This article is from page 35 of the 2007-05-29 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 35 JPG
AS the Hunt Season comes to a close this weekend, one north Clare trainer can look back at a very successful last few months over the fences. In his debut season as a trainer, Tub- ber’s John Staunton has made great advances, winning a number of com- petitions along the western seaboard from Cork up to Galway.
John has hunting in his blood, as both his father and grandfather schooled him in the art from a young age. With horses always around, it was no real surprise that the training came so naturally to him.
“We had a couple of thoroughbred. I started off with my own and then a couple of lads asked me to take on theirs. It started just a year ago so it
is happening very quickly,” he said.
“T ran two horses properly this year but I had a couple more getting them ready and a few breakers that prob- ably won’t run until the harvest. Pier Deal won the point-to-point up in Bellclare, which is up near Tuam and Volcanic Rock won down in Cork.
“The competition that Pier Deal won would have been against horses from all over Galway and Sligo, the competition in Cork was an open competition so any horse of the right age could enter. So there was good competition in both races. It’s hard to win any race with a horse.”
John has developed a technique for getting the best out of his horses by training them up in the heart of the Burren.
“It’s the same as any sport, you get
them as fit as you can. You start them off slowly, build them up and then get them as fit as possible. After that you school them, get them jumping fences. We try to school them in as many different places as we can. You could school them at home but the more places you go to the better. It smartens them up, makes them better able to tackle different situations,’ he Cr HTOR
“We would usually start off with the road work. About six weeks of road work and build it up from there. You can see when they are starting to get fit and then you need to go away to school them from there. The more places that you can get them schooled the better. There’s no point having them fit if they can’t jump.”
John is in the process of complet-
ing a number of new features at his stables including a walker, sheds and a two and a half furlong long glass gallop.
“It’s a all weather glass gallop for exercising the horses. Even around here the rock is too sheer, in the win- ter time the horses would be cutting into it and they might get injured. It’s about 2 1/2 furlongs all the way around it,” he said.
“It has been a big investment but if you are going at it you have to go at it right.