small classes and hasn’t put any pressure on him yet. She also bought Mr Taylor B, a four-year-old by Aganix Du Seigneur, and I’m going to produce him here in Ireland for her.

“Another horse I had in Dublin, Ganesh Hero Z was sold to a syndicate in Belgium and Luc Henry and the syndicate have agreed that the horse can stay in Ireland to be produced until October. We only have four broodmares and all four are in foal to him, which goes to show how much I think of him.

“He’s going to the stallion show in the Emerald Equestrian Centre this Saturday, Andrea Etter has four stallions going up to it and I’ll ride Ganesh at it. Michael Doherty and Mark Bolger came up with the idea of holding the show which will showcase stallions to breeders. I think it’s a great idea for the top quality horses, similar to what they have in the likes of Belgium and Holland.

“I think a stallion show is a great idea because it’s important for breeders to see the type of horse. It’s easy to pick a stallion on paper but to actually see their conformation, bone and size, plus it gives a better idea as to what mare they’d suit.

Lambing season

“I absolutely love farming, I did two years in Mountbellew Agricultural College and if I wasn’t at horses, I’d be farming full-time. My fiancé Fiona Claffey and I have 35 ewes and 30 cattle. We buy calves and rear them ourselves on the buckets. We’re nearly finished with the lambing, we started lambing the second week of February, there’s 52 lambs so far and we’re down to four ewes left to lamb.

“Fiona works as a veterinary surgeon with Ollie Keane in his Cloghan Veterinary Clinic and she’s been very busy all weekend, between calving and lambing. She’s taking over the Lissyegan Stables administration side from me, so I can concentrate on the horses. We’re nearly on the road three days a week now, between schooling young horses, shows and the Spring Tour. Last Friday we were in Ralph Conroy's schooling four and five-year-olds. We brought nine horses, seven in the lorry and two in the horsebox behind the lorry.

“Micheál Mannion started here full-time in September 2017, so he’s been here 18 months now. He’s a brilliant young lad and a vital part of the team, he drives up and down every day from Roscommon. Then Reece Dougy Campion starts work here on Wednesday, he’s jumped up to 1.30m so he’ll be a good addition to the yard and so there’ll be three full-time riders this year.

“We’ve two whiteboards in the stable and we go through the list of horses on it on Monday morning planning for the week ahead and to make sure the horses are going somewhere.

“In my opinion there’s nobody working for anybody, we all work together in the stables. My uncle James is super, he cleans the stables and my uncle Owen built all the stable doors, he does any maintenance around the yard. Pat, Fiona’s dad, is a brilliant help. He drives down from Ferbane in his three-horse lorry to take extra horses to shows and takes his annual leave to go to Cavan and Millstreet shows with us.

“My father Thomas keeps us supplied with bales of haylage and mam Margaret was my biggest fan. She brought me all over the country when we were starting off with ponies. Dad was always busy with the farm so it was the two of us going off and realistically, we didn't have a clue about qualifiers but she made it her business to bring me everywhere. She was unbelievable.

“I don’t really remember the stallion parades in Ballinasloe Showgrounds but when I was a child, my parents would take us to watch the show jumping there. They used to hold the RDS qualifiers on the Green and I’d see Tom Slattery on Coille Mor Hill and Clover Brigade. I thought the fences were eight foot tall. That’s what turned me into wanting to do show jumping.

“I’d help my sister Caroline at Riding Club events, then my first job was tacking up ponies in Creagh Equestrian Centre on Saturdays. Before I went to agricultural college, I spent the summer working for Ralph Conroy. I was only there for three months but learned more there than going anywhere else for three years.

“I’d go home in the evening, turn on the lights in the arena and ride my own horses. My parents would have the stables done and put up the jumps for me every night. Then they bought my first horse Lissyegan Diamond Clover at Goresbridge. We did everything from Hickstead to winning the bareback Puissance in Ballinasloe five years in a row. My parents were fantastic, it’s all thanks to them.”