Connemara’s calling – the Roundstone Pony Show

He is big, bad and beautiful. I look him in the black-as-black eye and he stares right back at me, tosses his mane and dances on two feet in a polite but barely restrained pirouette. His handler, a grey-bearded red-faced gentleman, whispers something in a twitching ear and he drops his head, settles his snowy white haunches and allows himself to be led on away around the field, nostrils flaring, tail billowing, not so much as a backward glance. I didn’t get his name but he looks like Danny Boy to me. There are maybe twelve other contenders in the Stallion class at the Roundstone Connemara Pony Show, but Danny Boy is the one that’s caught my eye.

The show is in a field at the back of Roundstone in Connemara. The harbour below is scattered with the red sails of Galway Hookers, out for a day’s sailing in the summer wind. The field is crowded with sheep, dogs and ponies, plus their handlers, the spectators, their families and anyone else who happens to be passing. It’s a big social event and an important one on the Connemara Pony calendar – those that qualify here go on to the Clifden show which is even more prestigious.

There are grays, slivers, duns and even a chestnut in the Stallion class, but mostly they are white as snow. Manes and tails could have been spun from finest Irish linen. Coats are a-gleaming, polished and buffed, smooth as a well pressed pillowcase, muscles bunched underneath. Their handlers are, in the main, well-dressed country gentlemen, with tweeds, shirts and leather boots, red complexions and serious expressions. But there are a couple of exceptions – younger men, dyed hair, trendy shirts. The next generation of Connemara pony breeders coming on up through the ranks. They do their first lap round the ring at a walk, then a trot, then a run up straight on to the two well-dressed lady judges to check their action.

As each fellow gets his turn the others wait. Standing in hand, twitching slightly under a restrained exterior. Occasionally the waiting gets the better of one of them. The odd squeal. A flash of hoof. An under the breath Irish curse from the handler at his side. The crowd distracted for a moment as one or another goes up on his hind legs or fires both barrels behind him at whoever is standing too close. And then settles, the fury gone.

It takes a long time, judging Stallions. They are inspected from all quarters, up, trotted down. Hands are run down flanks. Eyes eyeballed, shoulder, wither, bone and fetlock considered. The judges confer. One is called in to the centre of the ring. Then a second, a third, a fourth. They change their minds. Swap third for fourth. Walk around again. Nod. Agree. The red ribbon is handed out, the blue, the green, the yellow. Hands are shaken. Stoical faces crack a smile. The crowd claps and mutters, agrees and disagrees. “Well done Patrick” or “Good horse that”. Some just look at their catalogue and frown. Back in the ring Danny Boy is wearing the red ribbon, looking like hot butter would not melt in his mouth. Then they leave the ring, the place getters following the winner. Smug as punch is Danny Boy.