Elk Grove, CA: Under surprising cloudy and rainy skies, the Welsh Pony and Cob Society of California held their 4th Annual Mountain and Moorland Pony event. Three Connemaras competed along with 4 Fell ponies, 3 Dales ponies, 2 Dartmoor ponies, and 1 British Shetland. The day's big winner was the 8-year- old Connemara gelding, Midsummer Knight (*Village Prince X MGRM Caliope) and his 13-year-old rider, Emily Freeman. The team took 1st place in the 2' Working Hunter Pony Class, 3rd place in the 2'6" Working Hunter Pony Class and 3rd place in the Ridden M&M class. Stonybrook Belmont, an eye-catching dun Connemara gelding, owned and shown by Lee Webster took the blue ribbon in the Ridden Mountain & Moorland class with a fine individual show. Midsummer Knight, Stonybrook Belmont, and Hideaway's Irish Mist, a Connemara mare owned by Kathryn Rayner Freeman, then went on to compete in the popular in-hand portion of the event.

Midsummer Knight, who is affectionately known as "Seamus", captured the blue ribbon in the largest class of the day, Mountain & Moorland pony, 4 and over. He is the first Connemara and the first gelding, in the history of this event, to win an in-hand class. "Seamus" and the second-placed Fell pony went on to compete against the first and second place winners of the Mountain & Moorland, 3 and under class to see who would reign supreme and win the NPS America Champion Mountain & Moorland pony award. UK judge Kerry Wainwright had a tough decision to make between the Connemara gelding, two lovely Fell ponies and a weanling Dartmoor filly that she was very taken with. Midsummer Knight prevailed, and was named NPS America Champion Mountain & Moorland pony.

Mountain and Moorland classes are a great opportunity for Connemaras to compete against other ponies, and the number of events holding Mountain & Moorland classes is growing every year. Additional information about Mountain & Moorland ponies and NPS America, the first international chapter of the UK's NPS (National Pony Society) can be found at www.NPSAmerica.org.

West Winfield, NY: Mary Lou Thrall of Triple Creek Farm has sent in the following item: “After winning 1st place in the Beryl Eddy Memorial Trial Class Senior Division at the Region 1 Show in Woodstock, Vermont with Tricreek Greystone Riley ( Greystone McErrill X Cornerstone Arianna) and 2nd place with Tricreek Greystone Connor (Greystone McErrill X Watermark's Blessed Brianna) we decided to try our luck with the two stallions at the Oneida County Sheriff's Mounted Unit Trail Trial and Versatility Challenge on August 23rd.

“We got so many inquiries as to what their breed was, we think we will have "...no, they're Connemaras" printed on our shirts. In the Trail Boss Class (most difficult) with 10 obstacles including flares, a paint gun shot at a metal sign and a pipe with smoke coming out that horses had to cross, all police horse training obstacles, Connor had 93 points out of 100 and Riley had 92. The Ring Trial had a kiddy pool that the horses had to walk through and only Riley and 2 other horses out of 14 completed that. Riley finished as Reserve Champion for the day and we were all very proud of their efforts.”

There is a video of this on You Tube http://www.youtube.com/user/tricreek.

Brown’s Valley, CA: Lisa Martin-Gerdes has written to say that she and husband Max Gerdes attended the first Annual Oldenburg Horse Breeders (German Oldengburg Verband) Horse Show and West Coast Mare Performance Test with their two mares. Lisa says, “I am so proud of our senior mare, Glenormiston Amelia (Domo Cavallo Praize X Glenormiston Clementine [by Abbeyliex Finbar]) who truly rose to the the occasion not only earning outstanding marks but also winning the Euro Horse Shoeing Weser Ems Pony Division with the comments "Perfect Breed Type" from judges Katrin Burger(GER) and Uli Henschke (GER) as well as Holly Simensen (USA). Amelia also went on to wow the audience and judges with her Jumping Talents earning an "8" in the free jumping. Amelia is an 11-year-old purebred Connemara Pony mare and mother of seven who literally went from the broodmare pasture to her first ridden show in THREE WEEKS! Amelia placed 6th over all in the actual OLD MARE PERFORMANCE TEST---I had no idea that the ponies would be competing against the horses in the test! Anyhow Amelia is now earned her Premium Mare title in two separate studbooks--the ACPS and the Weser Ems.”

Smaragaid Cliff

Ebert, CO: Karen Laden of Kingswell Connemaras has sent this note: “It was time to update my web site with recent photos of a new colt by my young stallion *Smaragaid Cliff (Munkholm Cobbergate x Shamrock Bright Roxanne). When I started going through the photos of New Song's Let Freedom Ring (*Smaragaid Cliff x Wildwych Lucy), they kept triggering the idea that I'd seen them somewhere before. So I started going through my pictures of Cliff and the pictures taken by his breeder, Martina Ferfers, in Germany. It was amazing the similarity in movement between Freedom and Cliff. So then I started comparing pictures of Cliff and his 2007 filly New Song's Raining Miracles (*Smaragaid Cliff x *Sillbridge Miranda by Thunderbolt) and found the same thing. (There are more mirror-image photos on my web site, www.kingswellconnemaras.com).

Raining Miracles

I find it all fascinating. Cliff currently has just these two offspring, but I'm sure there are plenty of longtime Connemara breeders out there who enjoy the same thrill of seeing their stallion or mare stamped on the next generation. It makes me even more excited to see next year's babies by Cliff. The photos are New Song's Raining Miracles and *Smaragaid Cliff. Miracle is a yearling in this photo. Cliff is almost six in his photo. Like Freedom, Miracle's owner, breeder is Alyce Wich of New Song Ranch in Colorado.”

Rockfield Scarface

Skovde, Sweden: Jenny Hagenblad sent these photos from the Swedish Connemara show in August. Youngstock champion was the two-year-old filly Langarno Decibell ( Dexter Leam Pondi X Innellan Alice) and reserve youngstock champion was Holmtebo Urchin ( Hagens Darcy X Hagens Ultra). The offspring of Hagens O'Chief did very well and he won a gold in the progeny class. Our eventual supreme champion was O'Chief's son Hagens Darcy and as a reserve the dressage champion Hagens Rosmara who just got better and better the more the day passed. Jenny said that apart from Swedish- and Irish-bred ponies they also had ponies bred in four more countries. These were the Dutch brown mare Laughing Grainne (Iltshi van de Leliaard X Laughing Ashling), the dun German mare Sternbergs Sweetheart (El Larry X Skousboe Shamrock), the grey Danish mare Pilgaards Daisy (Hedehusets Chan-Roa X Kaervangs Candie) and the dun Finnish stallion Rockfield Scarface (Ard Ri Cunga X Rockfield Scaramé), who was second in the stallion class. Jenny has many more photos of the ponies taking part at her website, http://www.tephra.se/CC/photo/riksphotos.htm.

Hagens Darcy

Hagens Rosmara

Springfield Shadow

Lower-Saxony, Germany: Patricia Schmidt of Patty’s Connemaras sends this news of the stallions they have leased to Ireland. Springfield Shadow (Innelan Kestrel X Springfield Meavis) won the Stallion Class at the Midland Connemara Show in Stradbally Hall. He also came second in the Connemara Ridden and in the M + M Working Hunter Class.

Patty’s Veuve Cosmic (Patty’s Veuve Cliquot X Jacobsdal Bluebell) won the Connemara and the Stallion Class at the Bannow Rathangan Show.

Patty also reports, “In August, two of our foals took part in the Foal Championship in Steyerberg, which was opened for all pony breeds for the first time. Only the first-premium awarded foals of the whole year could take part at this event. We had all 4 in Lower-Saxony inspected babies invited for this show, but decided to present only the two oldest ones--still both had been the youngest entries at this class, at just 2.5 months young.

Patty’s Made In Heaven (Rhinstroem’s Mighty Man X Patty’s Maxime) became Champion foal with a 8.3 for type and a 8.5 for her movement in front of her half brother Patty’s Marathon (Rhinstroem’s Mighty Man X Kirkelgaard’s Margaux), who was given an 8.4 for type and an 8 overall. Marathon is half brother, through his dam, to three ponies in the US, Patty’s Etoile Des Paris, Patty’s Noblesse Oblige, and Patty’s Meredith.

Made In Heaven also became a special award of Honor, a States Medal, which is rarely given. Finally at the end of the day, she also was the best foal of the ring 2, All-Native-Breeds. Both foals are by our young stallion Rhinstroem’s Mighty Man (Oxenholm Markbook X Kirstinelund’s Juicy), who is leased to Ireland.

Patty's Made in Heaven

Patty's Veuve Cosmic

Loveland, Co: Julie Keahy has written a poem in an unusual art form from Malaysia. The type of poem is called Pantoum. This is an odd poetry form that repeats the lines from previous stanzas, making it difficult to make the poem make sense. But Julie said, “I guess I'm hooked, because it came easily.” A poet and didn’t know it!!

Good Bone, Good Minds
By Julie Keahey

Connemara ponies rule the earth,
Good bone, good minds,
Connemaras take us where we want to go.
They can do it all.

Good bone, good minds,
The ACPS board meets.
They can do it all,
Women who love the breed.

The ACPS board meets.
I learn so much with
women who love the breed.
Teach and talk and laugh

I learn so much with
Our good Connemaras
Teach and talk and laugh
Passing on the love of scores of breeders

Our good Connemaras -
Connemaras take us where we want to go.
Passing on the love of scores of breeders,
Connemaras ponies rule the earth.