Kathy McMullan
I live in Dromore, Co Down and I was born and reared in Downpatrick. From I was three years of age, I had my first pony - a wee Shetland called Crocus. My eldest sister would have show jumped. I jumped ponies until I was about 16 - I wouldn't have been hugely successful, to be honest, but I had a great interest. Then boys and life took over, and after a number of years my daughter Kayleigh came along. My parents still stayed involved with show jumping ponies and would have had people riding for them. My daughter immediately showed an interest in ponies. She got her first one at two and a-half.
Kayleigh was riding ponies for different folk and she was riding a pony at the RDS doing the working hunter. Aaron McCusker was very much into the showing at that stage. He is at the Meadows Equestrian Centre in Lurgan, Co Armagh and Kayleigh went over there for lessons when she was about 11 or 12. During the summer holidays, Kayleigh would have spent days there and I got to know them fairly well. I would have gone over and watched the show jumping. One day they came to me and said 'instead of sitting there, do you want to help out?' I said absolutely. So, 12 years later, I am still there doing starter for the show jumping.
I do love it. I was there every weekend every year along with my own work as a social work assistant in physical disability in the Portadown area. I also help out in a dementia unit as well in the evenings and I'm doing a part-time degree in History and Politics through the Open University, with one year left to go. I just faced a wee bit of burn out and backed off a wee bit, but am back to loving it again. It is weekend work. For example, we had the RDS pony and young rider qualifiers on Saturday and Sunday there. It was great. It runs really well and I enjoy it, and I've made so many friends at the Meadows.
Kayleigh is now a groom in Ballyward Equestrian and has been there a year. When she was 18/19 she went to Holland and groomed out there for a year. She came home and did a normal job for six or seven years and just got back into grooming last year. Kayleigh is very happy in her job and is treated very well, but the grooms in general do work long hours and wouldn't get great pay. To be fair, at a show it is usually the grooms that keep the professional riders right and keep them on track as to where they should be.
It just came into my head about a groom standing in a queue in the canteen at the Meadows and the queue being very long. As I'm working, and have to get back for classes, I can queue jump but grooms don't have that luxury and they don't have the time to stand in the queue or to come away from the stables or away from their trucks. I thought about keeping coffee, tea and bottles of water at the starter's box and even just charge 50p to cover costs. I talked it over with Kayleigh and I sent messages out to riders, to yard owners, and grooms, and asked for their view. The response I got was unbelievable with plenty of comments about grooms being recognised. Then one groom in particular, who I have known for years and who has a very good employer, gave the response 'thank you so much Kathy for thinking about us. I would love to be able to get a cup of coffee at a price I can afford and not have to wait for ages for it'. That broke my heart. I talked it over with Hugh McCusker, the boss of the Meadows, and he was happy enough to let me do it.
Horses and Grooms after morning exercise at Gordon Elliott's stables© Photo Healy Racing
It just really escalated from there. I set up The Grooms Group which is a Facebook page for grooms working in any discipline across Ireland and horse racing grooms are very much welcome to join. It has been going about six weeks now and I don't know how it grew the way it did. Whenever people were coming over to me and saying it was brilliant, it gave me a wee bit of confidence, so then other ideas came into my head in relation to getting grooms discounts. I work in the health service and we have the Blue Light Card and that covers you all throughout the UK for discounts at Asda and New Look among many other places. I wanted to do something for grooms, so I've been able to obtain the following discounts:
TRI Equestrian (NI) - 20 per cent off own brand and 10 per cent off other brands.
10 per cent off at Omagh Equestrian.
A significant one was Bovean Accounting which is 20 per cent off for self-assessment tax returns/account services for self-employed or freelance grooms.
20 per cent off Tux and Tails which is a men's formal or occasion wear shop in Dungannon, Co Tyrone.
There are a couple more in the pipeline including one in the Republic of Ireland.
We had a launch day at the Northern Ireland Horse Board show at the Meadows on Sunday 16th June and it went really well. I contacted a lot of people that I know and we had some really good prizes. It was about promoting the membership as well. The membership of this group is £20/€20 per year and I'm just keeping it at that rate for this year to see how it gets on. It will be reviewed next year. The big thing for me is the training. It was Joanne Sloan Allen (professional show jumper) who said that so many young girls and boys coming into the industry as a groom don't have a full picture of the role. Therefore, retention levels are very low. The first piece of training will be online, I have connections in America and we are going to do online training and the first one will be free to see how people take to it. We are aiming for the first week in September. In-person training will then take place throughout Ireland. I have secured venues in Antrim and Armagh and I'm working with a couple of venues in the Republic of Ireland at the minute. We will also be looking at mental health, personal fitness and cost-effective nutrition.
It started as a wee bit of help for the grooms, however, this has taken over my life literally in six weeks. I do hope that it can connect grooms as I've made so many friends throughout the equestrian sector over the years. It is on Facebook (The Grooms Group) and there are details there on how to join. People who don't use Facebook can contact me at [email protected]
Kathy was in conversation with Michael Graham
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