CARLOW FARMERS
26 February
Carlow Farmers, Borris
“BETTER fasten your seat belt,” Tom Berney murmured to me, as we jogged across country to the first draw of the day behind the Carlow Farmers hounds.
Tom, of the famous Berney Saddlery in Kilcullen, is the most courteous and mildmannered of men, but is also a gifted, fearless cross-country rider. A warning from him to harden your heart is not to be taken lightly.
He had hardly spoken when his fellow whipperin Jodie Skelton was spurring his horse into a canter ahead of us and setting him at a formidable granite wall. Tom followed him over it with considerable elan. I followed Tom with rather less dash and style.
We had just touched down on the other side when another wall presented itself, and then another, this one overgrown with a tangle of briars. Hunt treasurer Jim Bolger had poured me a measure of Powers whiskey at the meet, which at the time I
