BREED PROFILE
CONNEMARA PONY Ireland’s native breed wins fans across Canada. B Y PI PE R W H E L A N
In the wild and wondrous west coast of Ireland, lives a special pony that embodies the heritage of this striking landscape. With a long history in the Connemara district of County Galway, the Connemara Pony has shaped this place and its people as much as the Atlantic Ocean and the Irish Gaelic still spoken here, endearing itself to riders around the world with its gentle disposition and resilience. Standing between 13 and 14.2 hands high, the sure-footed Connemara is a strong and compact animal. This breed is known for its wide chest, deep girth and good bone. While they can be found in a variety of colours, grey and dun are the most common. The breed standard only permits some white on the face and legs. The mane and tail are thick and often wavy and the eyes are large, wide-set and kind. The Connemara generally reaches full maturity at the age of five or older. The breed is sturdy without being coarse, which makes it an easily kept animal. With its good disposition, intelligence and natural jumping ability, enough to rival tall horses, these ponies bring a lot of effort and heart to everything they do. The Connemara traces its roots back thousands of years to when ancient Celtic warriors brought the ponies to Ireland, beginning a tradition of horsemanship and love of all things equine found throughout the island today. The rugged character of Ireland’s west coast, windswept mountains, 22
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moors and rocky coastlines, has helped shape the ancestors of the modern Connemara into an agile, steady and athletic pony. Considered the country’s only native breed, the Connemara shows up in Irish mythology as the mount of choice for the tribes living in the ancient kingdoms of western Ireland. According to local legend, when the Spanish Armada ran into storms off Ireland’s west coast in the 16th century, Andalusians aboard many of the ships that ran aground successfully made it ashore. This introduction of outside bloodlines is believed by some to have, over time, help increase the Connemara in size, strength and endurance.
With a natural athleticism, the Connemara excels at jumping and is a show-ring favourite. The ponies’ hardiness and kind temperaments made them ideal for the hard-working farmers of this area, who relied on the Connemara as their mode of transportation and to work their fields. These ponies were also fitted with
baskets placed over their backs to carry items such as large stones for building fences, peat (used instead of wood in fires) and seaweed, which was used as fertilizer. Families could usually only afford to own one pony at a time, making their stamina and disposition all the more important to carry out everyday tasks, and good mares were bred to raise foals that thrived in the rugged area and looked after their owners. In more recent history, the Connemara has begun to attract attention for its jumping and racing abilities, a product of its upbringing in the marshes, hills and mountains.
PRESERVING A PART OF IRISH HERITAGE
An early effort to improve the Connemara pony came through Ireland’s Congested Districts Board in the 1890s. As part of the Board’s work to encourage the improvement of quality of life for people on the country’s overpopulate west coast, it introduced a range of stallions into the district for breed improvement. However, several of these stallions were poor choices for crossing with the Connemara and the resulting progeny were deemed disappointing. In 1923, the Connemara Pony Breeders’ Society was established in Ireland to improve and preserve the breed. Early on, the Society referred to a 1901 report by a professor at the University of Edinburgh on how to best
