Can 4,539 words justify Connemara inspections? No

The American Connemara Pony Society’s web page on inspections tries to justify the program with 4,539 words.

The average blog post is 500 words.

I would argue that these inspections could be summed up in one word: anti-trust.

Breeders themselves are the inspectors, a conflict of interest. Consciously or unconsciously, these inspectors want to keep breeders of competing horses, particularly better horses, from succeeding because it hurts their own sales.

I have cut the fat from the lengthy inspections page with an interpretation of my own:

The ACPS page starts out by saying many breeds contributed to the Connemara, thus “many varied types evolved.”

My translation: The breed is a mutt, as diverse in appearance as it is in genes.

The ACPS page says Ireland’s breed society started inspections in 1924 to “develop and document a breed whose approved individuals would reliably reproduce themselves.”

Translation: Ireland, a nation 94.3 percent white in 2014, hated the diversity in its so-called “native” breed.

The ACPS page says that the aim of Irish inspections in 1924 was to secure by continued selection and careful fostering a breed of ponies uniform in size and shape.

Translation: Ireland set up a system to eliminate the diversity.

Dare I point out that Adolph Hitler was penning Mein Kampf the same year a few countries over. Eugenics and anti-diversity sentiment were riding a bit of a high in Europe at the time. A hundred years later, most countries have evolved and diversified. Ireland, not so much.

The ACPS page says the U.S. started its inspections program because such inspections were required to join the international Connemara society, created and run by Ireland.

Translation: On the surface, it would appear the ACPS is saying it agreed to run an anti-diversity (read “bullying”) program in the U.S. to be accepted by Ireland, an interesting thing to claim. However, some inspectors have hidden behind this excuse to create an inspections program that simply excludes the more refined horses that clobbered their horses at shows for years.

The ACPS page says that, in 2004, with inspections policies established, the ACPS requested full membership status in the international society. It was granted the next year.

Translation: Thanks to the newly implemented U.S. inspections program, a few American officials were able to travel to Ireland every year and hang out with people they perceived as cool at meetings of the international society. Also as a result, the U.S. inspections program turned out to be the biggest annual expenditure by far for the ACPS but benefited very few, all inspectors themselves. Since 2004, ACPS membership has dropped like a rock and the breed magazine now has been cut to six issues a year, but the inspectors continue to run the ACPS, travel around the country and exclude competition through inspections, sell their own horses and schmooze with peers in Ireland.

The ACPS page says the U.S. inspections program allows owners to assure that their ponies conform to a worldwide standard.

Translation: False. This is all about marketing and preventing competition in the United States. A program that allowed people to say their horse matched a worldwide standard would give awards that said, “This pony matches a worldwide standard.” In fact, the ACPS hands out certificates that call approved horses “premium.” Also, the ACPS published the names of approved ponies in its magazine frequently for years, acting as if those horses were the only ones that mattered. Non-approved horses have been treated as rift-raft by ACPS officials.

The ACPS page says there’s a height requirement for ponies that want to be inspected. But the society grappled for years with the problem that some favored stallions were too tall to meet the requirement.

The ACPS page says: “It is generally accepted that an over-height Connemara who is ‘pony type’ in every other way (conforming to the ICCPS and ACPS breed standard) may have been 14.2 ¼ hh or under at age 2 and is therefore eligible for inspection.

What?

But it also says a few paragraphs later: “Allowances will be made for mature Connemaras; however, any pony measuring 15 hands or over should be presented with a signed veterinarian statement indicating the under maximum height of the pony at age 2.”

Translation: If I had to guess, and this is only a guess, I would surmise that the height rule has been altered many times to try to suit favored horses, and conflicting versions of the rule got included in this web page.

Lastly, there is the inspection process itself.

The ACPS page says, “The handler will be asked to walk and trot the pony on a straight line to and from a particular spot and/or to trot in a large circle. Stallions will also be observed ‘at liberty’ in a fenced arena, field or other safely-fenced space.”

Translation: Connemaras will be judged doing almost nothing.

However, the inspection form shows that “movement” is one of the three main qualities on which a Connemara is judged, and the form specifically says the horse “should be sure-footed, athletic and clever.”

Translation: Inspectors are just making up this score to influence the outcome of the inspection because they can’t possibly judge whether a Connemara is sure-footed, athletic and clever by asking it to trot on a flat surface for 10 seconds.

I would suggest that the ACPS has failed to make its case for inspections with its lengthy website page.

And any program worth doing does not need 4,539 words to justify it.