Should Ireland be leading the Connemara horse world?

In December 2010, The New York Times did a sobering story on the plight of horses in Ireland today. I steered away from the topic when discussing Connemara breed standards because you don’t kick a country when it’s down.

Still, I was fully aware that the problems in the American Connemara Society over breed standards started when American officials wanted to hang out with their Irish counterparts, and the Irish officials were playing global bully. They said breed societies had to have breed standards and inspections if they wanted to be a part of an international Connemara breed society, run by the Irish.

Horses that passed inspection were entered in a stud book, and only those horses could be registered. America did a bit of an endrun around that rule and chose to implement standards and inspections, but any Connemara could still be registered. The threat of closing the stud books has been hanging over the head of American breeders ever since. I suspect it hasn’t happened because it would produce an inevitable lawsuit, and American officials have been afraid all breed standards would be thrown out with that suit — as in, “don’t kick the sleeping dog.” Then, they wouldn’t be welcome at breed gatherings in Ireland anymore.

To my knowledge, no one ever questioned Ireland’s right to be the legitimate leader of the Connemara world and implement such bullying tactics. Ireland has been treated with some sort of awe.

And, so, it came as a surprise in 2010 when The New York Times pulled back the curtain on this so-called horse mecca and showed an industry in complete disarray.

The title was “Thousands of Horses Left to Die in Ireland.”

It quoted the following statistics:

The recession in Ireland left countless horsemen without the ability to pay for their animals. Thousands of those animals had been turned loose on the Dunsink tip, a free grazing range.

The president of the Veterinary Council of Ireland estimated that there were 10,000 to 20,000 “surplus horses” across the country in 2010. Another leading expert on horses said that the number could be as high as 100,000 — the same number of horses the U.S. sends to slaughter ever year. Ireland is a country slightly larger than West Virginia with a human population of 4.7 million, just ahead of Norway and Costa Rica. And, yet, it has as many unwanted horses as the United States?

And we are letting these people lead the rest of the world in so-called horse sense?

I have been sitting on my hands for 18 months waiting to talk about this, and, unfortunately, Ireland is in worse shape than ever, according to The Associated Press. I can’t say nothing indefinitely, waiting for this country to fix its financial woes.

Through this website, I have had the privilege of talking to many reasonable, lovely Irish horse owners who have questioned their own country’s breed standard policies, so I can tell you there are wonderful horse people in Ireland.

But, I would say in general this is not a nation that should be leading other nations in horse policy. And America is not a nation that should be falling in line behind it.

As they say: Lead, follow or get out of the way.

It’s time Ireland and its breed standards get out of the way and let the United States, a nation founded on the principles of fairness and equality, lead. And those principles should be applied to America’s animals as well as its human citizens.