Early History of ACPS Shows Focus was on Connemara Performance

Kerrymor Farm has put together a history of the American Connemara Pony Society in its early years that readers of this website should find interesting.

It shows the early focus of the ACPS was on performance, especially the ability of ponies to compete in the open show world, a far different focus than the ACPS’s current obsession with inspections that award a “premium” or “approved” label to a pony glanced at by three people with clipboards for 12 minutes, mostly at a standstill.

The inspections angle wasn’t the intention of writing the history.

We had the American Connemara Stud Book volumes that provided the history, books out of print now, and decided to summarize them and post the information online.

The books confirmed our memory that the early days of the ACPS were about Connemaras getting in the ring and showing off, in addition to producing offspring. No one seemed to be interested in raising pet rocks.

Enjoy the trip back in time with this look at the early history of the ACPS.