When I was growing up, my grandfather Jack Bolger was regarded as probably the most influential breeder of his generation. Jack would have been the top man in the 1940s, 50s and 60s and then my father Bobby kicked in, in the 80s and 90s.

My grandfather Jack was from Oughterard, Co Galway, where he stood a number of stallions including a draught, an arab, the thoroughbred Little Heaven and a number of Connemaras, including Carna Bobby.

I’ve a picture of Little Heaven outside my grandfather’s house in the late 1940s –he was the sire of Dundrum.

The Arab, Nazeel was brought in too but the thoroughbred was the best cross.

It was Jack that introduced the Arab and thoroughbred to Ireland because the Connemara pony in the west then was 12.2hh to 13.2hh, they were too small.

Harsh times

They would have been harsh times back then. There’s an island on Lough Corrib called Inchagoill, you can visit the island and the old church there with Corrib Cruises. Back then the Connemara Society used to buy 10 of the best colt foals every year and leave them on Inchagoill and then bring them in as two-year-olds. The winter of 1947 was bad and they lost three of the foals.

My grandfather and Patrick Mulkerrins from Oughterard, went out and brought in the remaining seven, they would swim the ponies back from the island. One of them was Carna Bobby, the supreme champion at Clifden.

My father often told me that breeders used to cover their Connemara mares with the thoroughbred horse for pony racing, as it was huge at that time, and the foal was then registered as a Connemara.

Some of the pedigrees, before blood typing came in were far from genuine.

Carna Bobby

Carna Bobby was supposed to be by Gil. He wasn’t, he was by a thoroughbred horse. Carna Bobby is the father of Ashfield Bobby Sparrow and that’s where the jump is from, the thoroughbred side.

My father purchased Silver Shadow at inspections, where he had previously been turned down.

We stood him for four years, showed him twice in the stallion class at Clifden where he finished fourth. From there we sent him to Thomas O’Brien to go show jumping and the rest is history. We still have his first crop of foals which are all mares – Coral Molly, Coral Mistys Rose and Coral Mistys Ciara – as he never bred us a colt!

My grandfather Jack’s uncle, William Roe was one of the founding members of the Connemara Pony Breeders Society [CPBS] backin 1923. We’re the only link back to the foundation of the society – it’s a nice thing to have but you still have to be able to do something.

I’d like to see the Connemara studbook split into two sections; have a type section and performance section. Now that’s only my personal opinion, I’m not saying it’s going to happen but if we want to promote our pony then we need to give the performance pony its own section. I might throw the idea out there at a council meeting sometime soon!

I’d often hear my father talk about Dundrum (by Little Heaven). The reason Tommy Wade got him was he wouldn’t pull a milk cart. Little Heaven did a serious amount of good for the society and my grandfather stood him. He used to graze land down around Tipperary, owned by a lady called Daisy Saddler. He’d sell her ponies and she’d sell them to England. That’s possibly where Little Heaven could have come from. Later on, she sold the land and that’s where Vincent O’Brien trained.

Lucky

My father’s generation, they will never be replaced. I was very lucky, I had the perfect trainer in my father as ponies were more or less his living. He would be watching the Irish Farmers Journal to see what would be going and what would be selling or we’d be off to fairs, I’ve been in more towns and villages around Ireland than I can remember looking at horses!

The biggest thing, whether you’ve a draught, a thoroughbred or a Connemara, if you haven’t a good mammy, you’re better off to buy an average foal out of a great mare, than a great foal out of an average mare.

Sacred ground

Dublin or Clifden?

Well to me there’s no place like the sacred ground of Clifden to win at.

I bought Gurteen Cathal (by Coral Dun) as a foal, he passed at inspection and I then sold him to Sylvia Henry in Co Down. My wife Laura and I bought him back in March 2013, showed him six times that year, and he won five supreme championships and a reserve championship.

One of those was the supreme championship at Clifden, something I thought I’d never do. It was a proud moment as my father had won his first Clifden supreme championship 20 years to the very day. In all, he won five Clifden supreme championships – Coral Prince 1993, Queen Gillian 94/99 and Coral Misty 95/97 – all by the same stallion, Murphy Rebel.

My grandfather won three supreme championships: Carna Bobby 49/55, Cashel Kate 67 and I’ve won once with Gurteen Cathal.

My father bought Coral Dun at the Clifden sales in 1994 and it just so happened he bought him from my now father-in-law James McWeeney!

So in our family we’ve nine supreme titles. To have nine supreme titles in 100 years, there’s a lot that don’t have one.

Gurteen Cathal is the first supreme champion to breed a supreme champion, Slackport Prince.

One night I was looking at a cup that my father won at the Clifden foal fair day, long before the mart existed. I rang my good friend Dara Heanue and we came up with the idea of the Foal of the Year Show and it was held in the showgrounds in Clifden last September. It was a big success.

I met my wife Laura at Clifden sales, where I got her number for pony talk! One thing led to another and we got married in 2015. In May 2018 we had a baby boy, who we called Jack, he is born into the pony world and hopefully one day he will leave his stamp on the Connemara pony.

Kevin Bolger was in conversation with Susan Finnerty.