Bigger cannon bone adds significant weight to Connemara pony, experiment shows

I have asked for two decades, “Where is the research that shows the effects of the American Connemara Pony Society forcing Connemaras to have heavy cannon bones?”

The silence has been deafening.

In early 2024, I decided to do my own experiment.

The ACPS since the early 2000s has been rewarding breeders who create coarse ponies by giving the thicker Connemaras approved and premium labels at inspections, even though those Connemaras’ heavy legs are far outside the breed standard for Connemara leg thickness, defined 100 years ago.

What is the Connemara breed standard?

The worldwide breed standard for a Connemara cannon bone is a circumference of 18 to 21 centimeters, or 7.08 to 8.26 inches.

Let me reiterate here, as I have said in many posts, that I am against all breed standards and inspections and would throw them out. A horse with certain genes should always be welcomed within its breed society as a full and equal member of that breed.

That is not the position of the ACPS.

Not only are uninspected and failed Connemaras given second-class status within the society, but the ACPS doesn’t even welcome Connemaras that actually fall within the breed standard, calling them “the wrong type,” as in, too refined. The stallion on the home page of this website had a cannon bone of 8 inches, near the upper end of the breed standard. He was looked down on by many ACPS officials as not coarse enough to be a real Connemara.

Meanwhile, the ACPS praises Connemaras with cannon bones 2 inches outside the upper limit of the breed standard.

Setting up my experiment

I’m a journalist, not a scientist, but I did my best to come up with a solid experiment that would show what happens when you increase cannon bone circumference.

I’m sure a university with a good 3-D printer could actually create leg models resembling bone, tissue and skin and do a more realistic test.

I worked with metal cans and a bag of wet crushed rock (chat).

Given germ phobia in the world today, I decided not to take a tape measure out of my purse at a local grocery store to measure the circumference of various cans, but I bought a bunch of different sized cans to hopefully come up with circumference sizes in the right range.

My final four cans for the experiment were a juice can (circumference of 6.75 inches), soda can (8.25 inches), Chunky Chicken soup can (9.75 inches) and Progresso soup can (10.5 inches). I actually went back and bought more cans when I wasn’t satisfied with my results, but I couldn’t get cans that were 7 or 10 inches exactly.

Next, I measured my 14-2 hand Connemara’s cannon bone length, though I had to fight my way through his long winter hair, to get a sense of that length. The portion of his leg that is the roughly same shape is about 5 inches long. I marked a height of 5 inches on all my cans.

I weighed the cans with the lids removed and nothing in them. Then, I filled the cans with wet chat to the 5-inch mark and weighed them again. The results are below.

JUICE CAN

Circumference: 6.75 inches

Weight: 10.95 ounces when filled with wet chat to the 5-inch mark and after subtracting the .35 ounce weight of the can

The juice can’s circumference was closest to the 7.08-inch low end of the Connemara breed standard.

A 6.75-inch measurement is a durable and athletic horse leg size, according to a 1998 study of cannon bone size for Tevis Cup competitors that showed some finishers had a cannon bone circumference of 6.75 inches.

In general, a lot of horses don’t finish the Tevis Cup, which is officially named the Western States Endurance Run, because it’s the epitome of endurance rides at 100 miles in one day.

In 1998, there were 381 starters and 258 finishers, a 67.5 percent rate of success, according to the website of the group.

The 1998 study’s results showed that finishers in 1998 all had lighter bone than the 9- to 10-inch cannon bones now promoted heavily by the ACPS as an ideal leg. In fact, not a single entry of the 381 starters had a cannon bone anywhere near that big.

A Connemara stallion in the early 2000s was failed at an inspection for having a cannon bone just below 7 inches, with one of the inspectors telling me the stallion was nice by any standard but not the right type to be a Connemara. That was the catalyst for me starting my journey to expose the lie behind ACPS inspections.

That inspector, a longtime breeder herself who had great influence on the society, was approving only horses that mirrored her coarse herd, not Connemaras that actually seemed to MATCH the breed standard. Other ACPS officials and members jumped on the coarse bandwagon and started buying up and breeding the thickest ponies possible. Breeders of any other type of Connemara were no longer welcome within the ACPS. And here we are.

SODA CAN

Circumference: 8.25 inches, the upper limit of the Connemara breed standard

Weight: 15.3 ounces when filled with wet chat to the 5-inch mark and after subtracting the .40 ounce weight of the can

The soda can represents the upper limit of the Connemara breed standard. It is also close to the biggest leg size for Tevis Cup finishers in 1998.

No horse that finished the Tevis Cup that year had a cannon bone circumference larger than 8.4 inches.

Why am I using an endurance race as a comparison for Connemara legs? First, because the best cannon bone study I could find involved the Tevis Cup, and I haven’t found a similarly excellent study in any other discipline. Second, because Michael O’Malley, the one and only person credited with saving the Connemara from ruin in the early 1900s, specifically said he wanted to save the breed’s endurance and spirit. The endurance of this breed matters. The Connemara leg’s ability to handle endurance matters.

CHUNKY CHICKEN CAN

Circumference: 9.75 inches

Weight: 22.35 ounces, or 1 pound and 6.35 ounces, when filled with wet chat to the 5-inch mark and after subtracting the 2.3 ounce weight of the can

Many premium and approved Connemaras, including the Connemara stallion owned by the top inspector, advertise 9- to 10-inch cannon bones. In fact, the top inspector is featured in a video talking about ACPS inspections on US Equestrian’s home page, even though her own stallion falls far outside the cannon bone breed standard.

Advertisements for these stallions hail big cannon bones as if they are the world’s greatest asset.

But what these Connemaras really have is a cannon bone potentially more than twice as heavy as the 6.75-inch cannon bone that allows Tevis Cup competitors to finish 100 miles.

One could argue that a 9.75- or 10-inch cannon bone could benefit a Connemara required to haul logs for a living. But I don’t remember hearing of any log-hauling Connemaras. Maybe there are a few out there.

But that cannon bone size shouldn’t pass an inspection in a breed whose breed standard is 7.08 to 8.26 inches, if you’re going to have breed standards or inspections.

PROGRESSO SOUP CAN

Circumference: 10.5 inches

Weight: 24.75 ounces, or 1 pound and 8.75 ounces, when filled with wet chat to the 5-inch mark and after subtracting the 2.15 ounce weight of the can

The approved 14-3-plus hand stallion of the top inspector has a 10-inch cannon bone, almost 2 inches outside the upper limit of the breed standard.

The 24.75 ounce weight of the filled 10.5-inch can is 126 percent heavier than the 6.75-inch can, while it is 61 percent heavier than the 8.25-inch can.

The 10-inch circumference of the approved stallion just mentioned is just shy of the 11-inch circumference considered “ample” for the 17-2 hand Australian shire.

Unintended or intended result

One result of the movement to thicker legs has been a complete change in how the Connemara is perceived in the horse world, including by Connemara breeders.

In 1962, ACPS secretary Charlotte Read summarized the enthusiasm she was seeing for the breed in Stud Book II after she listed Connemaras competing in various disciplines. “From all indications at present, the Connemara pony is not only here to stay but is becoming the most popular hunter pony in the country,” Read said.

In January 2023, the ACPS board discussed the target audience for an ad for the annual Connemara stallion auction, according to an ACPS report titled “011423-BOG-Meeting-Lexington-KY-FINAL-PDF.” Text in the report unattributed to any individual said: “ACPS members aren’t the ones supporting our stallions. It is people in disciplines, primarily eventing and some dressage.”

“Ads should be targeted to those disciplines, with outside mares being our focus,” the text said.

It appears that few, if any, Connemara breeders are trying to produce performance Connemaras anymore. They want hunky Connemara stallions that draw stud fees from eventers with Thoroughbreds. That business model apparently has risen to the top in the Connemara world.

Did that business model cause the evolution to big cannon bones or did big cannon bones cause the evolution to thinking of Connemara stallions only as makers of crossbreds?

What I know for sure is the vertical jump ability and stamina of a Connemara is affected by the weight of the cannon bone. Anyone interested in those facets of performance would not intentionally weigh down a Connemara with unnecessary excess cannon bone mass.

Who among the world’s greatest athletes has the equivalent of huge cannon bones? Michael Jordan? Michael Phelps? Usain bolt? Simone Biles? Patrick Mahomes? Tom Brady? I’ve looked at dozens of photos of soccer/football players, and none has massive lower leg bones. Lots of muscle, but not bone.

Do marathon runners intentionally strap extra weight on their legs before they start their race?

Do jockeys love having weights added to their saddle if they and their tack weigh less than 126 pounds for the Kentucky Derby?

Why is the ACPS taxing its own breed with a big cannon bone?

And why does anyone follow its lead?

David O’Connor: ‘Time to lead and not follow’

Olympic champion David O’Connor gave a workshop at US Equestrian’s January 2024 meeting on the topic of social license.

If you’re already rolling your eyes, you don’t deserve to own a horse.

Social license is also the focus of the FEI’s Equine Ethics and Wellbeing Commission.

Finally, leaders in the horse world are talking about a sane and important topic!

US Equestrian provided a summary of O’Connor’s workshop on its website. You can view an archived version of that page here.

O’Connor defined social license as the public’s acceptance of one’s activity.

He said the public wants assurance that an organization is taking horse welfare seriously, in perception and practice.

O’Connor noted that equestrian sport is more vulnerable to negative public opinion than some industries and sports because it involves the use of an animal.

Then, he shared the action steps that the Equine Ethics & Wellbeing Commission said all equestrians need to take:

—Not only optimize and prioritize equine welfare because it is the “right thing to do,” but also to be seen to be doing so.

—Understand the responsibility and the impact of actions, words and use of images.

—Actively engage with and address concerns related to social license.

So, I ask: Does anything related to ACPS inspections that I’ve described in this post feel like it meets O’Connor’s social license test?

Not to me.

O’Connor closed his session with this; “It is time to lead and not follow.”

He said change “can’t come from legislation. It can’t come from outside organizations. It has to come from within, which means it has to come from you.”

In the ACPS, maybe it’s time for Connemara advocates, not coarse Connemara advocates, to lead.

Every Connemara deserves equal treatment and standing in the American Connemara Pony Society, and this crazy fad to make the biggest cannon bone needs to end.