Welcome

Hello and Welcome to Niamh’s Weblog . Pictured is the cover of my book about owning and caring for Connemara ponies. Find out more about all three books at   www.marne.ie    You can view monthly posts starting in July ’08 and containing Show Reports, Sales info. or short profiles of younger ponies and ponies in the news.   The PAGES  (in Sidebar on right) will try to categorise things in a more ordered way.   Hope you can find your way around this blog.  

   CLICK ON   Read the rest of this entry  to see complete story and hit Bk.Sp on your keyboard or go to NIAMH’S WEBLOG at the top of Page to return.  also don’t forget to click on (more recent) pictures to enlarge.      

Spring Daffodils in January

Today, January 9, 2012, a minor miracle.  Flowering Daffodils were spotted.  The recent mild weather in Galway has meant early birdsong and the strange appearance of early flowers.  Long may they last!!!

 

§  Just in case you did not read the Christmas CPBS Newsletter, here are a few relevant dates for the 2012 Showing Season
Spring Weekend Festival.   From Thursday 22 March to Sunday 25 March when the main Event, The Stallion Parade, takes place.  Colt Inspections on Friday 25th.
Connemara Pony Show.  The London Olympics this coming August
has meant a re-sheduled Annual Connemara Pony Festival, to avoid a clash.  Clifden dates are now earlier, from Sunday 5 August to Sunday 12 August.   The Show will be on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of that week.
Dublin Horse Show   2012 dates are 15th to 19th  August.

Would you like a hand-painted picture of your pony?

  

Kiltinane Polly aged 30 in Jan.'11

If you would like a precious gift to give for a Birthday or Special Occasion, why not consider having a picture painted of a favourite horse or pony, done in any medium you select by the illustrator of ‘Connemara Pony Handbook.’   For more information go to      http://eavanod.blogspot.com    

SHOWS & EVENTS 2011

Josie Conroy & Rebel Wind

   The Traditional Irish Horse Association . Jan’12   Click Here

  For Village Laura    1982-2011       Click Here

Click here        for    Connemara and its Ponies.    1969  Documentary by David Shaw Smith    

Clifden Oct. Sales ’11     Day one    Click here

Day  Two   Click Here       Day Three PLUS   Click Here                  

10 April ’11   Stallion Parade,  Clonshire.   To  view   Click Here           

10 July ’11,  Roundstone July Show     Click Here  for Report    

24 July ’11,  The Midland Group Connemara Show       Click Here  for  Report   Click  Here for Gallery             

 R.D.S Dublin  ’11     Click Here     for Performance and In -Hand.  Click Here   For Ridden Classes.    Click here for Gallery 

CLIFDEN CONNEMARA PONY FESTIVAL 2011. 14 to 21 August,      See Sidebar for Clifden ’11    1. Green Hunter Final, 2. Ridden and In-Hand Classes Thursday 3. Performance Day Friday. 4. For Gallery,

Oughterard Performance Champs ’11       Click Here

Sales August  ’11, Clifden,     Click Here

Sat. 10 Sept ’11   Spiddal Show   Taispeantas Chois Fhairraige  Some Young Stock Winners Click Here  

Connemaras to watch.

 

Glenormiston Rathaniska with Ingrid de Hoedt

How about this New Zealand Connemara Junior Champion Glenormiston Rathaniska (Castle Baron – Glenormiston Rosslea) at her very first outing to the Royal New Zealand Show.    The showing season has just opened there and Ingrid de Hoedt (from Monaghan)was showing her two Connemara fillies, acquired from Australia as foals.  (Scroll down to bottom of page to visit family and ponies at home)

5 yr. old Glenford Pakie 136cms.

 

Glenford Pakie.   Seen jumping at the recent Clifden Sales, Lot 127, the 134cms bay gelding, Glenford Pakie, a 5yr. old by Robe Earl X Genford Little Lady ;  he  was a joy to watch loose – jumping, in the rather cramped confines of the Mart arena.  With  minimum  encouragement from his owner/breeder Aine O’ Callaghan, he was quietlyand expertly jumping a pole that was  gradually raised to a metre,  then calmly went back to nibbling the edging grass.   He has done some show-jumping and this pic. is courtesy of Aine.   He was sold to a Co. Galway family for E2,000.  Watch out for him.

Aughnanure Leo.       

Dressage Finals Cavan

Championship Dressage at Cavan May  Bank Holiday Weekend 2011          

Awards for Alanna

 

A slight eleven year old Connemara girl and her Connemara Pony have just managed to bring off a singular coup at the National Dressage Winter Finals at Cavan Equestrian Centre last weekend.   

Fillies Inspection April ’11 – a brief look

Connemara April '11

 On a fine late April day in Connemara your not- so-vigilant blogger heard that one of the  final Spring Inspections of Connemara Fillies was taking place next morning.  Only just in time to snap a few pictures.  

John McLoughlin, Pony Breeder

John Mc Loughlin

 

  John McLoughlin has probably attended and enjoyed more Connemara Pony Shows, than any other breeder in Connemara.  Since the nineteen fifties when he bagged his first Clifden red rosette with the first pony he bought himself, John has been a quietly charismatic presence at Summer Shows, with or without his own prize-winning mares, for the best part of sixty years.  

SPRING FESTIVAL 2011

CLIFDEN MARCH 2011.       From Thursday 24th March until Sunday 27th, dry warm conditions prevailed.    

An Capaillin Mar.2011

(All Reports will appear as Pages on right Sidebar.)   Thursday saw the launch of An Capaillin ( choc-a=block with news, pictures and information from both home and abroad)  and a photographic exhibition.   Friday: the Colt Inspections took place and Jenny Hagenbald from Sweden gave a presentation on Mare bloodlines that night in the station House Theatre.  Saturday was education day and Phillip Scott gave two training sessions.  Saturday night was the Awards event at the annual Social.  Sunday was Stallion Parade Day with a Musical Ride at the interval.    For O’Sullivan Lecture and Awards Night;    For Green working Hunter and Colt inspections  and FINALLY…..    for Stallion Parade & Musical Ride      See Sidebar on right.

New Zealand Connemara ponies

Time to introduce some sunny New Zealand Connemara Pony Breeding to the Weblog   

Ingrid de Hoedt, New Zealand Breeder              

Ingrid and family

 

A visit to the home of Ingrid de Hoedt about 50 miles south of Auckland near a town called Pukekohe, is an experience to savour.  This Irish native - a medical doctor - and her Kiwi husband Ross head up a lively household – “chaotic but good craic”as she herself described her home- comprising three children, Tadhg, Fionn and daughter Cianneth and their visiting Irish Aunt Rose.  

Floods and foaling mares-by Sue Clarke

Sue Clarke enjoying Clifden August '10

Sue Clarke of the Australian Glenormiston Connemara Pony Stud in S.E. Queensland has been breeding Connemara ponies  since 1974 and has been coming to the Clifden Show for many of those years.  For nearly four decades now the prizewinning Glenormiston bred ponies….