Cian O’Connor horse breeding company jumping to new heights
Olympic medalist Cian O’Connor’s horse breeding company last year cleared profits of €1.65m and is on course for another bumper year.
Last weekend, Mr O’Connor who won a bronze medal winner at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, accepted the ‘team of the year’ award at the RTÉ Sport Awards, on behalf of the Irish showjumping team, which won gold at August’s European Championships for the first time in 16 years.
Newly-filed accounts show his bloodstock business Ronnoco Jump Ltd, which is based at his Karlswood Stable at Tara, Co Meath, generated revenues of €8.6m in 2016.
The showjumper expects 2017 revenues to show an increase of around 60%. The company’s cashpile last year soared from €444,000 to €2.4m and Ronnoco had as of the end of 2016 accumulated profits of €3.75m.
“We are going well but we are reinvesting the profits back into the business by purchasing new stock and we hope to develop a centre of excellence over the next two years. The business is ever evolving,” said Mr O’Connor.
The business sold 22 show-jumping horses in 2016 with €2.3m paid for the most expensive horse.
“It’s often difficult to measure the success of the company over one year as perhaps a top horse took two or three years to develop so really the profits from those sales should be attributed to a number of years hard work,” said Mr O’Connor.
“That said, all parts of the business have been developing steadily over the past few years,” he said.
