332 THE PONIES OF CONNEMARA. 



THE PONIES OF CONNEMARA. 



I. — THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF PONIES. 



One of the first questions to be considered on proceeding to study the 

 horses of any given area is — Do they form a distinct indigenous breed, or 

 are they to a large extent a mixture of several imported breeds ? Hitherto 

 it seems to have been commonly taken for granted that the Connemara 

 ponies — like some of the ponies of the Western Highlands, and Islands of 

 Scotland — have descended from Andalusian horses which escaped in 1588 

 from the ships of the Spanish Armada ; and further that they deserve to 

 rank as a distinct breed side by side with the Iceland, Shetland, and Exmoor 

 ponies. An indication of the prevailing opinion as to the ponies in question 

 may be gathered from a recent paper* by Sir Walter Gilbey. In describing 

 the ponies (" Hobbies ") of Connemara, Sir Walter states that they are from 

 12 to 14 hands high, generally of the prevailing Andalusian chestnut colour, 

 delicate in their limbs, and possessed of the form of head which dis- 

 tinguishes the Spanish race. " It must be regarded as remarkable," he 

 adds, " that these ponies should retain the characteristics of their race for 

 so long a period in a country so different from that whence they were 

 derived. They have merely become smaller than the original race, are 

 somewhat rounder in the croup, and are covered in the natural state with 

 shaggy hair . . . From mere neglect many of them are extremely ugly, yet 

 still conforming to the original type." But while regarding these ponies as 

 essentially Spanish, Sir Walter believes they were introduced, not through 

 the wreck of a ship, but direct by importation from England. 



Had the horses of Connemara been isolated since the time of the Armada, 

 or even since the middle of the seventeenth century — when Spanish horses, 

 common in England, might have found their way to the West of Ireland — 

 they would doubtless have formed ere this a perfectly distinct and fairly 

 uniform breed. However uniform and Andalusian-like the Connemara 

 hobbies may have been in the past, there is an amazing want of uniformity 

 about them to-day, and as a result of this there is in the West of Ireland a 

 complete absence of agreement as to what is or what is not a true Conne- 

 mara pony. 



This is exactly what might have been expected, for, in the first place, 

 long before the Congested Districts Board set about providing hackney 

 and other stallions, foreign blood seems to have beaa again and again 

 introduced ; and in the second place, no one has yet done for the Con- 

 nemara ponies what the late Mr. Knight did for the ponies of Exmoor, or 

 what Lord Londonderry and others have done for the Shetland ponies — 



* Ponies (their past and present history), " Live Stock Journal " Almanack, 1S96, p. 45. 



