“NOBODY wants hardship anymore.” It’s one of those telling remarks, about the perception that fewer people are prepared to work all hours in all weathers, that often surfaces in conversations with people in the horse and farming worlds.

Working hard was second nature to Sean Maher, the man whose name also kept cropping up last August at the North Tipperary Show, hosted at his grandson David’s Roscrea Equestrian Centre. It seemed like everyone had a story about Sean that day.

Jenny Williams, whose pure-bred Draught Gneeve King William was the reserve ridden horse champion, recalled another reserve title. That was at Dublin with her novice show pony Zaarina, bought from the late Maher who was described by her as “just the most wonderful man”.

Fittingly, the ridden pony champion was Goldengrove Sunrise, ridden by nine-year-old Aoife Brennan. “It was extra special winning in Roscrea today as it was the place where Goldengrove Stud began. They’ve bred so many beautiful, talented ponies and we’re extremely grateful to have our beautiful boy ‘Sunny’,” Aoife’s mother Aine remarked.

And then there was the father and daughter team of Richard and Margaret Tolerton, special guests at the show. Richard was a customer of Sean for years, buying good ponies from a good friend in an area renowned for horse breeding.

However, it’s not just this north corner of the Premier County that has made Tipperary famous for its horses and horse people.

“If you take Tipperary as a county, it’s this magical place where this love of horses has flourished.

"When you look at its landscape of Olympic riders, Coolmore, Philip Heenan’s stallions, the ponies that stemmed from around Killusty, the jockeys and trainers from Tipperary… the county’s impact is massive,” said Sean’s son Eugene, who carried out 101 tasks at the August show.

It’s been another adrenaline rush couple of days for the Mahers having hosted the Winter Stars Tour leg last Sunday. The issue of how equestrian centres are coping in a pandemic, doubled up with insurance red tape and riding school closures, was the original idea behind this article but like all good interviews, goes off instead into delightful tangents about the versatility of Volkswagen Beetles and characters with God-given talents.

And rather than plugging the business, the story circles back constantly to the man who began it.

“A smallholding in a place called Grange, just outside the town, that’s where he was born and raised. Sean always loved to have a pony around the place and there’s a photo floating round of my father, taken in 1925, of him on a brush pretending it’s a pony,” Eugene recalled.

The eldest son, he and his four siblings – Anne (Delaney), Carmel (McLoughlin), Angie (Young) and Denis ‘Dinnie’ – grew up on the outskirts of Roscrea town.

Sean had gradually bought “a couple of acres here and there,” during the 1960s around Golden Grove. Aptly-named as the nearby wooded hills glow with autumn colours, this place name later became the prefix for his pony stud. “It’s a beautiful scenic spot for walkers and we do a lot of hacking and trekking in the wood.

“There was five of us in it and my mum Peggy was the kingpin of the family. It was very basic living then, everything was a real manual chore and she was in charge of the home front while my dad got up at four o’clock, milked 16 cows by hand, fed his cattle and pigs and then went to work at 6.30am as a part-time lorry driver.

“He bought cattle and ponies and had a dairy round too with his little grey van. My brother and I often helped out on the round. Dad always had a couple of Jersey cows to make sure the milk was top-notch, he was into quality from day one.”

Eugene Maher's four children with their grandparents, Sean and Peggy Maher. David Maher on one of his grandfather's Goldengrove ponies, Sean on the hay bales, Enda and Maura beside their grandparents

Killusty connection

The same high standards applied when Sean started breeding ponies. “In the mid-1960s, Matty Costigan and he started buying ponies and getting involved with Gus Keane, a great pony man.”

Gus, his brother Frank, James Shea and Mrs Joan De Sales Le Terriere were based in south Tipperary which, thanks to their collective work, became a mecca for pony breeders from the 1960s. Sean and other pioneers, such as the Cathers brothers, Andy and Fordie, were among the customers for Gus Keane’s stallions Jackets Goldfinch and Kiltinane Charles.

Jackets Goldfinch’s interesting pedigree went back through his palomino sire Sarnau Golden Falcon to the thoroughbred Irish Dance, a descendant of Bay Ronald. Bwlch Valentino – the legendary riding pony stallion the Cathers brothers had also travelled over to England to cover their mares with – appears in both pony stallion’s pedigrees.

Many of the Maher’s stock trace back to these lines owned by Gus and Tipperary-born Mrs De Sales Le Terriere. A formidable character who drove a Red Cross ambulance during WWI, Joan and her Scottish husband settled at neighbouring Kiltinan Castle, the stud farm now owned by Sir Anthony Lloyd Webber.

The abundance of quality ponies in the area led to the famous Killusty pony show, intended as a shop window for these locally bred ponies and it soon became one of the most famous shows on the Irish Pony Society calendar.

“All the good ponies came from that area. Dad got into Welsh ponies and one of his best ponies was Muffin. He crossed Muffin with the Le Terriere’s breed because he felt they sometimes had a weak hindleg. When you think of the breeding programmes, data and linear profiling available now, he was ahead of his time,” Eugene remarked about his father’s intuition and eye for improving the next generation.

“That was his way of correcting or enhancing what he bred and now the girls [Sean’s granddaughters Claire Scott and Sarah Rymer] apply the same standards. My sister Anne married Jack Delaney and Claire and Sarah are my nieces, they were all like peas in a pod, all the cousins in the family.”

Among the early ponies Sean bred was the HOYS, (then held at Wembley) and Ponies U.K. prize winner Golden Grove. By Jackets Goldfinch and out of a Kiltinane Charles dam, he and Lara Hamilton once won a 72-strong working hunter class at Ponies U.K.

Since the 1980s, the family have used the famous Goldengrove prefix. Eugene explains the Central Prefix Register did not allow two word prefixes so their place name had to be combined.

“I was the crash test dummy!” Eugene continued, describing his father’s sideline of breaking ponies, cobs and horses. “Himself and Matty Costigan were in this enterprise together. I was the person thrown across the saddle, then the young horses went hunting with the Ormond. My sister Angela was very involved with the ponies too.

“It was maximising the gift Sean had to recognise a good one. He had a business plan, which it wasn’t called at that time, but if he found a good one, he’d take it to a few shows, sell them on and that paid off bigtime.

“Richard Tolerton was a great customer, they pair would go off looking at horses and ponies around the area, often running wild up the mountains. We’d also sell them at fairs like Cahirmee and Spancil Hill, they were the only sales outlets, so to speak, then.”

He also had vivid memories of travelling to Ballinasloe Fair, often with four ponies bundled in their square-fronted double box, towed by Sean’s trusty Volkswagen Beetle.

Beetle workhorse

There was something about the Volkswagen Beetle. Another north Tipperary character, the famous Nenagh veterinary surgeon Jack Powell owned no less than 13 of them and recounted how he could drive across all types of field terrains to reach injured stock in his Beetle.

“They bought that car specifically for a workhorse. Bales of hay were tied on to the boot of ours, calves were placed on the seats, milk churns were put in the back, they were used nearly as a tractor and people were so creative about what they could get into a Beetle!”

Ballinasloe Fair was where Sean Maher first met Philip Heenan. “Himself and Philip were great buddies. The mentality was the same, they were just obsessed with horses and ponies. You’d load up a mare and join the line of cars waiting. Philip would walk down the line, go ‘Okay’, ‘Not today’, ‘Okay’, that’s the way he did it and his word was law.

“I remember the last time my dad was in Philips. Clover Hill had a massive reputation and was at his zenith, yet Philip only charged IR£30. My father would say ‘I’m going to pay you now Phil for that service fee,’ but they’d nearly have a fight over it because Philip wouldn’t take any money.”

Just down the road from Heenan’s yard at Ringroe is where Claire and Sarah now breed the Goldengrove ponies on their mixed farm of cattle and sheep. In their Breeders’ 10 feature last winter, they selected their grandfather’s saying of, “It costs the same to feed a good one as a bad one!” as the best advice they’d ever received.

Among the good ones that covered his feed bill costs is Goldengrove Simon, selected on the German team at the European eventing pony championships this summer while Simon’s half-sister Goldengrove Savannah won during the same weekend at the North Tipperary Show with Annarose Scott, Sean’s great granddaughter, in the saddle.

“Another great stalwart of Dad’s was Deirdre Smithwick, they’d go to all the shows and could talk Pony all day long!

“Killusty, Nenagh, Bansha, Charleville, Tullamore, Rathdowney, all the local agricultural shows,” says Eugene when asked about the Maher show circuit list. “He had a special affinity with Nenagh and always made a massive effort to have a few good ones for his local show. He’d meet all his friends there too. It was the pride element, even to have the picture in the local paper.”

And what does the next generation think of the future of shows? “Your article stimulated a lot of thinking, the fact that we held that [August] show in a more controlled environment; that exhibitors like good surfaces and facilities, the jump cross classes that brought out the locals. For me, that was the highlight, to see the children just chuffed that their pony jumped a clear round.”

Living the dream

“Take the bigger shows like Tullamore and Charleville, they will survive but will the other ones? Will the pony entries be there? Pony breeding isn’t getting the support at official level. Agricultural shows are made of many moving parts and I suppose I’m biased but I always thought the horses and ponies were the main part. If that element of it is diluting, I don’t think there’ll be a thriving format.”

The growing preference by exhibitors for show venues with indoor facilities as back-up in bad weather, hardcore parking and all-weather surfaces is a boon to equestrian centres like Roscrea.

“Can I just emphasise that David did this project on his own, the support from me was mainly moral support. It’s a joy for me to go down to the centre and feel a part of it, I like to make a contribution and help out any way I can.”

Now retired and having moved back to Roscrea from Co. Kildare, Eugene, walkie-talkie at hand, was in his element at their August show. His meticulous preparation for this interview included a Zoom call the previous evening with nieces Claire and Sarah, which is a throwback to a career centred around logistics, transport and scheduling.

“I just wanted to include everyone that was part of the story and get all the details. I’ve moved back home to Roscrea, settled in, living the dream and seeing the grandchildren all the time. It’s history repeating itself.

“My parents place was a hub, it was just such a happy place. Maybe I’m looking back with rose-coloured glasses but there was always grandchildren and family around.”

The pandemic put a stop to such visits for a time. Eugene is also concerned about the affect lockdown has had on the older generation. “They’ve lost almost two years of their lives.”

When Sean passed away 20 years ago, the measure of the man became apparent. “I do know that it wasn’t just the pony that formed the bond, it was the way he treated people. He loved wheeling and dealing but he always sold lucky and would always have treated his customers properly.

“The amount of tack and ponies on trial that were returned after he died was unreal but again, was typical of Dad that he wanted a family to be completely happy with the pony they were buying for their child nor did he want to see anyone go without.”

That ‘auld decency’ gene often meant bottles of milk left at some households during Sean’s milk round days. “There was a lot of economic hardship in the 1970s. It was just a small thing, he’d never mention it, have expected or looked for any payment. It was just his and Mum’s Christian way of contributing.”

Over to the next generation. “I think we’re pretenders to their throne!” he said with a laugh.

Next week: David Maher