Horse Breeding, Holy Water, and a Hen Party

Hello hello! I lied yesterday (unintentionally) and said Friday was my last night in Ireland. Yesterday was actually my last night in Ireland. Today I make the 6ish-hour trek to Wales and then across the country to Cardiff. Had to check the geography on that, but it’s right.

Also, please ignore the fact that I was lazy on formatting these posts at the beginning and just dumped pictures at you. Those were late nights and I’m trying to be nicer now. Love you.

I somehow slept through my 5am alarm yesterday till just before 7. That gave me exactly 32 minutes to get totally ready and packed. Wasn’t stressed at all. Kidding. I was super annoyed, but I managed it with 0 minutes to spare. 

From our stop in Dublin, we drove to Kildare. Not going to lie, I was 100% not excited about visiting the Irish National Stud, but it was fantastic. Horses are pretty, and I’ve ridden them on hiking trails about twice in my life, but I never had a real obsession with or understanding of them.

{The guy who founded the stud was sort of crazy and thought that the success of foals was dependent on their astrological signs. I say “sort of” because he was super successful at breeding horses with this unscientific method. Hence, the astrological signs above. The Bonsai tree base is because there’s also a Japanese garden there.}

{The artist who makes these literally waits until he finds a branch the perfect shape for whatever part he needs. So if he has the whole horse, minus an ear, he waits until he finds an ear-shaped branch. It’s super efficient, obviously.}

{They love each other.}

{Swish and flick}

Our tour guide there was great and now I want a horse. Only sorta kidding, guys. Some fun facts about the horses, mostly about breeding them:

• Hunt racehorses are castrated because their races are longer and, well, they need to focus.
• The stud’s stallions start at a 5,000 euro breeding fee. When their foals start racing, their breeding fee is reassessed. That is, it goes up if they have successful progeny.
• Invincible Spirit is a highly sought-after stallion for breeding. His breeding fee is 120,000 euro, and he covered (mated with) 4 mares a day during the last breeding season. He produces great foals and his sons produce great foals. He’s at the Irish National Stud, and they’re kinda sad that he only has a few more breeding seasons in him.
• To make sure a mare is in heat before they bring the stallion to her, they bring in Tommy the Teaser. Tommy doesn’t mate with her, but they assess her body language in relation to him to make sure she’s ready.
• If she is, her handler puts on a green helmet and heads out to the stallions. They all come running hopefully because they know that green helmet.
• Before they meet in the covering house (honeymoon suite), the handlers put blankets on the mare in case the stallion bites and slippers on her hooves so she doesn’t hurt him if she kicks him.
• The handlers watch and film all the mating. There needs to be proof that foals are not the product of artificial insemination.
• If the mare isn’t pregnant two weeks later, they repeat the whole ritual. If she’s not pregnant two weeks after that, her handlers don’t pay the breeding fee.

Alright, more than you wanted to know about horses. However, I thought it was fascinating, and the land was gorgeous and peaceful. As was the Japanese garden.

{The theme of the garden was something about the path of life. If you take the easy path, you end up in a dark tunnel. If you take the path of life, which is a tad treacherous for a garden, you end up on a pretty marriage bridge. Fitting, since the young couple on our trip got engaged yesterday in Glendalough.}

We made a quick stop at a St. Brigid well of holy water that is supposed to heal whatever ails you.

Then, it was off to Kilkenny, where I took a couple pictures of a castle and ate killer seafood chowder.

I usually hate chowders because they’re all cream and no flavor, but this had fresh black peppercorn and tons of tasty seafood. So good.

From there, we drove to Waterford, where we took a tour of the Waterford Crystal factory. That was cool – they put a lot of effort into making nice crystal – but while I can appreciate good craftsmanship, I appreciate crystal almost as little as I appreciate beer. Still, it was rainy and gross, as it is 200 days out of the year in Ireland, so being inside didn’t suck.

Given my sore throat and feeling meh, I almost didn’t go to the pub in Waterford, but I’m glad I did. It was a bunch of old Irish people singing and playing loud Irish music, and it was cute and fun, and it’s available on my Instagram story for now. The food was blah, but I had snacks back in the room so I ate some fries and snacked while I wrote all this. We ended up leaving a tad early due to a very rowdy hen party (bachelorette party) that made the guys singing pack up and leave ASAP. Aaand now I should pull out what I need for tomorrow and go to bed because I’d like to not sleep through my alarm again.

Your turn:

What are you up to this weekend?

What’s your favorite animal?