Trying to convince myself to never say never

In the summer of 2015, my brother gave a local farmer a dig out for about two months in total actually. From the time they started the spring ploughing and sowing until the first cut silage and hay was all done. Some 23 years after they had originally parted ways.

For me, this was as good as winning the Lotto. Getting to relive the most precious part of my childhood, except being older and being able to organise getting out to see a bit of  action and even getting out to see said action myself.

Anybody who has either been around me at any time over the past 40 years or read any farm related content in this space will know exactly who the individual in question is, and on the day in question, I made the point that I never thought I’d see the day when the brother would be back drawing silage.

But, as the wise man in the cap said to me that evening, “Never say never”. Remember that for later, it will be important later on.

We, that is to say myself, Paul and our late father, had started buying and selling a few cattle a couple of years beforehand. That in itself came about out of a combination of me having given up on the idea of owning a racehorse in my own right and dad being in ill health and in need of a lift.

Perhaps it’s just the way with farming, once you get back at it, expansion comes naturally. In this instance, that meant buying a few bits of machinery and rearing calves and even finishing cattle for Kepak.

Then, of course, the ar*e fell out of that operation due to circumstances agonisingly beyond my control, and I suppose, being the wrestless soul I am, always needing some target to aim at to make sure the wheels turning, the racehorse idea slowly crept back onto the radar.

Albeit with a different approach. Research was done into groups like Syndicates Racing and Closutton Racing Club and Elite Racing Club and the Million In Mind Partnership. But none of the above had anything to suit the budget I had, in my mind at least, to finance the ‘project’.

Being completely honest, I don’t actually know how I ended up on the Owners Group Racing website, but regardless, the unique service they provide is a God send for folks like me who wish to get into racehorse ownership without it costing an arm and a leg.

With the result that, having signed up to the Owners Group operation, shares are now held in five racehorses,  plus a broodmare and filly foal. All for less than it would take to keep a steed in training in Ireland for no more than a month. That doesn’t mean, though, that the hunger to have one here has been sated, by any means.

Swings and roundabouts. After another attempt to get a syndicate up and running close to home that had to be pulled up, things went full circle. In that farming and cattle crept back onto the agenda. As the opportunity presented itself to build a cattle shed. When it did, of course it was leapt at.

Could things just go straight for me with regard to such matters at once? Of course not. A clerical error on behalf of somebody in the Department Of Agriculture, Food and the Marine decreed that our herd number had entered dormancy, even though it was at least one more year until the dormancy policy becomes an issue.

Now, it will be admitted that what for another person might just be a bump in the road, could be a serious kick in the guts. Especially when the comfort or otherwise of one’s spirits can swing so erratically on the possibility – or lack thereof – of such things coming to fruition.

For the time being, the scale is tipped in favour of positivity. That said, the possibility of an equine investment close to home has not only not been taken off the agenda, alternative avenues by which it may be arrived at are currently being feverishly explored. When it comes to both of my lifelong dreams – to be farming and/or have a racehorse trained locally, it has now become a case of trying to convince myself to never say never… again.