Are inspections saving the Connemara?

Officials in the American Connemara Pony Society make many claims about their inspections program, but the only question that matters is: Is the program saving the Connemara?

This question can be analyzed many ways, starting with:

1) Are horse lovers begging to own the Connemaras that conform to the “rugged and sturdy” breed standard now being forced on breeders? Having relevance in the 21st century is the only way Connemaras can survive, particularly as the earth’s resources contract.

2) Are Connemara owners able to train this clunkier type of Connemara? Or are the majority of Connemaras in the US untrained and ignored in pastures?

3) Are ponies produced under inspections doing well in competition? Can the clunkier ponies get themselves over a fence or around a cross country course in the time allowed? Are Connemaras ranked highly in national standings in USEF? Are we hearing about these Connemaras in the national media?

4) Has the breed grown during the past decade? Are breeders creating and selling horses?

5) Is there a healthy infusion of new interest and energy? Is the Connemara community attracting new owners? Is ACPS membership up? Are new names taking home the big awards at the annual meeting?

6) Is the magazine, a chief source of revenue, doing well?

From where I sit — admittedly on the outside since I started openly questioning inspections in 2005 — I am seeing less hopeful results.

A summary of the October 2014 annual meeting included news that the magazine would publish only six times a year rather than 12; it has been a monthly publication for a long time and is the chief source of advertising for owners.

A quick glance at the classified ads on the ACPS website shows that very few horses are for sale on the website, some with sad or no pricing. The ads on Craigslist do not inspire confidence, either.

The most recent membership directory is thin again.

The winners of this year’s big ACPS awards are all familiar and long-standing names, both human and horse. No new blood there.

I can’t remember the last time I saw a Connemara in a national publication.

So how is it going in Ireland, creators of mandatory inspections to make sure Connemaras are coarse and short with thick, short legs?

There’s the October 2014 news that Dublin’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (DSPCA), in collaboration with the Dublin-based veterinary school, has instituted a snip and chip program to geld up to 100 stallions to lower the population of unwanted horses in Ireland. A spokeswoman for the rescue group said about 6,000 horses in the Dublin pound alone had to be destroyed in 2013. That’s in a country slightly larger than West Virginia, according to the CIA World Factbook. For comparison, in the United States, an estimated 110,000 horses are slaughtered every year, an average of roughly 2,200 per state.

According to a survey of unwanted horses reported in 2012 in the Irish Veterinary Journal, more than 8,500 horses were slaughtered in Ireland in 2010, and the number of slaughtered far exceeded 12,000 in 2011.

The survey also said the combined total number of horses found dead or requiring immediate or subsequent euthanasia by welfare groups and local authorities in 2010 was 337, and “this must be a major national concern.” If that number were reported for West Virginia, Americans would howl.

And in a puzzling move, the annual Dublin Horse Show lowered the upper age limit of its hunter classes to 8 in 2014 and planned to drop it to 7 in 2015, which in my mind would lead to even more horses being unwanted.

Quite frankly, I don’t see any pleasant horse news coming out of Ireland, so I would ask again why the U.S. is following Ireland’s lead on inspections?

The concept that a small group of self-anointed people can force everyone to breed one homogenous pony to “save” the Connemara breed is laughable.

If the Connemara needs to be saved at all, it is from these self-anointed people.