Ballinasloe BY IAN SHERRY

Ballinasloe by Ian Sherry, Northern Ireland

I was whitewashing the wall in front of the house when John McAnulty drove past. Looking out the back of his trailer was a pony of some sort. Not quite a horse’s head, nor a donkeys, yet not as distinctive as a mules --- and I thought of Ballinasloe.

Ballinasloe Horse Fair in County Galway is breath taking. To walk through it is to wonder where on God’s earth did such a variety of horses and indeed people come from. There is every type of horse. Sport horses ridden by immaculately attired gentry; often girls; and coloured cobs *flashed (barebacked) by Travellers, now settled; but from a community where horses used to be central to their itinerant life. There’s such a melee of moving horses; sometimes in gigs that it would be easy to get knocked down.

In this small market town (of 6,000) the streets and Fair Green are thronged with crowds of 80,000. It’s an exuberant carnival of music and song, old fashioned step dancing, ‘spit on your hand’ deals and of course ‘drink.’ Allegedly the horse Napoleon 22 • October 2020

rode in the battle of Austerlitz in 1805 was bought here. ‘Leapy Lad,’ one of the three Irish horses on the United States team competing at The Royal Dublin Horse Show in 1986 had been (six years before) bought at Ballinasloe. Come to think of it, that year I bought a great unregistered Connemara foal. And the cob I have now I bought as a *sixquarter there, a dozen years ago.

But there’ll be no Ballinasloe for Stasia and I this year. The COVID virus has put paid to that. And abandoning the whitewashing I simply had to follow the horse box to where John was sitting in the cab of a vintage lorry in his yard. To say John McAnulty buys and sells cars is to say Bob Dylan is a singer of a few folk songs. John would buy most anything and his latest purchase was in a paddock with another pony behind his dwelling house. He had little idea of its history but ventured it wasn’t a mule, perhaps a hinney that had zebra stripes on its legs. He suggested I go up and see it for myself.

I’m always cautious of approaching a strange animal and here’s just one example of why. The Connemara foal I bought in Ballinasloe turned into a great 14.2 hand, all purpose horse. I don’t know what I was thinking of but it’s our tradition to put horses out on the mountain for summer and I thought for old times sake (for a couple of weeks) I’ll do the same. Well, next day when I went up to see how he was getting on; my well mannered pony struck out from the dozen or more horses with his teeth stripped and his ears back. He galloped right up to about ten yards in front of me, reared, lashed out with his front feet, spun, and galloped back. There were cuts on him, he must have been fighting and was now leader of the pack. I know what Robert Redford would have done - he would have composed himself and sat on the mountain for a week, but I went home defeated; and next day came back with an apple and a rope. This time Diamond stayed with the herd and just looked at me. I continued to go up, just a visit each evening, and after four days he came over and suspiciously took the apple. I slipped the rope over his head - I had my hand through the noose. Immediately he was back to himself and I recall him walking quietly after me along a mile or so of mountain path, the other horses following in line. Mules and More Magazine

Standing at the gate to McAnulty’s paddock I could see a nicely proportioned little mare of about 12 hands high. She’s a dark brown colour, with a prominent black stripe over her shoulders and down her spine and has a donkeys tail. Curiously she has black zebra stripes on her legs; front and back. I opened the gate and went in. She came over amicably enough for the apple, but when I quietly reached over for her bridle I got a sense of something wild and lithe with an ingrained abhorrence of being restrained. Back in the yard, I said, “That’s a playboy worthy of Ballinasloe,” to John and he too missing the great fair this year agreed. He also agreed that there could well be a bit of work in putting her in a cart. I have no doubt that there will be many better qualified than me to assess John’s purchase. And yes; I know who they are; they’re reading Mules and More. (*Flashed – Shown of; ridden up and down the street. *sixquarter – Between one year and two)