I was animal mad when I was young and I longed for a pony. I went to ride ponies in the zoo, my first ride was on a Shetland pony which I saved up a sixpence for. When I got a little bit braver, my second ride was an elephant in Dublin zoo!

Before I left school, I started riding lessons with Dudgeons in Dublin and afterwards I studied there and got my BHS (British Horse Society) instructor certificate. That was my life to begin with.

Then I met the man, John. He and I had quite a lot of fun together for quite a few years and then he took off and went off sailing around the Mediterranean on a boat for nine months and left me sitting! Luckily for him I waited, and he came back in 1956 and the following year we were married and went to live in Co Cork.

I lived in Dublin all my life and this was quite a long way, so it was quite difficult in 1957 to move to a fairly remote part of Co Cork, where there was barely electricity. There was no tarmac on the roads and everything was fairly primitive. However, we managed.

We then bought Sea View Farm and we have been there ever since, for 63 years. The stud (Coosheen) was started in 1960. My first stallion was Ceileog, I bought from Sean McLoughlin in Moycullen. We then decided we were starting a family so I thought it would be quite a nice idea to breed Connemara Ponies, so that is how I started the stud.

I went to look at the ponies in January and Nikki arrived in March, so it was quite a full house – three new ponies and a baby! Later that summer I had an accident when I fell off a pony I was riding and broke my neck! I had a neck brace to mend the neck but it was very difficult with a small baby.

TRAIN TO CLIFDEN

The following year, we wanted to get the ponies inspected and there were no inspections outside of Clifden that time. We had no trailer so we thought ‘right we will go by train’. We set off on a fairly long journey with the mare and foal and stallion.

They took off to Galway and stayed the night in the stables behind the Great Southern Hotel and we stayed in a B&B.

The next day we took the CIE lorry to Clifden and that was a thing to behold. It was a lorry with a big trailer behind it and it went right around the districts in south Connemara to pick up mares to take to the show because nobody had transport in those day.

The inspections were all held at crossroads and places because men didn’t have a way of getting there. They were tipped out here (at the Station House) and they were in an awful mess by the time they had come all the way up from Cork and we didn’t have any way of cleaning them, we had to just do the best we could.

The stallion was in a bottle store at the back of a pub but everyone else just had to hang on. It wasn’t a bit like it is now, it was just a ring and rope – that was the show in 1960, which is very different to today.

Ceileog was not full Connemara and he won that year. We had him for about five years I think. I tried quite a lot of mares with him and every time he seemed to produce something different. His mother was by an Irish Draught and his father was by a half Arab, so it was a mixture of bloodlines and it didn’t always work the same. So eventually after trial and error, I managed to realise his breeding was wrong so I sold him.

In the meantime, I won first prize with him for the second time in Clifden and then the following year some of my mares were successful. I won the Carew Cup for the first time with Coosheen Lara and that was only three years after I started with ponies so it was quite an exciting. She also won the Junior champion.

I then met Stephanie Brooks, everyone knows her, and she is a wonderful lady. I first met her just when we were showing our first stallions and she has been lifelong friend to me and so kind to us in the interim.

Her first stallion was called Errislannon Coltsfoot and I leased him from her when I sold Ceileog, I had him for four years. He was old style breeding, there was no outside blood and that seemed to steady things up a little bit and we had some success with the ponies he bred.

ESCAPE ARTIST

I bought Coosheen Tansy during an inspection one year. She was sent down to Cork on the train and I went to collect her. I had by then got a small trailer, a very narrow trailer. I was trying to manage on my own.

We had to go across a bridge the far side of Cork city, across old railway tracks and cobbles. There was a lot of banging going on in the trailer but I just kept driving and I got out a little bit to the suburbs when the milk lorry came rushing across and said ‘You’ve lost your horse’. The new pony from Galway had jumped out! She managed to jump clean out over the top, and she was then loose with no head collar in the middle of Cork suburbs.

I took the horsebox off the car and set off in pursuit with a bucket and oats and a head collar. I eventually found her about four crossroads later. Two small boys were walking along the road, back from school I think, and it wouldn’t happen now, but then in 1964 or 1965 it did, I said ‘would you lead her back to the trailer for me?’ They set off with the unbroken three-year-old straight off the plains of Connemara and loaded her. The devil tried to do it again but luckily I got her home safely. She only had a chip on her tooth, a tiny little graze on her chin and a bit of a graze on her hip after jumping out of a horsebox. She turned out to be a marvellous breeder and she had 19 foals.

Coosheen Rosemary was one of her first foals (out of Coltsfoot). She went on to win in Dublin. As well as Rosemary, she had Coosheen Coriander who went to Denmark, and then she also had Dill who was a very good jumping pony and went eventually to Sweden and I think she was an international pony and she ended up making a lot of money for Sean Dunne.

THE FINN YEARS

I bought Coosheen Finn in 1968 from Jack Bolger, a marvellous character. By Carna Bobby, he started his stud duties at three. Finn was a success and produced some lovely ponies. He won in 1978 and he was already providing really good ponies and people were travelling to come to him.

One of the good things about Connemara Ponies is that you make wonderful friendships and I still have lots of friendships here.

It was quite exciting in both Clifden and Dublin for two years running when there were three mares by Finn who won. And in Clifden, the Supreme champion was the two-year-old filly Coosheen Nutmeg, and she went on in 1980 to win it for a second time.

She was the only mare that has ever run it two years running. She was an exceptional mare. She was very correct, you couldn’t find a lot of fault with her. I was tempted to sell her because I was offered a big price and I needed the money so she went to Germany after her second year.

In 1979, Coosheen Finn was chosen as the outstanding breeding stallion of his day for a postal stamp. I was very honoured. The other horses that were chosen were Arkle, Boomerang, Ballymoss, King of Diamonds and the Connemara stallion Finn! I was very proud.

THE VILLAGE PONIES

From there on, I was in Ballyconneely one day watching the inspections and I met Paddy King and I was always very fond of him. He had this lovely mare Village Belle and I asked how she was. He said ‘oh she’s grand, she’s got a colt foal this year by Abbeyleix Owen’, and he looked at me in the eye and he said ‘and I am selling her this year’. I just said ‘how much?’

Anyway we did a deal, there in the middle of the village, and we went to see her. She was 22 years old with a fine healthy foal, looking wonderful. I said to Paddy: ‘I can’t come this week, I’ll come next week and collect her’.

There were no mobile phones in those days and I just had to go by luck. I drove all the way up to Ballyconneely and was just at the entrance to his house and there was Paddy leading the mare and foal down. I said ‘how on earth did you know I was coming’ and he said ‘I was watching’. He must have been watching for the week!

She was wonderful, and she made the biggest journey of her life, all the way down to Coosheen Stud and she then had three more foals before giving up breeding. She lived until she was 30. She was a lovely mare and I was very devoted to her, even though I only had her for the last few years of her life.

I happened to be judging in Clifden for the first time ever in 1975 and we had this class of four-year-olds and Paddy was there with a lovely mare, Village Star.

He was on the end of a blue rope but she was a stunning mare and we gave her the prize. There was a huge shout of encouragement when she was given the prize because she had beaten all the fancy ponies.

Henry O’Toole bought Village Star in 1976 because she wouldn’t breed for Paddy. Henry ran her with a colt over the winter and lo and behold she had a foal and she didn’t stop breeding after that.

From there on, we got to the end of Finn. He didn’t breed the last few years of his life and I had to go to other stallions. Scarteen Mistral was my best mare for a few years after that, she was the mother of Coosheen Stormboy. Anne Ryan was going back to New Zealand and I was asked to keep her for them for a year and they were going to hopefully take her over. One thing she wanted was for her to be shown in Dublin and she won. She was by Ashfield Bobby Sparrow out of Tulira Sea Breeze. Finally, Anne said she couldn’t take her and I bought her.

Finn’s last foal with Mistral was Coosheen Breeze, who was sold to Ciaran Curran as a foal and I have always regretted ever since. She was the dam of Glencarrig Knight and many other famous ponies. Glencarrig Knight has won everything and luckily I can say I once owned Breeze.

FINAL CHAMPION

Another one of her foals, Coosheen Sea Mist, by Glencarrig Prince, produced Coosheen Julie, my last Clifden champion in 2011, about 30 years after I had my first one. She was by Janus and a lovely mare.

She won the two-year-old mare class, reserve junior champion, the visitors’ cup and supreme champion of the show and that was the highlight of my breeding career because after that it all went a bit downhill.

That was mostly where I had to finish breeding. Once Finn finished I couldn’t be travelling mares all over the country and I didn’t want another stallion so that was the end of that.

I turned my attention to writing this book, Connemara Pony Society, 1923-1998, which took me six years of research as I had to go right back to the beginning and check everything which was quite a big job.

One person I would like to say just a little bit about is Susan McConnell who was a great friend and should have been here this year but sadly she passed recently. When we were in the USA, we were doing the inspections in Florida, and this man stole my handbag, which meant I lost my passport, driving license, the keys of my car in Shannon and I was a no person, I had no identification.

Long story short, I was staying with Susan at the end of that trip and she was absolutely marvellous. She picked me up and she said don’t ‘worry about a thing’, she had everything organised. She rang up the Irish embassy and said ‘you will have a new passport for Elizabeth Petch next Monday and I will get the photographs and we will make sure you will have it’. And she did, she got it.