WILLIE Leahy is known all over the horse world as field-master of the Galway Blazers, a producer of hunters and hirelings, and one of the largest breeders of Connemara ponies on the planet.

One customer in the USA was so pleased with a succession of horses that he purchased from Willie, that he had a large sign in his equestrian centre that read, ‘In the market for a hunter? Contact Willie Leahy, Aille Cross’.