MICHAEL Harty, show producer and rider at Cashelbay Connemara Ponies, had “palpitations” last week when his proposal plan nearly went awry due to the bride-to-be’s brother! Thankfully all went well and we can offer our congratulations to Harty and his partner, Kaysha Murray.

“Kaysha is from Inishbofin (Co Galway) and it was her birthday weekend so we went over on what she thought was a birthday trip,” Harty explained.

“I had planned to take her down to Trá Gheal which is her favourite beach but I gave her brother the engagement ring the night before and of course he wasn’t answering his phone in the morning! I have to admit I was panicking for a while, I was fit to get sick, but he eventually answered! We got there and of course there’s never anyone on that beach but there was that day and I was wishing for them all to please go!

“Eventually they did and I got down on one knee. It took her about 10 minutes to answer because she was crying so much but then she said yes! It was great. We had a birthday dinner for her later with family and friends and finished up somewhere around 7am!

“We met through work at Cashelbay Connemaras, she is the brains behind the whole operation really, I’m a disaster but she brings it all together. She is my groom at all the shows but she has a nice few young Connemaras coming through this year herself and I think it will be head-to-head with the two of us on two four-year-olds soon so that will be interesting.”

Deep into show season, Michael and Kaysha are straight back into it this weekend at Mullingar and then “all roads lead to Dublin”.

Show season will certainly make choosing a wedding date difficult, Harty admitted, but they will hopefully manage to find a suitable weekend next year. Congratulations to the happy couple!