Duffy the best in show

Duffy the best in show

Daniel Carey

FINALLY, many years after that famous Kerrygold advertisement, we may have an answer to that long-debated question: who’s taking the horse to France? The answer, it seems, is Alex Duffy, who has taken the equestrian world by storm of late. Fresh from his success at Hickstead, the young Knockmore man has been selected for the Irish team which will take part in this week’s Junior European Showjumping Championships.
Duffy finished second in the Speed Derby at the famous Sussex venue, just pipped at the post by Ellen Whitaker on Henri de Herne. Riding the chestnut-coloured Iris de Bateau, he successfully negotiated the qualifier before giving the main event a good crack. He went round in 103.58 despite two fences going down, in conditions so muddy that The Times compared the old arena to Glastonbury.
“I was tenth to go in the competition and there were 30 in it,” Duffy told The Mayo News. “I held the lead all the way through until the third last competitor. It was right to the wire, but she just snatched it from me in the end.”
The teenager also enjoyed victory in a national 1.20 competition on Lisboy Star, and took fourth in the 1.55 class on Courtown, a grey horse whom he rides in bigger competitions. All in all, his second year competing at Hickstead proved a weekend to remember.
“It’s a fantastic place, because there’s the main arena, and then there’s five or six outside arenas, which is where all the national competitions would be. It’s next to impossible to win anything there because there are horses from all over England and Ireland there. A lot of competitors travel from abroad. In the national competitions, there might be 200 in every class.”
Though disappointed to see the show in Ballina called off due to bad weather (“It would have been nice to jump on home ground again”), Duffy’s focus now moves to matters further afield. After last week’s National Balmoral Show, he heads to Auvers, France, for what is the Junior equivalent of the Nations Cup – the fulfillment of a long-held dream for the student at St Joseph’s Secondary School, Foxford.
“The plan at the start of the year was to get on that team, and I’ve been selected for that. I’ve been working towards that all year, planning for it. I’ll go to Millstreet in August as well and I’ll bring a lot of the younger horses there. I’ve neglected the young horses a bit because I’ve been away so much.”
Showjumping has already taken Duffy to four international shows this year – Auvers at the start of the year ‘just to get a feel of the showgrounds’ before the upcoming event; Compiegne in France, the Bonheiden two-star international in Belgium, and Hickstead. It sounds glamorous but he doesn’t get much opportunity for sight-seeing. After all, top-class horses don’t generally fly Ryanair. “It’s mostly driving,” he says of trips abroad. “Long drives. You get the boat to England, you drive through England and get the boat to France, and then you drive again.”
Drive is one thing Duffy certainly doesn’t lack. He comes from a family steeped in the equestrian tradition. His father Vinny owns World Cruise, whom Shane Breen described as the best horse he has ever ridden, while Iris de Bateau, Alex’s partner in crime at Hickstead, is owned by his mother Sandra. Their other children Samantha, Audrey, Martin and Michael have all been bitten by the show jumping bug, which is not surprising given that they have around 35 horses ‘in work’ and close to 100 animals on their land. Alex is sitting his Leaving Cert next year and after that, he would ‘like to have a go at the horses for a year or two anyway and see how that goes’. Having won the national Guidam Spring Tour a couple of months ago, he’s certainly positioning himself to have a crack at the big time. But he knows enough about the sport to realise that success doesn’t happen overnight.
“You have to be willing to put the work in and you have to be open-minded about it,” he comments. “You have to listen to a lot and take in as much as you can, and try and learn something from everybody. Thankfully a lot of the senior riders, like Shane Breen and Conor Swail, are very helpful.
“I’ve been around horses since the day I was born. I remember watching people riding in the Aga Khan on telly and watching them wearing the green jacket. It’s always been a dream to ride in the Aga Khan one day. I’d like to get on a Nations Cup team within the next year or two. To wear the green jacket in an international competition is nearly the biggest thing you could ask for.”
He might just get his wish