The following spring, just before the seaweed harvest, I was brought to Hulton Manor to be bred to Embarr again. The stallion’s ears pricked forward with interest when he saw Finbarr, his first colt.
What a handsome little fellow, he said. He won’t be as tall as me, but he’s inherited your pretty face. I still say there’s Arab in you somewhere.
As snobbish as Embarr could be, there was no meanness in him, and I was glad to see him again. During the week that I stayed at the estate, I was treated royally. My stall was nearly bigger than the McKennas’ cottage, and I breakfasted on grain sweetened with molasses and chopped apples. I had never tasted the likes of it before, and I fear I would have gotten quite fat had my visit lasted longer.
The whole time, Finbarr had been stabled in the stall across from mine. Although he no longer needed to nurse, I felt more at ease when he was within my sight. But when Mr. McKenna came to collect me, Finbarr remained in his stall. Once I was hitched to the pony cart, I whinnied and refused to leave the stable yard. Not without my colt!
Then Mr. McKenna did something he’d never done before: He slapped my haunches with the long whip he carried. Startled, I bolted out of the courtyard. Someone barred the door behind me, and I realized that Finbarr was no longer mine.
For weeks I was inconsolable. I would not eat the oats that Mr. McKenna put out for me, and I balked at the cart and plow. Mr. McKenna coaxed me gently, but when I still refused to walk on, he cracked me with the whip again. Furious, I did my work with my ears pinned flat against my head.
If I’d learned anything from my life on the farm, it was that every season will pass. Sometimes the most bitter disappointment can turn into the sweetest fortune. Mrs. McKenna had many wise old sayings, but her favorite was this: What can come of the briar but the berry?
If losing Finbarr was the briar, the berry was the new foal that was growing inside me. Now I understood why my dam had begun to push me away from her udder by the time the old farmer had sold me. She had to save her strength for the next foal. Slowly, my temperament returned to normal. The next spring, I delivered my second foal. Another colt, Torin, but this one was red like Embarr.
A few weeks after Torin was born, Shannon married a young doctor she had been courting. It is said that if a gray horse pulls a couple through town on their wedding day, the marriage will be a happy one. I hoped this was true as I carried Shannon and her new husband to their town house in Oughterard. I was sad to see Shannon depart, but I knew she was happy to leave the mud and hardship of a farmer’s life. The Hultons even attended the wedding, and I daresay young Brendan’s smile was a bit forced as he looked upon Shannon, who nearly glowed in her white dress.
The following year, to the chagrin of his father, Brendan joined the colonialist army in India. It was said that he cared nothing for politics, but only wanted the chance to shoot exotic animals and chase after foreign girls. Nobody missed the haughty lad, but I was regretful that he took Embarr with him.
Sir Henry was so pleased with Finbarr and Torin that he tried to buy me from the McKennas. But they refused, saying I was a member of the family. However, they made a deal with Sir Henry. In exchange for my next three foals, the family would be granted ownership of their farm. Now the McKennas would never have to answer to a moody landlord who thought they should have sown a bigger crop, or sell prized family keepsakes to make rent.
I delivered a filly and two more colts, all sired by one of the Hultons’ stallions. Once my fifth foal was weaned, Mr. McKenna drove me over to the Hulton estate to sign the deed to the land. For the first time, I was able to see all of my foals together. They greeted me with elegant whinnies from their stalls in the stone courtyard. They had all grown sleek and strong. The younger colts were dappled gray like me, and the filly was dark bay with a coat as shiny as the polished wood of the carriage that she pulled for Sir Henry.
One by one, the other McKenna children left home to start lives of their own. Liam took a position at a telegraph station in New York City. A few years later, Tomas won a scholarship to a university in Dublin. Finally, he could read as many books as he wanted and not have to worry about milking the cow. As for Fiona, she went to work for the local veterinarian. Only little Connor remained. He was especially dear to the family because Mrs. McKenna had never been able to have another child.
Now Connor was a sturdy ten-year-old with hair like bleached summer straw. He was as fond of galloping across the countryside as his brothers and sisters had been, although these days I couldn’t gallop quite as fast as I used to. My belly had grown a little bigger with each foal, and my silver-dappled coat had faded nearly to white.
One day Mr. McKenna drove me to the post office, hoping for a letter from one of the children, and instead found a notice from the Connemara Pony Breeders Society. The club had formed several years ago and held an annual show in Carna. All of my foals had won prizes there, and the society wished to register me as a foundation broodmare.
Soon after, a judge from the society came out to the farm to inspect me. He was a distinguished-looking man in a tweed suit, and he seemed out of place on our little farm. I had been given a bath for the occasion, and Connor had spent hours brushing the burs and tangles out of my mane.
“The only thing harder than Connemara limestone is a Connemara pony’s hooves,” said the judge as he handled my feet.
After the inspection, weeks passed with no word from the society. I must not have measured up after all. But then, when I’d all but forgotten the incident, a package arrived. It was a certificate announcing that I was a purebred Connemara pony. There was also a blue ribbon attached, for the judge had inspected dozens of ponies in our region and found me to be the best.
Mr. McKenna hung the certificate and the ribbon in the barn, next to my bridle. I sometimes came into the barn just to look at them, although I felt a little silly. Blue ribbons didn’t put turf in the shed or potatoes on the table. Still, it was nice to know that if I ever met Embarr again, I could casually mention that I was now a prizewinning, purebred Connemara pony.
Another decade passed this way—bearing foals, bringing in the turf, sowing and reaping the crops each season. Each time I was separated from one of my colts or fillies, my heart was broken anew. Each time it was mended by the birth of the next one.
At the age of twenty, my joints began to ache when I pulled a load of turf. Mr. McKenna noticed that I no longer seemed to take joy from my work. That year the family did not sell my weanling filly, Aisling. They broke her to harness and built a larger stable for us. It was a joy to watch one of my foals grow up instead of surrendering her to a distant stranger.
The next spring I failed to catch with foal, and I knew my time as a mother had ended. Aisling, now three, had a foal of her own that year. A black filly. She reminded me of Ciara, and not only because of her coloring. Aisling’s filly had the same fierce independence as my shadow sister from so long ago. She particularly delighted in teasing the new kittens, descendants of the fluffy creatures I’d met on my first day here, more than two decades ago. Had so much time really passed? The land seemed hardly changed, although the people on it had.
Mrs. McKenna’s hair had gone pure white, and Mr. McKenna’s hands were as knotted as an old tree branch. They trembled when he fastened the straps on my harness. At least he had help—Connor, now a strapping lad of eighteen, had decided to stay and tend the farm.
Today was Easter Sunday, and the family had just returned from church. Shannon and her husband had come for dinner with their three young children. The two boys and the flaxen-haired girl raced to the bottom of the hill where Aisling was nursing her filly.
Mrs. McKenna followed at a slower pace, wiping her soapy hands on her apron. She came over to where I stood and fed me a lump of white sugar. It dissolved quickly in my mouth, but left a lasting sweetness. We stood together, slitting our eyes against the wind as we watched the children playing with Aisling’s foal.
“I believe ye understand be
tter than anyone, sweet Darcy,” said Mrs. McKenna, “the struggle to bear fruit in this unforgiving land.”
I thought of the untamed coastal hills of my birth, and the crash of the sea’s thunder. I recalled how Ciara used to nip me, then bolt away, over and over, until I followed her on whatever grand adventure she’d dreamed up. After all these years, I still remembered the piercing cry of the eagles on the cliff.
Thinking of times long past, I jumped in my skin as Shannon’s little girl let out a shriek. The filly had stolen her Easter hat, then bolted away across the paddock. The wind blew the bonnet back over the filly’s ears so that she appeared to be wearing the hat herself. But how beautiful she was, despite her silly antics. Black as a raven and twice as swift. In time she would turn gray, as I had, then cloud-wisp white. In time she would have foals of her own, although I knew I would never see this.
Despite the mild weather, I still felt the feverish pangs of my last labor in my belly. My joints were stiff, and food did not seem to nourish me as it once had. But looking out across the land on which I had toiled all these years, I felt no regret. The air was filled with laughter, and the sun was warm on my back.
APPENDIX
MORE ABOUT THE CONNEMARA PONY
Horses of the Emerald Isle
Horses were first brought to Ireland by the Celts around the fourth century. These were small, dun-colored animals prized for their hardiness. In the twelfth century, Anglo-Norman soldiers invaded the country with their strong warhorses, adding size and substance to local stock. The refined Andalusians brought by Spanish traders in the 1600s helped create the sturdy yet beautiful ponies of the Connemara region on Ireland’s western coast.
Early Connemara ponies were used for farming and transportation. They hauled turf, seaweed, and cartloads of the rocks that fill the fields of Ireland to this day. Trees were scarce near the coast, and most buildings were made of whitewashed stone. Ponies also pulled cartloads of the marsh plants used to thatch cottage roofs.
Connemara ponies were not the only equine breed in Ireland. Draft horses were often used for heavy farmwork. Irish drafts were crossed with Thoroughbreds to produce the Irish Hunter, a horse usually kept by wealthy estate owners.
Most families could afford only one horse. The sturdiness and small size of the Connemara made it a practical choice for poor farmers who could not spare much extra feed for their livestock.
A Day at the Races
Irish country life wasn’t all hard work. In a world before television, cars, cell phones, and computers, horse racing was a popular pastime for the poor and wealthy alike. Races were held over a turf course marked with flags. For many hardworking farmers, race days were an excuse to see friends, bet on their favorite ponies, and rest from the labors of the week. There were different races for mares and stallions, as well as a special race reserved for ponies under 13.2 hands. Men, women, and children could be jockeys in these informal meets. Due to the length of the course and the hilly terrain, the horses were out of the crowd’s sight for much of the race, and a lot of rough riding took place. Jockeys tried to trip other horses and knock fellow riders out of the saddle. To win at an Irish track meet, a horse or pony had to be clever and agile as well as swift.
A New Breed
The Great Famine of 1845 to 1849 devastated the people of Ireland. Potatoes, originally brought to Europe from South America by the Spanish, had been imported from Spain in the late 1500s and became a staple food for the Irish people. When a fungus destroyed 90 percent of the potato crop, many families starved. Others were forced to emigrate to America or other parts of Europe, sometimes leaving young children behind with older relatives.
The horses of Ireland suffered as well, their number and quality greatly reduced by the famine. In the years that followed, the Congested Districts Board, formed to help alleviate poverty and overcrowding in western Ireland, imported Welsh cob, Thoroughbred, and New Forest pony stallions to help restore strength and vigor to the Connemara breed.
The Connemara Pony Breeders Society was formed in 1923. The ideal Connemara is 12.2 to 14.2 hands high, compact, and muscular, with a finely sculpted head and a gentle temperament. The breed standard states that Connemara ponies should resemble miniature Thoroughbreds. Gray is the most common color, but Connemaras can also be bay, dun, black, roan, or chestnut. Pintos are not allowed into the registry.
The first Connemara to enter the studbook was a stallion named Cannon Ball, who reportedly won the Farmer’s Race at Oughterard sixteen years in a row. Cannon Ball is said to have had a remarkable ability to find his way home from town while his owner slumbered in the cart behind him.
Connemaras Today
In recent years, the Connemara has become a popular mount for children and adults in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. The breed is particularly noted for its jumping ability. The annual Connemara show in Clifden, Ireland, attracts hundreds of international visitors each year, many seeking to buy a genuine Connemara pony. Every Connemara must be inspected for conformation and soundness before it can be registered, ensuring the quality of the breed.
Famous Connemaras
In 1935, a twenty-two-year-old Connemara gelding called The Nugget successfully cleared a seven-foot, two-inch jump, a feat that few of the finest Thoroughbreds today would be capable of.
In the 1968 Olympics, a half-Connemara, half-Thoroughbred gelding named Stroller was one of only two horses in the competition to jump a clear round, with not a single rail fallen. Len-don Gray’s half-Connemara, half-Thoroughbred gelding Seldom Seen was a prizewinning dressage horse despite being far smaller than most of his competition, standing only 14.2 hands.
The Connemara stallion Hideaway’s Erin Go Bragh competed at the highest levels of three-day eventing in the 1990s. Erin Go Bragh has sired nearly two hundred foals, many of whom have become champions themselves, continuing the legacy of these tough and versatile ponies.
Horses of Irish Legend
Horses have been a part of Irish lore since ancient times. For example, there is a folk saying that if you break a mirror, bad luck can be averted by leading a horse through the house. And if you wear a braided lock from a black stallion’s mane on your wrist, it will protect you from mischievous fairies.
Horses are important characters in Irish myths and stories as well. The pooka is a shape-shifting horse who lures people onto his back, then gives them the wildest ride of their life before throwing them off into a ditch. The dullahan is a headless fairy that rides a fearsome black horse, and the kelpie is an equine water spirit that lurks in swamps, seeking to drown people. But not all of Ireland’s mythical horses are malevolent. The Celtic goddess Rhiannon rides a shining white horse, and when a tempest breaks over the coast of Ireland, the whitecapped waves are said to be mystical sea horses.
About the Author
Whitney Sanderson is the daughter of Horse Diaries illustrator Ruth Sanderson. Her family has owned horses since she was a child, and her bookshelves were always filled with horse stories. Whitney owns an Appaloosa named Thor, who loves to go for trail rides in the New England woods.
About the Illustrator
Ruth Sanderson grew up with a love for horses. She has illustrated and retold many fairy tales and likes to feature horses in them whenever possible. Her book about a magical horse, The Golden Mare, the Firebird, and the Magic Ring, won the Texas Bluebonnet Award.
Ruth and her daughter have two horses, an Appaloosa named Thor and a quarter horse named Gabriel. She lives with her family in Massachusetts.
To find out more about her adventures with horses and the research she does to create Horse Diaries illustrations, visit her website, ruthsanderson.com.
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