The big, iron gray horse had been winning all the flat classes that day in 1963 when Roger Leithead was the ringmaster at the inaugural hunter show in Atlanta, Ga. His old friend, Morgan Lewis, had bought the Percheron-Thoroughbred cross as a 3-year-old for his daughter, Elizabeth, then 10, and an avid Pony Club rider.

Roger was the District Commissioner of the Atlanta Pony Club at the time and Lewis had told Roger to be on the lookout for the horse because he wanted him to take note of what he believed was “the perfect Pony Club horse.”
Late in the day, the strapping gelding came through the in-gate with Elizabeth in the irons and Roger figured this was the horse his friend had been talking about. The class was a simple 2’6″ over fences. Nothing to it.

The pair made their circle, headed down to the first fence and the big horse slammed on the brakes about 20 feet from the fence and stood right up on his hind legs. Two attempts later, he was excused from the ring, having never made it past the first fence and with his frustrated young rider in tears.

“Well, that was the end of that,” said Roger. “The next time I looked over, I could see the trainer off in the distance trying like the devil to get that horse over a fence with no luck at all. Perfect Pony Club horse, my eye,” he thought. 

He Found Me

Little did Roger know that he was looking at the horse that would be his foxhunting partner for 21 years and safely transport four of his five children up through the Pony Club ratings at the same time. He was named Gilhooley’s Ghost, thanks to his striking resemblance to a magnificent open jumper named Gilhooley, who
competed in the 1920s. After that frustrating day at the Atlanta horse show, Lewis sent the horse to one of Gordon Wright’s clinics to see if somebody could fix his jumping, which had continued to be a problem. Wright took one look at his movement and demeanor and said “now THAT is Gilhooley’s ghost.” The name stuck.

But besides naming the horse, Wright made one other lasting recommendation that day. He told Lewis to send the horse to Roger, who was a former student of his, saying that he thought Roger could fix him. Roger just happened to be actively hunting with the Shakerag Hounds out of northeast Atlanta.

“I wasn’t out there looking for another horse,” Roger said. “He found me.”

On Thanksgiving day in 1963, Gilhooley’s Ghost arrived at the stable where Roger kept his hunt horse. Roger was whipping-in with the Shakerag Hounds and could always use a spare. So he agreed to take the horse on for the first part of the season to see if he could get him over a fence.

The Introduction

“Our first hunt together was monumental. Since I was whipping-in, I was out by myself and so we went around one side of the covert, going away from the field. Then in a few minutes up we came to the first coop. It was now or never,” Roger recalled. Gilhooley lived up to his reputation and slammed on the brakes. “It was at that point that Gilhooley and I had our first, last, and only ever battle. He finally decided that it was better to go over the fence than to put up with all the grief I was giving him,” he said. After he cleared that first coop, Gilhooley’s future would take him through more than 20 years of Pony Club rallies, including a remarkable 10 National rallies, and a similar number of years in the hunt field, galloping through the hunt territories from Georgia to New York.

Gilhooley’s Ghost became what every rider hopes for in a good horse. He was stalwart, consistent, well behaved, a trooper. And, he was a horse with talent.

“He was just always there. Anything you ever wanted to do, with just a nickel’s worth of encouragement, he’d just do it,” Roger said.

Breaking him to the whip was just as easy, according to Roger. “Sometimes it’s a chore and you never can get them to hold still. The first time, I wound that whip up and came off with as good of a bang as I could get out of it. Gilhooley never turned a hair. He just said, ‘OK, I’m supposed to stand still while this is going on.’ It was done in a second,” he said.

For 21 years, from 1963 to 1984, Gilhooley’s hunt career included duties as a Master’s horse with Shakerag Hounds and the Litchfield County Hounds (Conn.); a fieldmaster’s horse with those same hunts plus the Woodside Hounds in Aiken, S.C, a whipper-in horse with all three of those hunts, and, for a brief period, a huntsman’s horse when Roger hunted the Shakerag Hounds and also the Litchfield County Hounds.
Of course, Gilhooley’s experience and reliability also made him the perfect guest horse, so he gamely carried all manner of people in first field and the hilltoppers.

Roger’s son Tad (Roger, Jr.) Leithead remembered that “while Gilhooley was my father’s hunt horse, there was always a lady in the field who was overmounted or a special guest who deserved only the best. In these situations, Gilhooley was the solution. So, many a day, Dad spent the hunting day riding whatever horse was left over while someone else had the day of their lives on Gilhooley.”

Educating The Young

A horse that knows his job always gives his rider the best possible chance at doing well. That was certainly the case when Gilhooley was pressed into service for four of the five Leithead children as they rose through the ranks in Pony Club.

The Leithead family is a Pony Club dynasty of sorts. Both Roger and his wife Margo (currently President of the United States Pony Club) were heavily involved, with Roger serving as a D.C., judge, coach, clinician and board member at various times. And the Leithead children collectively earned two A ratings, one HA, one C and one B rating, all riding Gilhooley.

At age 7, the big gray gelding made his Pony Club debut in 1966 in the highly competitive northeast region, after the Leitheads had moved from Atlanta to Greenwich, Conn. A few years later, at a regional rally in 1970, Roger was told by the other D.C.s in the Connecticut area not to be too disappointed if his Greenwich Pony Club team wasn’t competitive. Being on his most courteous behavior, Roger ignored the jab and responded, “We’ll do the best we can.”

On the last day, with only 1 point hanging in the balance, Tad piloted Gilhooley to a clean round on both stadium and cross country, giving them the win by 1 point. “I may be the only rider in Pony Club history who passed his C, B and A rating all on the same horse,” said Tad. His brother John, and sister Holly both passed their B tests on Gilhooley as well.

And, “one thing no one can quantify is the number of times Gilhooley was on loan to a youngster who needed a suitable mount to get them through their testing to the next level,” Roger said. “He was ‘Mr. Reliable.’ ”

According to Margo,

“Tim, our youngest, who is an HA and came along 17 years after Tad, never had a chance to ride Gilhooley, but he did, in a way. When he was just toddling around, we would all go to the hunt barn every Sunday afternoon, after hunting on Saturday and church Sunday morning. We would cross-tie Gilhooley in the aisle and put Tim on his back, where we knew he was safe, and the two would be there happily while we stripped stalls and did the regular barn work.”

The Last Ride

The last ride Roger and Gilhooley had together was in the waning months of 1985. Gilhooley continued to be stabled at the Litchfield County hunt barn. Roger mounted up, and he and Gilhooley made their way up to the top of a hill.

“I had that whip I used to carry all the time, and when we got to the top of the hill, I wound it up and got off about five really good bangs and then I rode him back down the hill. That was the last time anyone ever sat on his back,” Roger recalled. It was a great send off for a great horse.”

After that, Roger moved his faithful partner back to a country stable in Pennsylvania for a much-deserved retirement. Gilhooley spent a blissful two years out to pasture until his health started to fail, and in 1987 he was put to rest.

“After all those years of good health and no injuries, he just suddenly began to break down,” said Roger. Gilhooley’s Ghost—Pony Club legend and hunting horse extraordinaire—is buried in that field in Pennsylvania, next to the Leithead children’s two ponies.

As it turns out, Lewis’ prediction back in 1963 came true in more ways than one. Gilhooley’s Ghost did become the “perfect Pony Club horse” and he became nothing short of perfect in his other pursuits as well. In 1987, after Gilhooley’s death, Tad wrote to his father “He was the greatest horse that I have ever known. No horse, and very few people that I’ve known, have had his heart.”