FULL disclosure about this week’s article – Liz Scott, in a circuitous way, is the cause of these and any other articles I write. Not that either of us would have imagined that would ever occur back in 1980 when this iconic figure within the Irish Pony Club set up the East Galway Hunt branch. And so the start of this ‘interview’ is spent catching up and recalling ex-members current whereabouts.

There are so many faces to recall. From show jumper Andrew Bourns to crime fiction author Sheila Bugler, ISPCA ‘angel’ Karen Lyons and Tokyo Olympics modern pentathlon hope Sive Brassil. Her former East Galway pupils have certainly taken diverse career paths. As quaint as it may appear, sportsmanship and fair play are the hallmarks of the Pony Club and these qualities carry through in any career or part of equestrianism.

“It is about fair play and equality. That’s what’s got to be maintained and you can’t give precedence to the rider who is ranked first in the world over the rider who is ranked 31st.” By now we’re talking about the international show jumping scene, as one of the many strings to the Scott bow is her vast experience as an FEI senior international judge. Be it at a Pony Club competition or world-class Grand Prix, the principles of fair play are the same to Liz.

Not that financial and parental pressure hasn’t trickled down to younger competitors. “I feel the pressure of parents on kids is stronger than it ever was. You don’t get that so much with parents who have a horsey background, but there is still a mindset out there now of ‘I’ve paid for that, so why can’t I win?’ That’s not only visible in the Pony Club but all walks of life now.

“I was judging a 128cms qualifier when this young child came into the ring. The pony was jumping out of its skin and at the combination, which was a fair height, in front of the judge’s box, the pony jumped in big, crashed through the second fence and refused at the third part and the child fell off. Of course the rule is you can’t climb back up again after a fall, so we were very happy he was able to lead his pony out and very sympathetic to him.

“The ring steward rang to tell me that as the child was walking out of the ring, the father allegedly threw a bottle of water at his child and called him all sorts of names. I called his name out over the public address to come to the judge’s box immediately but he never appeared. The ring steward said that when he heard his name being called out, he loaded up the pony and ran.

“Against that, I did another qualifier in O’Brien’s and this child came in on a 148cms pony and jumped a superb round. It was just magical to watch; then my co-judge told me the pony cost €200,000 and the lorry it travelled in was valued at €1.5 million.”

CHANGING TIMES

Now the Area 8 representative for the Galway region, she has witnessed the changes too at Pony Club rallies. Horsemanship always came first. “The first thing I would do is get them all off the pony and talk to me about why they use the tack they do. Then they’d mount the pony and what I used to do was give them a light thump on the back – the child is wearing a body protector – to show them how their pony felt if they landed like a lump on its back.

“Of course you don’t do that now. Everything is so technically correct down to the children having to wear a special number body protector and hat, and child protection is at the forefront of the Irish Pony Club.”

Another noticeable change is a shorter membership span amongst its members. “You’d often see that when members got to 13 or 14, they’d go show jumping or eventing. Those that show jumped tended to stay the longest in the Pony Club but even at that age now, they’re gone. You would have had members aged 18, 19 or 20 but that’s not there anymore.

“Otherwise, there’s lots of healthy developments and wonderful people involved in the organisation. They can say what they like about the Pony Club but it is a good grounding and my heart is always first and foremost with the Pony Club,” says its champion, who cites the Allen brothers as two of its most famous graduates on the worldwide stage.

“Bertram was in the Pony Club and so was Harry. Bertram is good for the [show jumping] sport. He’s special, not arrogant, just down-to-earth. He seems to be eager to promote the industry and will bring on any other person trying to get started, yet he’s still only 22 himself.”

Two other young show jumpers Liz enrolled as instructors for the inaugural East Galway’s summer camp were David Moore and Paul Duffy, the latter then making a name for himself with Nissan Paddy’s Son. “I remember they were going to a show in Waterford immediately afterwards but of course a water fight broke out at the end of the camp and they ended up driving down to Waterford, soaking wet and stripped down to their underwear!”

THE 17-HAND SPRINGBOARD

Another water-based activity, now shunned in this health and safety conscious era, was the traditional summer pastime of Beevor, Liz’s legendary Pony Club schoolmaster, being used as a springboard. This gentle giant would stand patiently in the water while kids jumped off him into the river Suck that borders the fields behind her house in Ballinasloe.

Meeting the future Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at the Grand Prix show in Ballinasloe in May 2017

“He had the most wonderful temperament and was the kind of horse that if he had a small child on his back, he’d jump the fence in slow motion but if he had a confident rider, he’d give the fence feet going over it. I was constantly put on point duty out hunting because he would jump anything and the amount of people who said ‘You must take him showjumping’ but I said no, he’s my hunt horse! He retired sound from the hunting field at 22 and was 34 when I sent him to God,” recalls his owner, who produces a photo of him later acting as an equine nanny for her young stock.

There is a striking resemblance, bar his chesnut colour, in appearance to another Galway-bred. Both were by the 16-hand thoroughbred Golden Beaker that stood with Michael Moran in Kylebrack and with the non-benefit of hindsight, too few were produced by this stallion. The relative handful that were, included The Beaker, owned by the late P.J Hession, a legend on the pony racing circuit in the 1970s. And in addition to Beevor, bought as a foal on Ballinasloe Fair Green by Liz for £95, there was of course the Golden Beaker son, Clover Hill.

He was bred in 1973 by that lovely gentleman, Matt Page in Woodford. Matt’s uncle, the noted horseman and equally courteous Fr. Louis Page was president of Garbally College, where past pupils included Col. Dan Corry, one of the Army Equitation School’s earliest stars. “I used to go hunting with the East Galways when Fr Louis Page and Fr. Tom Keyes would always look after me out hunting. My first pony was Dolly, then there was the part-Arab, Girly. She was strong but I had great fun with her. Then unfortunately I was sent to boarding school at Glengara Park in Dun Laoghaire but every time I came home in the winter, I always managed to go hunting.”

One perk of her boarding school location was the annual school outing to the Spring Show. “I didn’t go to Dublin Horse Show itself until I was about 14. Iris Kellett had broken her ankle badly and Dad made a special pair of boots for her, which got me an invite to her yard on Mespil Road, which was very well-run and then onto the Horse Show afterwards.”

BY THE BOOKS

On leaving school, Liz studied accountancy in college before moving to London. “I worked there for Sir William Garthwhaites, a company that ran a lot of industrial catering accounts. Norman Scott was my boss and I would be sent to do spot checks on the books in different locations around England. I remember doing an audit once in Lincoln, I knew by the results that the books were too accurate, so I arrived at the unit at 7am in the morning to do the books before the staff got in. They caught the culprit as a result!”

She then returned home to work in Dubarry, the famous footwear firm set up by her father Jim.

“I always had a passion for show jumping and my ambition was to compete at Dublin, which I did. Then I realised that show jumping had become a seven-day-a-week business. There were no amateur classes or riding club scene at that time; eventing wasn’t really an option in the west of Ireland and so you either show jumped or you didn’t. And I was no longer able to give show jumping that time because I was working full time in Dubarry.”

Then, as often happens, she took a path that eventually led to her becoming the lady president of the Dublin international jury. How did this career as a show jumping judge begin? “Charlie McCarthy was a great help in the beginning. The person who really got me started on the international circuit was the late Lord Lowry. An amazing man with a mind that would put you to shame. He was a real genius when it came to every rule and regulation in international show jumping.

“When you start judging nationally, you have to start by being a national judge, then a senior national judge and so on to international level. The exams are quite stringent and get more and more technical as you progress – I remember being terrified before doing one particular exam in England! You have to be able to walk a course, measure it, understand the strides as well as know the rules in any eventuality. For example, the water jump judge is the only judge that cannot be challenged by a jury.

“I think it’s very important that problems are sorted quickly and effectively. You have to communicate. Whether it’s a small gymkhana down the country or at the RDS, if you communicate with people, explain the rules and give your reasons, then there’s never a problem. If you treat people with respect, you’ll get respect back.”

MACKEN THE ICON

From the thousands of show jumping rounds she has witnessed as a judge, Liz has no hesitation in singling out someone she first competed against back in those early Midland Cub Hunters days. “The rider who impressed me most was Eddie Macken. Without a shadow of doubt. He had balance and empathy with his horse – he was just magical to watch and a pure horseman.

“Eddie Macken was an icon, a classically good rider but he was also disciplined which is why he stayed so high in the sport for years. The majority of Irish riders are now like that and without discipline and natural talent, they won’t go anywhere.”

There is no doubt that Eddie Macken and the ‘Dream Team’ of the 1970s captured the Irish public’s imagination like no other. It was the arrival of television into urban and rural Irish households, a link to a locally-bred horse or the sight of the distinctive Carrolls Showjumping Team red lorry on Irish roads that brought these stars closer to home.

The fact that the majority of the top Irish riders now have to live and compete abroad and are not as ‘visible’ to the general public as a county football or hurling team is could have contributed to the radio and social media debate that broke out over the Irish show jumping team winning the RTE Sport ‘Team of the Year’ award in 2017.

“I spoke to Cian [O’Connor] once about this and he said ‘I’d love to be at home but I have two seas to cross; the Irish Sea and the English Channel before I get to the continent to compete.’ It’s the logistics of having to compete abroad that has the riders based there,” says Liz pragmatically.

Last year the focus was on the European Championships, this year the World Equestrian Games and possible Olympic qualification beckons. “I hope the teams do well at WEG, they need to get to the Olympics and everyone will be trying their hardest.”

TOKYO CALLING

Closer to home, there is the hope that local athlete Sive Brassil will compete at the Tokyo Olympics. “As she has just won team silver at the Europeans her dedication and work hopefully will help her qualify for the Olympics. We wish her the best of luck,” says her first mentor.

Before Tokyo and Tryon there is Dublin, another landmark event for Liz. She has judged national and international classes there for some 30 years and had the distinction of serving as president of the international ground jury.

“Dublin is still the highlight. There’s something very special about Dublin, it’s the diversity of it. When I’m at Dublin, you’ll take the other FEI representatives around to show them and they just love it. Everything from working hunter to novice show jumping classes and the Pony Club games.”

Part of the tradition of ridden hunter classes is the ride judge, a role that again you wonder will continue in the 21st century and speculation in the UK that these classes will become like ridden show pony classes, with each entry giving an individual show instead. “I think the ridden judge part is the uncertainty of it and has the temperament of the ridden horses changed?”

Sport horse breeding has changed greatly in the 31 years since Shalom Dundee won the Guinness Novice Championship. The dun mare was bred by Liz and had an unorthodox pedigree by today’s standards, being by the Arab stallion Genjo out of “a Connemara mare with no history.” Then owned by Mervyn Clarke senior, she was sold afterwards. The Clarkes believe she ended up in Sweden.

Liz maintains that the Dutch and Germans have the business of breeding show jumpers down to a fine art and that thoroughbred blood is even more essential now than ever for breeding the upper level eventers. “Show jumping courses won’t get any higher for the horses but the future will be about the training of that horse and its rider, plus the rider’s ability to deal with these technical courses.

“I think if you want to breed an eventer, you need to put the quality mare to a thoroughbred. The reason I breed horses is the hope you will breed something good.” Another advantage of Irish-reared young stock, according to her, is their outdoor upbringing: “building muscle and bone as youngsters; this is why I talk about the Irish horse as free spirits. They can take on cross-country fences, they can gallop, they can make decisions. Horses love hunting. It’s the thrill of the chase for them which all helps explain why we are still tops in the world with our event horses.”

A great fan of traditional breeding, she and her daughter Catherine retain a couple of Loughahoe Guy youngsters. ‘Odin’, the liver chesnut foal, pictured in 2010 with his Clover Fields dam Scarlet, was later sold to America but met an untimely end after breaking a leg in a field accident. In an unusual twist, his owner brought his ashes back to Ireland where they were scattered at Oliver Walsh’s Flowerhill farm.

“The Americans still have a fondness for the Irish horse and I think we should focus on that market but we have to learn to school our horses for that market. People like easy horses.”

Another four-legged lodger is Marley, the loyal German Shepherd. He is a rescue dog, having spent months in kennels due to his previous owner’s change of circumstances, that arrived along with two elderly donkeys from the ISPCA National Centre at Longford.

The centre is where the indefatigable Karen Lyons works. “Karen used to keep her ponies here,” recalls Liz about the ISPCA inspector, who is one of hundreds, if not thousands of Liz Scott’s former Pony Club and Gurteen College pupils.

Liz, their ‘go-to person’, has had many affectionate nicknames bestowed upon her by this group down through years spanning carefree times to today’s more politically-correct era. Her 100% honest, no-nonsense approach and the sound, practical advice offered by this heart-of-gold character is typical of this era of golden horsemen and women. What a good grounding it gave to so many.