IT was evening time as the final supreme champion was decided at Louisburgh Show but one judge was still full of running. “Do you know if you told Michael Casey now that there was a horse at the top of Croagh Patrick,” said show chairman Tommy Bennett, pointing to both the Leitrim horseman and famous Clew Bay landmark “he’d say ‘come on, lets go look’.”

That lifelong interest in horses began growing up in Springfield, near Mohill. “I can go back as far as the 1930s. My father was a ploughman, nowadays you’d say he was an agricultural contractor because he did ploughing and mowing throughout the parish. The land in south Leitrim was not suitable for oats or barley, so you would have a different type horse around here; they were great dual-purpose workers and what we’d call good ‘road horses’ for going to town and the creamery. And every horse was 99% Irish Draught or Draught type,” says Michael, recalling the pre-tractor era.