Into the West, Out of the East and Through the Midlands

By Laura Harrison McBride
Special to The Irish American Post

A tall, gaunt, beakey-nosed Anglo-Irish gentleman in top hat, canary breeches and a ripped and dirty red coat, a swale of muck on his derriere, cast his sharp, dark eyes about, looking for a groom. Two freckled boys led muddy ponies to the wash stall. Giggling little girls, too young to go hunting, held carrots and apples up to the snuffly lips of favorite horses, hugging close to feel the horses' sweet breath on their faces. Tweedy men and women gathered in small clumps, flushed and happy, after riding out Opening Day with the famous Galway Blazers.

The smell of those finest of Irish hunters, warm and wet in the afternoon sunlight of a perfect Saturday in October and the look of them, muscular and calm, their liquid eyes alert, ears perked toward the stalls where feed would arrive before long is the fabric of the Celtic longing for oneness with a horse. The soft nickering of animals being groomed, the rhythmic tap of metal shoes on cobbles, the tide of human voices recounting adventures over field and fence, is the stuff of Celtic dreams. But anyone can have it.

That day the hunt had included Mr. and Mrs. Michael Flannery, an American millionaire couple with a home in Ireland and one in Larkspur, Colo.; a couple of Anglo-Irish peers, including the one in ripped coat who had — as it happened — come off; a local teenager who claimed a hunt he'd been on in Chicago scared him half to death with riders clearing five-foot barriers (and hunt master Willie Leahy noting, later, that blarney was still an Irish national pastime), and every sort of character you thought only lived in Victorian fiction.

Willie Leahy's stable yard sits hard by the road between his ancient, restored house and the new indoor arena. From October through March, horse boxes are sandwiched between them, while hunt members and visitors gallop the west of Ireland in search of fun more than fox. Leahy himself owns an impressive 300 to 400 head of horses at a time, say some.

So when Leahy, at the Opening Hunt party, asked me what sort of horse I liked, I thought he was sure to have one. I said I'd always wanted a big gray.

"I've got a four-year-old mare," he said. "Nice hunter. A bit green. But scopey." He took us — after a couple of hot whiskies — out to his indoor arena and had a young man trot out the mare. She lopped round the arena, and, as would have been written in the Irish R.M. books, she "was a great one for the leppin'’" clearing a four-foot oxer without a hint of a bascule. In short, she was steady and smooth enough, even untrained, for a novice rider to clear an Irish fence in an Irish field in relative safety. No wonder, I
thought, all the Irish can ride. I wished I could have packed her in my suitcase.

Another Blazer is Michael Joyce, a university professor who owns a small riding establishment of his own, beyond the seaside guest lodgings of Salthill and round the bend on the road to Bearna. The bayside drive to get there reveals a couple of small, rock-fenced paddocks with horses’ hairy heads gazing seaward, seemingly as enchanted with their lot as the people living up above.

At Joyce's Rusheen Riding Center, an instructor gives lessons, and horsy teenage girls lead beach rides on his favored "hairy" horses, Shires and Shire crosses, gentle giants with feathered fetlocks, dinner-plate-sized feet snow-shoeing over the mucky soil at the edge of Galway Bay. The air, fragrant with the warm, wood-tinged smell of a stable and the tingly salted breezes seems to make placid horses, even with minimal turnout on sea-toughened grass.

Far to the east, in manicured flatlands near the Irish Sea, Castle Hill Equestrian Center offers a different sort of Irish horse experience. Said Anne Stanley, manager and dressage instructor of international repute, "You'll find the horses on this side of the country every bit as good as those in the west, but a bit different. We have more thoroughbreds here, while they have more Connemara crosses. It has partly to do with the landscape. They need the heavier-boned horses to deal with the hillier, rockier land, and the less forgiving barriers they jump over. They have rocks, where we have hedges."

In October, the Castle Hill horses are already blanketed, turnout rugs protecting the tender thoroughbred skin from rising damp. Still, the pampered horses are hardy, too. Castle Hill enjoys several adjacent fox hunts and the Ward Union Staghounds, one of only two stag hunts in Ireland.

The other side of Dublin, there's yet another variation on the Irish horse theme: Calliaghstown Riding Centre, run by Grainne Sugars, former junior Irish three-day event champion. Sugars runs the popular Wicklow Trail Ride to the ancient monastery at Glendalough, as well as teaching at her riding center.

In the United States, she noted, most amateur riders ride professionally trained horses. Not in Ireland. Said Sugars, "We don't usually get a lot of 'made' horses to ride. For decades, we have been in the business of breeding and selling horses out of the country. That being the case, we have a lot of young horses to train for sale, and that's what a lot of our students ride. As a result, they learn to 'sit tight' and communicate with a lot of very different horses."

Her advice to American riders in Ireland? "Underestimate your skill and experience when you come to us. Then you won't suffer from being overmounted and have a bad time." But Sugars did like American riders for one reason. "I think American riders in general are very elegant, and I wish our riders could have more opportunity to develop that way."

Eddie Macken, the most elegant of Irish showjumpers and his great horse, Boomerang, were trained not far from Sugars' place, by the grande dame of Irish showjumping, Iris Kellett. Macken rode for Kellett at what is now Kill International Equestrian Centre in Kildare. Today, Kill specializes in certifying horses for the Irish sport horse studbooks, as well as training riders.

And Kellett has gone on to become president of the Association of Irish Riding Establishments. She has also opened a smaller, but perfect, semi-private farm, Daffodil Lodge. There, a few select students wander into her spacious sun-room for tea, and her beloved horses loll huge heads over their half-doors, waiting for the venerable world-class rider to give them a bit of carrot and a pat on their big, flat cheeks.

When You Go:
Most Irish riding establishments are more than willing to accommodate the desires of guests. They ask only that you bring proper riding clothes (no red coats, though, to hunt as those are worn by certain hunt members only) and a good helmet. Above all, tell the trainer, instructor or hunt master what level of skill you have attained, and be accurate.

Irish riding masters have nothing against beginners and can tailor a good experience on a nice, safe horse. Or, if you truly are an advanced rider, they've got the green or demanding mounts to give you some pleasure, too. And with a nation full of horses, they've got everything in between.
 

Following is contact information for the riding establishments included above:   Aille Cross Equestrian Center (also Galway Blazers), Willie Leahy, Loughrea, Co. Galway, Phone: 091-841216 or email tct@tinet.ie Rusheen Riding Centre, Michael Joyce, Blakes Hill/Gentian Hill, Salthill, Co. Galway, Phone: 091 521285 Calliaghstown Riding Centre, Grainne Sugars, Rathcoole, Co. Dublin, Phone: 01-4589236 Castle Hill Equestrian Center, Anne Stanley, Julianstown, Co. Meath, Phone: 041 98 29430 Kill Equestrian Centre, Kill, County Kildare, Phone: 045 877208, Iris Kellett, Daffodil Lodge, c/o Association of Irish Riding Establishments, email through http://www.equine-net.com/AIRE