PONIES 97 



impossible to rear any animal of a large size, whether sheep, 

 cow, or pony, but when one under 12 hands is required 

 nothing is more suitable than a Shetland pony, with the 

 exception it is too broad in the back to be safe for a little 

 boy to bestride. At one time an Arab cross was tried with 

 a few mares, and the produce was sufficiently narrow to 

 carry a little boy, but they could not stand the rough 

 weather, and had to be wintered elsewhere, so the experi- 

 ment was soon abandoned. If well kept they may reach 

 11 hands, but the average is from 9h to lOJ hands, and 

 their chief use is for work in the mines underground. 



As riding-ponies those from the sister island are, or 

 perhaps used to be, quite super-excellent, for a mistaken 

 zeal on the part of the Congested Districts Board induced 

 that body to introduce hackney sires into Connemara and 

 the wild district of mountainous Mayo, the very home of 

 well-bred ponies. There are numerous animals of pony 

 height in Ireland, very good in their way, but which are 

 only undersized horses, and the true pony must be sought 

 in the mountain regions, very possibly descendants of the 

 early hobbies, which Strongbow and other English leaders 

 found so difficult to cope with ; and which, in the West, 

 were undoubtedly afterwards much improved by the Barb 

 sires which escaped from the ships of the Spanish Armada 

 that were wrecked on that coast. Before the advent of the 

 above Board a Connemara pony was a name to conjure 

 with, a well-bred, active, fast galloper, and a rival of the 

 Arab in the way of carrying weight. Indeed, Arab blood 

 had largely found its way into the district, and had the 

 Board been well advised it would have worked on the lines 

 already proved successful. Hackneys were entirely out of 

 place, but Eastern sires, either Arabians or Barbs, would 

 haveraised up a breed of ponies which there would surelyhave 

 been a great demand for. The Andalusian would also have 

 been a useful cross, for it is very hardy, with excellent legs, 

 the bone of the cannons, and the hocks and knees, being 

 extremely well developed. There is already a considerable 

 amount of breeding in them, for their native land being so 

 contiguous to Morocco, and having been so long under the 



