To buy or not to buy.....that was the question!!

I have juggled the idea of a blog around in my head for a number of months but thought it was too much effort and time with work, exams and of course horses but here I am finally putting pen to paper!  They say life experiences is what makes a person and I am a firm believer of this from meeting a pretty little blonde called "Uptown Rosie".

Grace and I became the best of friends at the age of 3 whilst playing at a neighbour's sand pit which separated our two houses on the outskirts of Galway City. From there we became thick as thieves and lived (and still do!) in one another's pockets. Grace always had a love of ponies falling from her idol of a mother Mary. I was in awe of her to think someone so tiny could go to these big shows jumping huge obstacles while my sisters and I ran around the shows looking at dogs and buying sweets. Many an occasion I went with shaking knees to the yard to watch but never touch graces ponies. Alas at the age of 12, Mary arranged for Graces 13th birthday to be with the ponies and bang I finally fell in love. My horsey upbringing was a very bright and colouful affair where I have met some true friends I will never ever forget and now consider family. The times we shared would create a whole other blog / movie  but that's not the plan with this blog. As time went on we all went our separate ways and in 2007 Highgrange Stables was born, a new project and most importantly our new home.

Kieran one of our very good friends rang one morning to say he was in a new yard with some mares for sale. Mary being Mary couldn't resist and out came her famous words "we will go for a look!". One very cold & frosty November morning, way back during the"boom" times of 2007, we hit the road to Oranmore to have a "quick look" at some racehorses whom had come to the market for sale. We pulled into this gorgeous little racing yard tucked away in the wilds of Oranmore. We met the owner and he led the way to a field at the end of a racing gallop. There stood a pretty little chestnut mare with the perfect white blaze, three white legs and a highlighted mane and tail, a picture.

He caught her in from the field along with another bay mare and took them to the stables for tacking up. I sat up on the chestnut and knew straight away she was something special. I went into a ring and rode around giving her a few pops over a hurdle fence....she was a dream. I sat up on the other mare and I was as quick to get off as I was to get on....we had zero chemistry. Grace braved the moment and tried the bay and they fell in love. So decision time, here we were standing in a racing yard with only knowledge of showjumping and hunting......to buy or not to buy......that was the question. We left and said lets think about this, half of us said no these are trained and fully raced racehorses we know nothing about and then the other half was saying they are so pretty we might retrain them to showjumpers for the craic.....conclusion: buy them! The following day we set sail with the horse box and shipped Uptown Rosie and Ms McCloud to their new homes at Highgrange Stables....but it was not all plain sailing.