Honorary father of the squad Austin O'Connor is ready for fourth Olympics

8 July 2024; Austin O'Connor during the Team Ireland Paris 2024 team announcement for Equestrian at The Crowne Plaza Hotel in Blanchardstown, Dublin. Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

At the time that Grace Davison was celebrating her very first birthday, the Irish three-day eventer Austin O’Connor was already competing at his second Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008. Well, not Beijing exactly. The Chinese organising committee had moved the equestrian competitions to Hong Kong where O’Connor helped Ireland to an eighth-place finish in the team event.

Aged just 16, the Co. Down freestyle swimmer Davison is the youngest member of the Irish team in Paris. O’Connor, who turns 50 in December is the honorary father of the squad and will be competing at his fourth Olympic games on his talented grey gelding, Colorado Blue. The partnership has been in fine recent fettle and with a fair wind and some luck in running will have a solid shot at a podium finish.

The tale of O’Connor’s journey to his fourth Olympics is written in the same storybook of most Irish people who reach the summit of excellence in horse sports. Born and raised near Mallow in north Cork, his parents produced and traded sport horses and his equestrian immersion was early and deep. He was hunting on ponies from a young age but although hailing from an epicentre of thoroughbred racing, equestrian sports were always his main focus.

“I spent some time with (national hunt trainer) Michael Hourigan at his stable down in Limerick many moons ago,” he says, “it was before the Beef or Salmon days. It was a great experience and Michael is a great man, but I always knew the path that I wanted to follow.” 

His competitive breakthrough as an eventer came when he was part of the ‘young Ireland’ team that won a gold in Germany when he was 19. He then decided that his career objectives would be accelerated by relocating to Cornwall to join the operation run by a Dutch rider he had met on the international circuit. He’d originally intended to remain in England for a winter, he is now into his thirtieth year and counting.

“I went to England, 29 years ago,” he continues. “I initially worked for a Dutch family called Wiegersma in Cornwall. Even though I had some experience in Ireland I started at the bottom again. I worked hard and bided my time and opportunities began to come."

O’Connor spent four fruitful and educational years with the Wiegersma’s, developing both his talents in the saddle and his business acumen. He struck out on his own, setting up his stables Worcestershire on New Year’s Day, 1999. Success came swiftly.

He handled a mare called Simply Rhett for a friend and supporter Eugene McKenna who he rode to an excellent fourth place at Badminton six-months later and around the same time, he was sent the nine-year old gelding named Horsewear Fabio owned by prominent Dundalk businessman, Tom McGuinness. Fabio’s ability to jump obstacles was unimpeded by having a diminutive twelve-hand pony grandmother in the gene pool and he was good enough to take him to the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

“Every Olympics I have got to have been different,” says O’Connor. “Sydney was an unbelievable experience for me. We were in the village and did the opening and closing ceremonies -the whole works. I was lucky at that time I had just set up my own business in the UK. The first horse that came to me when I set up my own enterprise was Fabio. Sydney gave me a great break and we set up a great partnership. It was a surreal experience and looking back I don’t think I appreciated it as much as I should have.” 

Fabio was sadly lost to a suspected heart attack at the European Championships at Punchestown three years later but despite this setback O’Connor’s career and business continued to thrive and he nurtured trusting relationships with several well resourced and knowledgeable owners. A chestnut gelding called Hobby Du Mee who provided him with a second trip to the Olympics in 2008 and his current star pupil, Colorado Blue, was his mount in Tokyo in 2021.

“The Beijing competition was actually in Hong Kong,” explains O’Connor, “but that was just equestrian events and you didn’t get the whole Olympic experience, so to speak. Tokyo was obviously during the covid times and as I went in as a late reserve, drafted in at the last minute, I wasn’t actually in the village, I spent all my time in a hotel.” 

This year in Paris the equestrian team will again be apart from the epicentre of the games with the eventing competition taking place in Versailles, an hour west of the capital.

“It will be more like a normal equestrian competition because we are staying in Versailles,” says O’Connor, “which is too far out from the village and we won’t get to the opening ceremony because we are competing the following morning. I’m sure it will have an Olympic feel, but we’re not at the heart of it. This will probably be sad for some people but I’ve been lucky enough to experience all angles of it so I’m not too upset about it. But after Sydney, China and Tokyo I’m really excited by it, it’s like a home Olympics and it’s a lot less complicated logistically.” 

Colorado Blue arrived in his life through his long association with the renowned producer, Kate Jarvey, who is also based in North Cork. He recognised early on that the handsome grey was laden with talent and potential. His problem was that his role is to produce and develop horses so that they can be sold on profitably. His solution was to form a syndicate with some associates to buy Colorado Blue, or ‘Salty’ as he is known to his friends.

“I’ve had him from the beginning, he was bred by Kaye Jarvey who’s been an owner of mine for over 20 years. I broke and produced him. Her normal process was to keep the mares and sell the geldings. But this lad had something special as a five-year-old and I thought that ‘’d hate to lose him but it was my job to sell him and that’s fair enough. But I was lucky enough to be able to put a syndicate together and that’s how we retained him. We had no way of knowing then he’d go to two Olympics but we knew we’d have a lot of fun with him.” Now fifteen, Salty is at the height of his powers and seems to be peaking just in time for Paris.

Last year he carried O’Connor to third place at Badminton, Irelands first podium finish there since the renowned racehorse trainer, Jessica Harrington finished in the top-three over forty years ago. The partnerships scaled went on scale even greater heights when they when they won a first ‘five-star’ event in Maryland, a first top level victory for the Irish in fifty-eight years.

What does he believe are Salty’s greatest qualities?

“He had great quality, great blood. Of course, you never know how far any of them are going to go, but he always wanted to do his job, he had great heart and looked to have enough ability at that stage to be a successful horse. The more we did with him the stronger he got and the more he improved,” says Austin O’Connor. With the passion and enthusiasm of a sixteen-year-old