Beyond the Pale

When I was growing up I remember my mother telling me many times that I was "beyond the pale".  I never understood what that phrase meant, but I knew it wasn't good.  Well today, Larry and I went "beyond the pale", which, in this case, means that we went out from Dublin a ways  - beyond the area previously controlled by the English (The Pale), to where the barbarians (Irish) lived.   Our destination today was the Village of Kildare where the Irish National Stud is located.   (That's a farm, ladies...).   It was a very cool place about a 45 minute drive from our "home away from home". 

County Kildare has been a place for breeding horses since the 1300s, but in 1900 an English nobleman, Colonel William Hall-Walker (heir to the Johnny Walker fortune) bought a farm and started to raise thoroughbreds here.   The Irish political environment became too much for him in 1916 and he gave the farm to the English government who eventually handed it over to the Irish government.  They have been breeding race horses (and providing stud service) continuously since 1900.

For some reason there happens to also be a world famous Japanese garden there as well. We enjoyed it  while waiting for our guided tour.  The garden was very compact (as it should be) and had lots of interesting plants and trees in it.  It was the nicest such garden I have seen.  We spent about 20 minutes or so wandering around its labyrinthine pathways taking pictures.

Our tour guide was a lovely young Irish woman with a really wicked sense of humor.  We thoroughly enjoyed her wit and she was quite informative.  We learned lots about race horse breeding.  For example, mares come into season 8 days after birthing a new foal and she is bred again.  The gestation period is 11 months for horses.  All race horses are considered to have January 1 as their birthdays, so the closer they are born to Jan 1, the older they will be when racing as a 1 year old, etc..  The breeding season and the foaling season then are basically from January through June.

They have a fabulous facility here.  Apparently breeding horses is a very lucrative business - way more lucrative than racing them.  Most race horses "get the snip" and become geldings.  This makes them easier to train and better racers, but the ones they want to breed have to race as well to make a name for themselves as champions.  The better the titles they have, the higher the stud fee, of course.  Their best horse carries a stud fee of $90,000  and is worth (and insured) for $90 MILLION. The reason he is so valuable is that a very high proportion of the foals he has sired have gone on to be serious champions and therefore made lots of money for their owners.  He was a beauty.  Each stallion has their own "apartment" and a large pasture to themselve.  Apparently these bad boys fight if you put them together.

Here is a picture of Larry pretending he is one of the studs.  A pretty nice looking stable, huh?

After the tour ended, we wandered around the various paddocks to see the mares and their foals and to see the miniature horse, Marge, who is about to deliver.  They have a whole family of the miniatures named after the Simpsons (Bart, Homer, Marge, etc).  We didn't think the miniatures were very cute, but the foals sure were.  We even pet some of the foals although they weren't wild about it. We learned that they put cows in the pasture with the horses because it has a calming effect on the young horses. 

  

There was also a lovely Irish garden on the property which we wandered through to admire the swans and to see the remains of an ancient monastery. 

We watched a 15 minute video of the birthing of a foal, checked out the museum and headed into the little village of Kildare to find some lunch.  We had wonderful sandwiches and Larry had a great  Potato and Fennel soup.  We then explored a beautiful 12th century church.  Larry scared himself half to death climbing the adjacent tower.  It was filled with just ladders sitting on somewhat rickety platforms. 

The views from there were wonderful, however, and he got a few good pictures before the howling wind forced him back down.

The village of Kildare was charming - kind of like we had imagined small Irish towns would be.  We will see over the next few weeks how typical it was.

All in all, we had a great day.  We woke to a light rain, but by 10 a.m. the sun was shining and it was perfect sight-seeing weather all day.  We made it home without incident (nor argument).  We are staying in for the evening as we both seem to still be very tired.  I guess jet lag gets worse as you get older.