Simple vote on voluntary Connemara inspections escalated into witch hunt

On the April 21, 2013, edition of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” the conversation turned toward gun control in light of the Boston Marathon bombings. David Gregory asked his round table members to comment on the fact that the Senate had blocked a bill for universal background checks, even as the bombing investigation was unfolding.

Republican Peggy Noonan said she believed the problem was that Americans didn’t trust their government to do the right thing on issues they cared about. In this case, those Americans were gun owners, and I took Noonan’s comments to mean that gun owners expected background checks to escalate into something else, something more intrusive or restrictive.

I tend to be a trusting person by nature, and I would scoff, but I’ve seen this type of escalation happen all too easily in the Connemara world.

In the early 2000s, members of the Connemara society in America voted on one or two sentences on a ballot asking if the Connemara society should implement a voluntary inspection process.

The measure passed.

I later surveyed members on the issue, and about half disapproved.

Despite the lack of overwhelming support for inspections, they took off and proliferated because the board consisted of several people who wanted to be inspectors, allowing them to take control of what the breed looked like. Not surprisingly, they wanted the breed to look like their herds, and this look was a coarse, stocky pony.

Inspections quickly turned into a massive witch hunt to get rid of more refined, pretty horses, the type that might win consistently at shows over the coarser horses.

After I sent out my survey, a wise and funny Connemara member wrote me that there were worse things than being called “too pretty.”

Unfortunately, that’s not true in this case. Being too pretty has become a death sentence for some Connemaras.

Some owners who participate in the inspections process take inspectors’ criticism of their pretty horses to heart, and they get rid of the horses or geld them. That’s exactly what the process is designed to do. It’s working. It’s getting rid of pretty horses. Is that a good thing? Is it a good thing that the board is inspecting this breed right out of its ability to compete in the open show ring?

Beyond the witch hunt, the Connemara society has stopped functioning in any other capacity.

Inspections seem to be the only activity the Connemara society cares about now. Money is invested mostly in inspections. Horses that pass inspection are hailed as the greatest horses ever, even if they are not. Horses that fail inspection are treated like they never should have been born, and horses that don’t participate are outcasts, as well, unless the horses are winning at the top levels competitively. Then, inspectors bite their tongues.

How did this inspections process go from a simple vote for voluntary inspections to a Hitler-like weeding out of conformation that is not a flaw?

I can see why Americans wouldn’t trust officials. How many times does one have to be burned before there’s no more trust to give?