6^th of February. Things that have happened over the past 5 weeks have finally landed with me and I have finally come to terms myself with what just happened. 

When I said that we were going to take over the world with HAY, I didn’t actually think it was possible. I knew we’d give it a good go, but I didn’t think it was actually possible. 

To Shane McCarthy, I want to say thank you. Thank you for listening to me when I was at one of the lowest points I’ve been in quiet a while over Christmas just gone. Thank you for helping me set the foundations to get this where it is today, just over a month later. You spoke exceptionally on national and local radio stations, something I wouldn’t trust myself to be able to do. Without you, I would never have been able to get this to where it is now and your guidance and support has always and forever will be massively important to me.

To Brendan Murphy, I want to say thank you. We have been close acquaintances since I started pushing myself to get involved with my dream of making racing my career, but became great friends since writing for The Grassroots Gazette. You were the first person to start the ball rolling with getting the governing bodies together along with Mystic Mac and helped start creating history. Without you playing your part there is a good chance that history would not have been made the way it did. 

To Zoe Smalley, I want to say thank you. Without you, I would never have been able to approach some of the people you did and get the video messages of support from some of the greatest to ever grace the game we love. Seeing heroes of mine such as Tony McCoy, Rachael Blackmore, Paul Townend and Willie Mullins supporting the cause I thought of really meant the world to me. While going through grief I hope I never have to ever experience pursuing a training career, Myself and everyone involved in the campaign are incredibly thankful for all the effort you have put in to make this all happen. I am sure Jack is looking down on the incredible work you have done and continue to do and is incredibly proud.

To James Maher who put the video together, I want to say thank you. You are incredible, simply incredible. That video went viral for one simple reason, Your incredible work. None of us would even come close to coming up with something so powerful. We had the raw materials, but without your incredible talent of collaborating something so incredible this campaign would have fallen by the way side. So a massive, massive thank you is deserved for your incredible work.

To all the guests who joined us during Equestrian Mental Health week I want to thank you. It came at a perfect time for me but I’m sure it was timed perfectly for so many of you reading this. I was having “a week” as Muireann O Toole so famously put it. I took so much from every one of you and merging all the advice put together I am really putting in the effort to seeing the world in a more positive light for me now. Every single one of you was fantastic. Aoife, Eadaoin, Helen, Muireann, Leo and Katie. Not to mention all the guests on the Equitas page and interviews which I missed on The Grassroots Gazette. Each and every one of you deserves a massive thank you.

To the Grassroots Writers, I want to say thank you. Thank you for getting behind the campaign like you did with the work you have all put in. The articles, videos, podcasts, the whole shebang. My phone has been set alight between The Grassroots Gazette and Equitas alike. The whole month has just been mad, from start to finish. Social media has completely and utterly blown up since this whole thing started and it’s all down to the work from you. 

To the ladies at Equitas, there is way too many of you to all list but I want to say thank you. Thank you for coming into collaboration and being a massive part of this Mental Health movement. Thank you for the videos, the messages, the chats when I needed them and everything in between. I could start thanking an extremely long list of people, but the last thing I want to do is to do that and leave out one or two which I am very liable to do with my head like a sieve. Ye know who ye are, anyway. To each and every one of you, I want to say Thank You.

To Colin Clarke, I want to say thank you. I know we only met at the start of the month but you have been instrumental in the launch of this. Without you, we’d have never reached RTE, we’d never have the opportunities for the future and while going through your own grieving process, you showed unbelievable and incredible character to push this campaign further than I ever thought it would. I don’t know how you did it while going through the grieving process of losing a friend through suicide, but you are incredible. We could never have grown this without you, so thank you.

To the wonderful lecturers and students at Kildalton, not forgetting Davy Russell and JJ Slevin. Monday the 23^rd of January is a day I will never forget. As much of a shock it was, it meant the world to me to see all my friends, my idols and the people who have thought me all I know today turn out in the pissings of rain to show me the support that you did. There’s a lovely photo I have saved and will frame when I get my chance to be able to cherish the wonderful friendships I have struck up among each and every one of you. A massive thank you to Ciara Hurley and Kate Solon for organising it, along with everyone else who turned out.

To Peter Roe, I want to say thank you. You made all of us incredibly welcome on the 25^th and went above and beyond on the day. The same goes for the team at Gowran Park and Leopardstown Racecourses. I know from my own personal experience as I couldn’t make both Gowran and Leopardstown that Peter Roe left a lasting impression on me. Peter, you have no idea the pride I had to see a race named after our campaign on the 25^th. I know Muireann has plenty of photos that she took of me completely engrossed in the race! But it was a pride I hadn’t felt in years. Not since my cheffing days. So thank you for everything you did throughout the day. Not taking anything from the Gowran Park or Leopardstown experiences from the rest of the team! But for someone who experienced what I did at Fairyhouse, I want to say thank you. 

To two people who you all haven’t met but have had an extremely important influence on my life.

To Danny Lynch, my former boss in my last job as a chef. Thank you for everything you have done throughout my life. Thank you for the countless nights you spent on suicide watch with me after Grants passing. Thank you for the consistent shoulder to cry on when I lost everything from having it all in a matter of seconds. Thank you for being the friend I needed when I tried to drive everyone away because I felt it was what I deserved. And thank you for sending me to get help when I needed. You walked in at the right time as I was ringing my mother to tell her I loved her and it wasn’t her fault. I look back on that time now and wonder what in God’s name was going through my head. Thank god you did. Without everything you did I wouldn’t be here to think of this campaign. Without you pushing me to seek help I would never have got it. You even cut down the clothes line outside the apartment because I was so mentally unstable I would have attempted something I instantly regretted. As mad as all that sounds, it is all true. I wouldn’t be here to pursue a positive mental health campaign without the persistence of Danny Lynch to get me to pursue my own. So a massive, massive thank you goes to Danny Lynch.

There leaves only one person left to thank. Grant. It is safe to say the two of us have been to hell and back! The 16^th of June 2019 was the worst day of my life. Physically, I lost one of the people in my life that mattered the most. A lad who would run through walls to make sure I was happy. Spiritually I never lost my best friend. I know you’ve never believed in the hocus pocus nonsense in your own words. I know you believed that as soon as you’re gone, you’re gone. I know now you’re not. I know you’ve always been right by my side. Through all my struggles mentally trying to come to terms with your sudden passing, you’ve been right here. Through the brief period where I’ve gone through family problems, you’ve been right here. Through the struggles of having to run away from home for months on end, you’ve been right here. And going through everything the past month, you’ve been right here. To put everything into context, I had to leave my home for a few months. I didn’t want to, but I had to. I had a roof over my head but I felt homeless if that makes sense. I didn’t want to be where I was and I couldn’t go back home. I then get a call, Ciara Hurley from Kildalton. You’ve been accepted into the stud course. Even after all I’ve gone through, all I’ve had to overcome, I know that was a sign from you to say you were by my side. When I got into Charlestown with Ciaran Murphy after spending months looking for a job in racing, I knew that was a sign from you to say you were by my side. And now that I’m in Tinnakill Stud, and flying it. I know when I pass by your house each morning and ask you to be by my side I know you happily oblige. 

I will eventually write a book about Grant. I’m just not ready yet. Every day I put something together piece by piece every time. By the time I reach 30 I will hopefully release it. Hard to believe its only four and a half years away but it will be 8 years without him. His passing changed my life for what I thought at the time was going to be for the worse. But my god has he made me a better man today.

Grant, there is not a single day goes by without me thinking of you. I know wherever you are you’re looking over me with every move I make with pride. That, for me is all I could ever ask for. You have, as long as I knew you and always will be forever more a massive part of who I am now, what I’ve become from where I once was and what I will be in the near and distant future. No matter how bleak or dark my perception of life was at different points in my life over the past 3 and a half years you have always watched over me and guided me on the right path. For this, no thanks will ever be enough to repay you. But keep looking over me and helping me on the way. 

The HAY Campaign is not stopping now. We’ve gone a little quieter just to try and figure out where we go from here. But once we know we will be hungrier than ever to strive for success in our goal to better the attitude towards a more positive mental attitude among the equine and agriculture industries. We are not stopping here. As the saying goes, its time to make HAY while the sun shines!

Thank you all.

Shane x