“SURREAL” is how Niamh O’Halloran described last Wednesday watching ring side with her 11-day-old son Colí as her husband Bryan and father Tommy competed for the 2024 Supreme Connemara Pony Championship at the Clifden Show.

After deliberations by the judging party of Kevin Bolger, Feichín King, Liam Cotter, Sean King and Jane Andrews, her husband Bryan O’Halloran was called forward with the couple’s mare, Cabra Jane, as Supreme Champion. The five-year-old by Hillside Joker had earlier won the four- to five-year-old mare class, improving on her blue ribbon finish the previous year.

The Clifden-based couple proved to be popular winners with the crowd, as it seemed anyone who had been watching the judging unfold flooded into Ring One to offer their congratulations to the pair, including the mare’s breeder Jeremiah Horgan from Macroom in Co Cork.

“It’s hard to believe the cup is sitting here in the kitchen,” Bryan told The Irish Field this week. Growing up in Riverside, Clifden, with the CPBS showgrounds on his doorstep, the hope of a win in the hallowed rings was constantly present. “When you are up and down past the showgrounds five to 10 times a day, seven days a week, you keep telling yourself it is going to happen and you’re going to do it but you have no idea when you’re going to do it.”

The full-time farrier has had many a good day at the annual Connemara Pony Show, including winning the 2023 Junior Championship with the couple’s Blakehill Sparrow mare Carnane Bonnie. The significance of Clifden is renowned in the Connemara community regardless of proximity to the Showgrounds and Niamh, who is originally from Cavan, has made the annual pilgrimage to the show with father Tommy Sexton over the past two decades.

Pinnacle

“Clifden is the pinnacle, it is the All-Ireland of the Connemara world. You are coming in against the best mares in the country. All the other Championships are lovely, but you are always chasing that dream of it,” she said.

Ponies are central to the O’Hallorans who describe their home as full of “pony talk”. The couple met in the Clifden mart during the Connemara Pony Sales, the same venue where Bryan purchased his first pony and where the pair also purchased their Supreme Champion. ‘Jane’ caught both Bryan and Niamh’s eyes separately as a yearling in a pen full of geldings when searching for a foundation mare.

“The two of us spotted her at two different times unbeknownst to ourselves. I rang Niamh and said I want to show you a lovely filly and she said hold on I want to show you a lovely filly.”

They ended up on opposite sides of the pen each pointing at Jane saying, “that’s her”.

Viewing her, she stuck her head out and started whinnying. “And that was it,” remembers Bryan who describes the grey out of Gurteen Breeze as “a docile pet who is not just a pony, she is a family member in this house.”

A good doer

While Covid may have seen showing plans cancelled for two years, the O’Hallorans felt this gave the mare the opportunity to come on naturally. Winning the All-Ireland three-year-old Championship in 2022, the mare has gone from strength to strength since. This season she has concisely collected firsts and sashes from a summer of showing which included going Supreme at the Midlands Connemara Pony Breeders show in July.

“This year came around and she just came into herself,” Niamh explained. “She did a lot of the work herself, she’s a good doer. A good type of a mare.” For the couple staying true to type is central to all they do.

“She’s as traditional as you will get in this day and age,” which for Bryan is paramount. “For us it is about preserving the breed and staying true to the type and the characteristics of the pony. If they (the characteristics) are not stuck to you are only looking at another pony, not a Connemara pony. If there is no type, there’s no point.”

Standing Supreme at only five, Cabra Jane has already been written into the history books of the breed alongside some of the most influential ponies of all time. “She was broken last year. The hope is that she will go back under saddle next year while we decide on a stallion to cover her with. She’ll go on to be a broodmare the following year,” Niamh said of the young mare’s future prospects.

Broodmare champion

Prior to the supreme champion being called forward, the Broodmare Championship was first decided on. Looking to the two mares that topped the 10- to 15-year-old Mare with foal at foot class, the winner, Bridget and Peter Lee’s Clover Hill Troy’s Beauty was chosen as Champion Broodmare, while David Connolly’s Cullane’s Princess, second in the same class, stood Reserve.

Clover Hill Troy's Beauty, winner of the Broodmanre Championship and Reserve Supreme Championship at Clifden Show with owner Bridget Lee receiving congratulations in the background \ Rynes Walker

With these selections made, the mares were also judged for the overall Supreme. Adding another sash to her tally Clover Hill Troy’s Beauty was awarded Overall Reserve Champion. A true family affair, the home-bred mare was presented on the day by Peter while this year’s colt foal Clover Hill Houdini (Rathkeery Paddy) was led up by son Peter Jr.

“This means everything to us,” said Bridget. “She is out of Caitlin’s Beauty who I bought as a foal.” The now 13-year-old was of the first crop of foals sired by the 2023 Supreme Champion Dunloughan Troy. “We are very proud of her being home-bred. It is a dream come true today.”

The mare with a “fantastic temperament” has given eight foals in total including two sons who are now in Germany that hope to go on to be stallions while a gelding and a yearling colt with Jackie Webb have gone to the UK. The family have kept two daughters to continue breeding from.

The Lees set up the Clover Hill prefix in 2007 following on generations of keeping and breeding Connemara ponies. “My great granduncle Jim Lee worked ponies on the land and the seashore. He worked for the local store in Ballyconneely and would bring essentials from Westport. It was a week’s journey with pony and cart and another back again,” shared Peter whose love of the pony came from his father Martin and first pony Doohulla Royal Rose, a gift from his uncle Michael when emigrating to America in 1974.

A generational appreciation of the Connemara looks set to continue as Bridget and Peter became grandparents when son Peter and his partner Amanda welcomed baby Elijah the Monday of show week.

Champion foal

Judging of the show’s foal and Junior championships ran concurrently in Ring One and Two in the mid-morning. Two Glencarrig Knight progeny stood Champion and Reserve in the foal section, a decade on from when the stallion himself won Supreme of the show.

Topping the well supported foal classes, Liam Cotter and Sean King selected the winner of colt foal class, Cáillín Conneely’s Letterdyfe Gentlemen, as their Champion and winner of the filly class, Ballinlame Midnight owned and bred by Robert Coneys, as reserve.

“A win in Clifden is the ultimate. It is good for the house, for the family, for the spirits,” said an elated Cáillín who has collected many rosettes with home-breds. The foal out of Castle Princess, a daughter of previous Clifden Supreme champions Castle Urchin and Currachmore Cashel, seemed destined to follow the tradition of championship wins.

“Our foals are grass foals. The mare does all the work. He has had no artificial feeding and has been out in Ballyconneely by the sea. When you have a fantastic mare that’s what they produce. We see the fruits of that today.”

Asked on the plans for the young Champion, they remain undecided as Conneely beamed after collecting the Tom King Cup “after today anything can happen. The world is our oyster.”

Joyful

While the morning classes in Ring One did not experience the full participation of listed entries, many of the country’s showing heavyweights did present ponies across the younger age classes.

As Val Noone and Fr Christy McCormack called forward their Junior Champion, Páid Ó Cualáin punched the air with joy as Bánrach Cormac took the honours. Having taken the Reserve spot in the same Championship 12 months previous with the home-bred filly Teach Mór Peige (Glencarrig Monarch x Teach Mor Queen Donna), this year he won the Two-Year-Old Colt class with the pony owned by his father Paraic Folan before securing the green, white and gold sash.

Bred by Colm Ó Curraoin, the colt who is by the Folan’s own stallion Teach Mór Cormac was bought as a foal with showing in Clifden was always in mind.

“It’s unbelievable, you aim for Clifden every year. The other shows are nice but this is the one you want to win, this is the place,” Sean Folan explained as he watched his brother show the colt’s sire in the Four- to Six-year-old Stallion class.

The Junior Champion has had a busy summer winning at the Midlands Connemara Pony Breeders’ show and standing Junior Champion at the Claregalway agricultural show. “We have his father, his brother and half-sisters of him,” Paraic explained.

Banrach Cormac and Paid Folan winning the Junior Championship at the 2024 Connemara Pony Show in Clifden \ Rynes Walker

Standing aside the young colt, Reserve Junior Champion was Cathy Snow and Martin Coyne’s Moorland My Oh My. Shown by Snow on the day, the Lucky Rebel filly was the winner of the Three-Year-Old filly class and the Lord Killanin Cup, silverware the pony’s great granddam, Moorland Juliet, won in 1992.

“My Oh My has won every class she has ever been entered into and Clifden was the one remaining for her,” Snow explained of the home-bred whose dam, Kilpatrick Snowdrop, was All-Ireland Broodmare Champion as well as a Clifden winner, while her sire has enjoyed a decorated performance career including Working Hunter appearances for Team Ireland.

“She has a top showing pedigree, she just had to win in Clifden herself and today was the day she did it!” When asked of future plans, the opportunities are endless. Cathy describes her as “the ideal Connemara as she can continue to go in hand, has the confirmation for making a lovely broodmare or she can go down the performance route. If I decide to break her, she could be aimed at something like HOYS in the future as she has exceptional movement.”

Moorland My Oh My and Cathy Snow winning the three year old filly class at the 2024 Connemara Pony Show in Clifden \ Rynes Walker

Parade of champions

As a scaled down parade of Champions took to the streets on Wednesday evening, an iconic sight led out this year’s procession. Niamh O’Halloran led the Supreme Champion mare while Bryan carried baby Colí in the Jan Harold Koelichen Cup.

Followed by the Lee family, this year’s parade is evidence again of the dedication to the Connemara by independent breeders, producers and competitors. Sashes and rosettes that decorated the ponies that followed are the result of years, even generations, of putting the pony first.

Whether that is breeding the best with the best to produce the next generation of champions or long winters preparing youngstock for Connemara Pony Show debuts the promise of showing inside the Clifden rings is a core motivation that keeps so many going through the darker months.

While this year’s ridden and working hunter champions remain uncelebrated - the classes were postponed due to weather - the sentiment echoed by spectators and competitors is for the return, in full, of this one-of-a-kind festival dedicated to celebrating our beautiful native breed to the pony show’s true home, the Clifden Showgrounds, in 2025.