There have been Connemara ponies in Canada for at least fifty years, but the last twenty years or so have seen a great resurgence of the ponies in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and BC, with a few ponies scattered throughout the other provinces. Canadian ponies have always been registered with the American Connemara Pony Society (ACPS) and Canadian owners and breeders have been active members of that society, serving on the Board of Governors, various committees and the inspection program. Nearly ten years ago, some breeders began to think that perhaps there were enough ponies in Canada to consider starting our own society. There had always been a place in the general registry of the Canadian Livestock Records Corporation (CLRC) for Connemara ponies but there was no society specifically for Connemaras under the Animal Pedigree Act.
In 1998, groups of breeders in eastern and western Canada formed two associations with the intention of gathering owners and breeders together to discuss forming a national society. In Canada, under the Animal Pedigree Act, there can be only one breed society that maintains a registry for any breed of animal and there are strict requirements for forming such a society. Perhaps fortunately, we did not realize quite how long it would take to fulfill all these requirements under the Act and it was not until January 2006 that the Canadian Connemara Pony Society (CCPS) was finally incorporated. We held our first AGM in October 2006, held elections, passed our bylaws and held our first inspection of ponies. We were on our way.
The society brought together the members of the two associations into one national society with three regions, Pacific, Prairie and Central, with provisions for a Maritime Region when numbers make that feasible.
In Canada we are lucky to have the Canadian Livestock Records Corporation which is a non-government organization set up to maintain the registries of small breed societies. The fledgling Connemara society decided that using CLRC to maintain our registry and collect our memberships would make running the society much more efficient. We are very grateful to CLRC for all the support and help they have given us.
We would also like to thank the Connemara Pony Breeders’ Society (CPBS), our parent society in Ireland, for their support and encouragement and the International Committee of Connemara Pony Societies (ICCPS) for their help and information. We are now internationally recognized as the Connemara breed society for Canada. The American Connemara Pony Society has also helped us in every way in our transition from members of their society to our own. Many of our ponies are still registered with the ACPS and have been inspected under their program.
We are now developing our own programs for inspections and awards, our newsletter and our webpage. There is still much work to be done developing the policies and programs needed to run the society and volunteers for any of the committees are very welcome. This is your society and your opportunity to be in at the ground floor with ideas and suggestions. We must remember as we work towards setting up our society that we are the guardians of the Connemara breed in Canada and decisions we make now for our society can influence the future of the breed in this country. We need to look at the big picture rather than thinking of the individual ponies in our own backyard and envision the ponies and society we would like to see in Canada in the next fifty years and more.
Heather Sherratt