Our horses are aging and changing – watch this space for the new generation in a year or so – Joey Jasper and Lucy Cruising or whoever else may come along.
Our two beautiful grey (white) horses, Beauty & Bibi, are prizewinning carriage driving horses, having competed with success on a number of occasions at the RDS Dublin Horse Show, and also they were the Carriage Driving Ireland Novice Pair Champions in 2012
(Our beloved Beauty moved on to higher pastures in 2022).
Riverside Beauty, a 15.1 cob, bred near Tullow, Co. Carlow, and she has achieved success at every appearance at AIRC Advanced Intermediate level, notably a Joint 1st and a 2nd at ODE, and 2nd and 3rd in Hunter Trials, as well as numerous placings in showjumping.
Bibi is a Polish warmblood – her registered Polish name is Natkieta. According to her passport, she arrived in Ireland via Germany and she was skin and bones when we acquired her. Now she is a real madam, with her head tucked in and her dainty step, she has helped Beauty to learn how to draw as a pair, and now, with a much wider girth, she is the boss.
However, Bibi will only be doing short carriage rides for the forseeable future -she produced the lovely rascal, Joey Jasper, in June 2019 and the mischievious filly, Lucy Cruising in 2021.
Silver is the new boy on duty, filling in for Bibi while she becomes a mother. He has a big Roman nose but matches Beauty perfectly. While he is only 12 year old, he has worked hard on the streets of Dublin and suffers from arthritis, but he is now enjoying some peaceful grazing in Carlow with Beauty and Bibi. Beauty has finally found someone more docile than she and bullies him no end.
Hopefully Bibi’s son, Joey Jasper will become the next generation carriage horse – he certainly seems to have the quiet temperament necessary for carriage driving, even if he is a rascal jumping out over every gate in the place! His Daddy is a grey connemara, Grange Jasper, so Joey will probably turn grey when he is older.
Will Lucy have the temperament to follow in her Mum’s hoofsteps? We’ll have to wait and see.
We pride ourselves on presenting our turnouts to traditional competition standards at all times (a horse and carriage is called a turnout) – beautifully groomed with brushed tails and “rose bud” plaits in manes and adhering to correct carriage driving etiquette at all times.
