The Connemara has never stood still. But as buyers ask for bigger, more athletic and more competitive ponies, an interesting question emerges: what exactly are we breeding for now?
There is a slightly odd thing happening in the Connemara world.
Ask someone to describe the ideal Connemara and the familiar words appear quickly: hardy, intelligent, kind, sure-footed, sound. A proper pony. Enough bone. A good temperament. Something capable of carrying a child or an adult and turning its hoof to almost anything.
The official Irish breed standard still recognises much of that picture.
The current breeding programme of the Connemara Pony Breeders’ Society in Ireland — the society responsible for the studbook of origin — sets the breed height at 128cm to 148cm and describes the Connemara in terms that include balance, depth, substance, good bone and strong hindquarters. Hardiness, intelligence, soundness, sure-footedness, temperament and athletic ability are all part of the breed ideal.
That last part matters.
Athleticism isn’t something that has simply been bolted onto the Connemara by the modern competition world. It belongs in the breed conversation too.
And that isn’t just an Irish interpretation.
Across the Atlantic, the American Connemara Pony Society describes its ideal as “rugged and sturdy”, with substantial bone, while also requiring the Connemara to be sure-footed, athletic and clever. Temperament is defined in equally practical terms: mannerly, manageable, kind, responsive and intelligent.
So perhaps the traditional Connemara and the performance Connemara aren’t opposites at all.
The interesting question is how far the balance between the two can move before something important is lost.
Because now look at what attracts attention in the modern market.
The 15hh Connemara.
The enormous jump.
The competition record.
The fashionable performance pedigree.
The pony capable of carrying a small adult around an event track one weekend and a teenager around a working hunter course the next.
None of those things is necessarily bad.
In fact, they may help explain why the Connemara has become so successful.
But they leave us with a fascinating question.
Is the market asking breeders for exactly the same Connemara that the breed standard describes?
This isn’t actually a new argument
It is tempting to imagine that there was once one pure, untouched version of the Connemara and that modern breeders subsequently began changing it.
The history is considerably messier — and more interesting — than that.
The Connemara Pony Breeders’ Society was founded in Clifden in 1923, with early inspection and studbook work intended to identify and preserve the characteristic native pony.
The registered breed that emerged was therefore already the product of selection.
People decided which characteristics mattered.
They chose which animals to breed from.
Generation after generation did the same.
So perhaps the modern performance Connemara isn’t evidence of the breed suddenly changing.
Perhaps it is the latest chapter in a breed that has been changing for a very long time.
And that makes today’s choices even more interesting.
The 148cm elephant in the room
Few subjects demonstrate the tension better than height.
The Irish breed standard is clear:
148cm is the upper limit of the standard height range.
Yet anyone watching the current market knows that an overheight Connemara can be an extremely desirable animal.
There is an obvious practical reason.
A 15hh or 15.1hh Connemara can offer something many riders want very badly: much of what they love about a Connemara, but with enough horse underneath them for a taller teenager or adult.
And the sporting world has found room for them.
In Britain, for example, the British Connemara Pony Society explicitly welcomes overheight Connemaras into its Performance Award Scheme. Its 2026 Performance Club is also open to purebred, part-bred and overheight Connemaras.
Interestingly, this isn’t purely a British conversation about height either. The American society’s own inspection criteria use 128cm to 148cm as the normal inspection range, while its broader breed information reflects a US population in which larger individuals also exist.
That creates a curious situation.
An animal can be too tall for the traditional height definition of the breed and yet highly desirable for precisely the job modern buyers want a Connemara to do.
It raises a question worth thinking about:
If buyers consistently reward bigger Connemaras, what signal does that send back to breeders?
Not every large Connemara has been deliberately bred to be large, of course. Height is not that conveniently predictable.
Nor does the popularity of an overheight performance pony mean the official standard should simply be changed.
But markets influence breeding.
If one type of pony is easier to sell, attracts stronger demand or opens up a larger adult-rider market, breeders notice.
They would be rather unusual businesspeople if they didn’t.
Then there is the jump
The Connemara’s jumping reputation has become one of its greatest assets.
And deservedly so.
Athletic ability is part of the Irish breed ideal, while the American society goes as far as describing the Connemara as a natural jumper and emphasises its athleticism and adaptability across equestrian sport.
But there is a difference between a pony that can jump and breeding increasingly for jumping performance.
A breeder producing a potential high-level competition pony may value scope, speed, athleticism and a particular performance pedigree very highly.
Another breeder may be trying to preserve a more traditional pony with substance, type and bone.
Neither necessarily has the wrong Connemara.
They may simply have different answers to the question:
What is a Connemara for?
A century ago, that answer looked very different.
The native pony had to earn its keep. Historical accounts describe Connemaras carrying loads, transporting turf and seaweed, working difficult ground and performing the everyday jobs required of them in a harsh environment.
Today a Connemara might be expected to event, show jump, hunt, do working hunter, dressage, Pony Club, carry an adult, teach a child or — remarkably often — do several of those things.
Success has expanded the pony’s job description.
And once the job changes, breeding tends to follow.
But does everyone mean the same thing by “type”?
This is where the international picture becomes particularly interesting.
The breed originated in Ireland, and the Irish breed standard remains the obvious starting point.
But Connemaras are now bred all over the world.
National societies operate in very different equestrian markets. Riders want different things. Competition structures differ. The average buyer may be different.
Yet breeders everywhere use familiar phrases:
Good type.
Plenty of bone.
Athletic.
Traditional.
Performance bred.
A proper Connemara.
Those descriptions can sit happily together.
But they don’t always describe exactly the same pony.
The American standard, for example, puts conspicuous emphasis on a rugged, sturdy body and bone proportionate to height while simultaneously wanting an athletic, clever animal.
That is essentially the balancing act at the centre of the modern breed.
How much sport horse can we put into the Connemara without taking the Connemara out of the sport horse?
There probably isn’t one universally agreed answer.
And perhaps there never has been.
What we inspect — and what we buy
There is another interesting distinction.
Breed inspection and the marketplace are not measuring precisely the same thing.
The current CPBS breeding programme says its aim is to preserve and improve the breed according to its defined characteristics and traits. Purebred breeding stock is assessed through the Society’s inspection and classification system, with inspections carried out by qualified inspectors.
A buyer standing beside a pony may have a completely different list.
Does it hack alone?
Will my child ride it?
Has it hunted?
What’s it like in traffic?
Will it jump water?
Could it make an event pony?
Is it safe after three days off?
What has its dam produced?
Could I ride it as well as my daughter?
That isn’t a criticism of inspection.
Inspection and buying are simply trying to answer different questions.
And that distinction matters.
A classification can tell us something important about a breeding animal.
It cannot possibly tell us everything we might want to know about the animal standing in front of us.
Likewise, an outstanding competition pony isn’t automatically the ideal animal from which to preserve a breed.
Those two ideas can coexist.
The pedigree can become the product
Performance breeding creates another phenomenon familiar to almost every horse breed.
Certain names become desirable.
A stallion produces successful progeny. His sons and daughters perform. Buyers recognise the name. Breeders understandably want to use him.
Then his influence grows.
There is nothing inherently wrong with that — successful sires become popular for a reason.
But in a closed population, concentration deserves attention.
The CPBS itself advises breeders making parental choices to examine at least three ancestral generations on both sides before common parentage is found.
That is a useful reminder that a fashionable pedigree isn’t simply a list of impressive names.
It is also a genetic relationship.
And the more successful a particular line becomes, the easier it is for that line to appear repeatedly throughout a relatively small breed population.
That doesn’t justify dramatic claims about the breed being dangerously inbred.
It does justify paying attention.
The more successful a bloodline becomes, the more important it becomes to watch what its success does to genetic diversity.
The irony is obvious.
A stallion can improve a breed while simultaneously becoming so influential that future breeders need to think carefully about how often his blood appears.
And what about the mare?
This is where the market can distort our thinking in another way.
Stallion names are wonderfully easy to market.
A recognised sire appears prominently in an advert. His achievements are known. His offspring may already have results.
The mare’s contribution is quieter.
Genetically, of course, it isn’t.
Every foal receives half of its autosomal DNA from its dam.
Yet in everyday conversation about performance breeding, we can become remarkably stallion-focused.
And when you look back at the history of the Connemara, that feels particularly ironic.
The mare was central to the old working Connemara population. American Connemara historical material describes the practical reality rather beautifully: a family might depend upon one mare to work and also produce a foal. The mares capable of coping with that life were the ones retained for breeding.
For the long-term breed, good mare families still matter enormously.
Temperament matters.
Soundness matters.
Longevity matters.
Fertility matters.
What a mare consistently produces matters.
And some of the most valuable information in breeding isn’t found in the fashionable name at the top of a pedigree.
It is found several generations down a female line.
Perhaps one of the most useful questions we can ask about the future Connemara is therefore not:
Which stallion should we use?
but:
Which mares should we be determined not to lose?
Temperament may be the Connemara’s most valuable trait
There is something else that rarely produces an impressive photograph.
A good brain.
We can photograph a jump.
We can measure a height.
We can print a pedigree.
We can record competition results.
Temperament is harder.
Yet ask people why they keep returning to Connemaras and it appears again and again.
And this is one area where the breed descriptions from different countries are remarkably consistent.
The Irish standard includes good temperament and intelligence among the breed’s defining characteristics.
The American standard calls for a pony that is mannerly, manageable, kind, responsive and intelligent. Its wider description of the breed goes even further, placing gentle disposition at the heart of what distinguishes a Connemara.
That may matter more now than ever.
The modern leisure and amateur market needs ponies that ordinary people can actually enjoy.
A spectacular athlete that requires a professional rider has a market.
A talented pony that can compete on Sunday and hack down the road on Tuesday has another — potentially enormous — one.
And that may be where the Connemara possesses something particularly valuable.
Its future doesn’t necessarily depend on becoming more like a small sport horse.
Its competitive advantage may be remaining unmistakably a Connemara while also being capable of doing the sport.
So are we changing the Connemara?
Yes.
But we always have.
That is probably the more useful answer.
The Connemara that hauled loads across difficult ground was shaped by the life it had to live.
The registered breed was shaped by the breeders who selected its foundation population.
Later generations selected for showing.
Others selected for performance.
Today’s breeders are selecting in a world of social media, international sales, adult amateur riders, Pony Club, eventing, working hunter, show jumping and buyers who can watch a three-year-old loose-jump on their phone from another country.
It would be extraordinary if the breed didn’t respond.
The more difficult question is which changes we want to keep.
Bigger?
Lighter?
More athletic?
More extravagant?
More specialised?
And what are we unwilling to trade for them?
Bone?
Hardiness?
Soundness?
Temperament?
Type?
Genetic diversity?
The answer doesn’t have to be traditional or modern.
Perhaps the remarkable thing about the Connemara is that, at its best, it has managed to be both.
A pony recognisable as an Irish native breed and an animal capable of competing far beyond what its origins might suggest.
Ireland gave the breed its foundation. A century of organised breeding has shaped it. Breeders around the world are now contributing to what comes next.
And perhaps that’s why the question is worth asking now.
Not because the modern Connemara is somehow less authentic than the pony that came before it.
Not because bigger is bad, performance breeding is bad, or traditional breeders have all the answers.
But because successful breeds change too.
Sometimes precisely because they are successful.
The danger isn’t that the Connemara changes.
The danger would be changing it without noticing what we’re leaving behind.