Breed standards force Connemaras to have undesirable conformation

Many people look at breeds as if they have always existed.

Not true.

This is something humans forced on horses. Prior to humans getting involved in horse genetics, horses chose their own mates with an eye toward good health and survival.

Once humans got involved, they tried to reproduce a certain horse look that they liked.

The idea was to produce offspring reliably and consistently.

Breeds became brands. If you bought this breed, you likely would get such and such features and qualities.

Greater minds will debate the morality of selecting mates for animals.

I’m here to debate the morality of asking a particular horse breed to maintain undesirable conformation.

In the case of the Connemara breed, humans running Connemara societies in Ireland and the U.S. are trying to force this breed to be coarse and pony height with short, thick legs, pretending that such a look is the true historical representation. It’s not. There is a big range in looks of Connemaras due to the breed’s background as a mutt. Don’t take my word for it. Irish horseman Michael J. O’Malley, credited with saving the Connemara in the early 1900s, published his own thoughts on how refined and coarse Connemaras were both legitimate representatives of the breed.

Studies have shown that short, thick legs hinder horse movement, and riders generally agree that thick horses are more dead-sided than lighter breeds.

In today’s world, people are getting taller all the time, and surveys show that people value beauty and athleticism above most other attributes.

A coarse, short Connemara with cankles does not fit modern tastes.

In today’s world, where does the coarse, short Connemara with cankles fit into the landscape?

It doesn’t.

Breeders are ensuring this breed will become a relic. There’s no place in the show world for a clod, and resources for horses are getting too scarce to keep coarse ponies with cankles around as lawn ornaments.

So should there be horse breeds at all?

In the human world, we celebrate heritage, and we don’t frown on one Irishman marrying another.

At the same time, we don’t force Irish people to marry others with certain traits in the hopes that they will produce coarse, short, white offspring with cankles.

There’s nothing wrong with horses of certain genes having offspring.

There’s nothing wrong with members of a breed society celebrating those genes and recording the birth of offspring.

There’s something very wrong with that society forcing animals to have bad, unhealthy or undesirable conformation.