U.S. Connemara officials should not follow their Irish counterparts

The American Connemara Society is taking its lead on breed inspections from an Ireland that was, not the country that remains today. Ireland’s Celtic Tiger period from 1995 to 2000, when the country experienced rapid economic growth and widespread horse ownership, is no more.

Now, according to Ireland’s The Journal, the Irish government is shelling out millions of dollars to dispose of abandoned or badly treated horses. In 2011, that cost was roughly $3.7 million; in 2012, it was about $3 million.

The New York Times estimated in December 2010 that as many as 100,000 horses in Ireland had been abandoned on public grazing lands.

The rich Ireland of the late 1990s had the leverage to say that Connemaras must pass an inspection to “save the breed” and to impose that inspection system on other Connemara societies around the world.

The Ireland of today is spending its time trying to figure out what horses were repackaged as lasagna while also worrying that thugs in the country might set abandoned horses on fire (this incident may have involved a horse that was dead already, but no one has explained why a dead horse was lying out in the open like that).

The American Connemara Pony Society must re-examine its priorities for Connemaras bred in the United States. If we continue to follow Ireland, one has to wonder if our Connemaras are headed for the same cliff: fitting a cookie cutter mold defined by some Irish group but unwanted by the general horse world.

U.S. horses must fight for a place in a smaller horse market these days. They must be functional. They must excel at performance. They must be built to compete. They must be trained. If one did a head count of how many Connemaras in the United States are trained, I suspect the number would be low.

The U.S. inspection process is a quick glance-over of horses unclipped and unbathed by judges who have a financial interest in failing competitors’ horses. What does this accomplish?

That’s not rhetorical. I’m asking the question. What does this accomplish?

The only argument the ACPS makes for inspections in 5,000 words on its website is that U.S. inspections uphold the longtime tradition of the Irish. That suggests that any old process is worth preserving. “Old” does not equal “good.”

Such inspections have failed to secure a good outcome for Irish Connemaras. We must go another direction before we wind up in the same mess.