Connemara society ignores USEF’s welfare instruction and continues with Connemara inspections

The 2013 meeting of the American Connemara Pony Society has come and gone, and nothing appears to have changed with inspections.

Clearly, this is the path forward.

Elitism.

A two-class system.

Inspections that decide which horses are “Connemara enough” to “pass,” despite the fact that all Connemaras are genetically Connemaras by birth.

An overall negative atmosphere in a society dominated by inspections.

Entrenched, closed-minded thinking when it comes to even debating inspections by people who have run this society for decades.

Forget the words of Bill Moroney, USEF’s vice president of national affiliates, who asked affiliates in June 2013 to examine their practices every two years and see what makes sense. He said the goal of all affiliate conduct should be to put the welfare of the horse first.

So let’s look at that. Say you have a great Connemara mare, one with the heart and scope that every rider covets, and the mare’s cannon bones fall within the breed standard of 7 to 8 inches, but the cannon bones are not thick enough for inspectors looking for something much coarser these days, despite the fact that the breed standard has been in place for a century. Or, heaven forbid, the mare is taller than 14-2 and she didn’t get measured at age 2. Then, she doesn’t pass inspection. She doesn’t get entered into the stud book. A new ACPS member who doesn’t understand the politics behind this whole mess would assume that mare wasn’t Connemara enough and might sell her someplace where she winds up in a Mexico slaughterhouse. Turns out that mare might have been a great hunter/jumper and produced 15 great foals before she was done. But, no, she didn’t fit the completely arbitrary description someone wrote down for Connemaras, most likely someone whose herd matched the description, even though scientific studies have shown the Connemara breed had five distinct looks in Ireland in the early 1900s, reflecting the fact that Connemaras are mutts historically.

And where in the inspection scenario is the welfare of the Connemara? An owner just threw away a horse, not to mention a great one.

Let’s look at the welfare prospects without inspections. The mare is not discarded. Her owners, new to the horse world and willing to spend some money, invest a lot in her training and promotion. She cleans up at every show, becomes USEF Connemara of the Year and is bred multiple times to produce talented offspring. She develops a fan base at shows, and more people seek Connemaras. More quality Connemaras get into the hands of people willing to develop them.

That is a great, enriching path for this Connemara mare, who is very intelligent and loves to show and be busy, as well as the breed as a whole.

Ironically, it’s a bad scenario for a breeder with dead-sided and untalented horses who is having trouble selling horses. This breeder would not appreciate this scenario because the talented mare would make the breeder’s horses look bad. This breeder would prefer the path of having inspections create “quality” Connemaras because the breeder’s horses fit the breed standard in appearance. And they don’t have to do anything to get a seal of approval at an inspection.

Thus, inspections allow this breeder to continue producing horses that have no market. People who have bought the breeder’s horses discard them. There is a glut of unwanted Connemaras coming from this breeder.

One could argue that inspections are detrimental to the welfare of the Connemara breed as a whole.

The ACPS annual meeting in September 2013 apparently did nothing on inspections (and I can only judge this by the ACPS website, which had almost no coverage of the meeting posted a month after it was over and no video of officiating at all).

Inspections are not up for the type of debate that Moroney requested. In fact, if you look at the ACPS website now, you will see that the society’s attempt to justify inspections is roughly 4,900 words.

The society’s bylaws are only about 5,499 words.

By comparison, the ACPS web page on famous Connemara feats is about 330 words.

Let’s continue to look at numbers.

When I sent out a survey about inspections to ACPS members in 2004, there were 759 members in the ACPS directory.

Now, almost 10 years later, there are 561 members. That’s a drop of 26 percent.

Sure, there was a recession, but these numbers are disturbing beyond economic issues. As I was counting the names, I noticed several members who have not had anything to do with Connemaras for years, and I also noted that many of the members who are still involved are in their late 60s or early 70s.

If you eliminate all of those people, you have a very small group left to shepherd the future of the Connemara in this country. The society needs to change to grow and remain in existence.

Meanwhile, in Ireland, creator of these hallowed Connemara inspections, there is such a glut of unwanted horses that Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney says he’s considering implementing a “horse disposal scheme,” according to the Irish Times.

Coveney told the Times: “If people have horses at the moment that they can’t feed and they have no outlet and no market for those horses and there’s likely to be a welfare problem as a result of that, well, then we have to act on that and we will. Whether they need to be slaughtered humanely, or whether they need some other appropriate treatment, well obviously we’ll look at that.”

The Times said Coveney encouraged people to contact the Department of Agriculture’s welfare help line if they could not afford to feed their animals. “Don’t do something crazy like shoot them in the yard,” he said.

I found it interesting that he called shooting a horse in the yard crazy, but that’s a post for another day.

At any rate, does it sound like things are going well for Connemaras in Ireland? Good thing we’re using that country as our model.

I would not pursue the effort to eliminate inspections, or rather the bullying and genetic weeding of Connemaras, if I thought my argument would not stand the test of time. Quite the opposite, equality and inclusion are the future, no matter what the group.

My idea of an organization on the right track for horse welfare is the United States Pony Clubs, whose mission is prominently displayed on its website. It says:

The United States Pony Clubs, Inc., develops character, leadership, confidence and a sense of community in youth through a program that teaches the care of horses and ponies, riding and mounted sports.

In contrast, how many words on the Connemara website promote the development of good horse and pony care in the Connemara world?

None.

I might suggest the ACPS should get an “F” this year for following USEF’s instruction to focus on horse welfare.