WE are breeding Connemaras at Castle Connemara Ponies on the Sky Road in Clifden, Co Galway for 34 years. My father sourced and my mother paid for my first broodmare, Village Star, in 1979; she was purchased from Paddy King, breeder of the world renowned Village pony line.

My father was a farmer and a publican, and my mother was a teacher. Then I married a teacher, Maeve, in 1987 and followed in the footsteps of my father by becoming a farmer and tried my hand as a publican!