Still doing the business at the Horse Show

"But the man on the other stand says he'll give it to me for half the price!"

The blonde woman was persuasive, but she was up against a real pro.

"Ah, it's the experience," Jim Berney told her. "From me, you're buying the best."

In his 74th year, Jim is a master at doing the business on the Berney Brothers stand at the Royal Dublin Horse Show. And why not ... doesn't he know the Berney products intimately, having made them all his working life? From bridles to girths to martingales to saddles for every equine application.



Anyone who even mildly enters a bargaining situation with him will buy in rather short order. The blonde women did too, despite her original suggestions that she had been offered a better deal elsewhere.



It's the 45th time that Berneys have been at the Horse Show, and they're busier than they have very been. It is the same back home in the Kilcullen saddlery, established by Jim's grandfather Peter in 1880 and now with the 'reins of excellence' being held by his own son Vincent and his brother Tom's son Thomas.



Indeed, things are going so well that the Diary has heard suggestions that some of the operation might have to be moved out of town.

If that turns out to be the case, many of us will hope that it won't mean the loss of the famous white horse in the window that has a Kilcullen landmark from when we were kids, and maybe when many of our parents were kids?

Brian Byrne.