IT was the year of Connemara breeders at the Horse of the Year Show (HOYS) with Clifden breeder Henry O’Toole receiving the Connemara Pony Breeder Award on Thursday night.

The leading breeder series, sponsored by Kellythorpe Stud, is based on results during the HOYS qualifying season. Three of O’Toole’s Castle-prefixed Connemaras had qualified this year and he received a letter last week with the surprise news that he won.

“We had three ponies qualify last year for HOYS and again this year. We thought the Currans might win because their Glencarrig ponies have had a great year on the circuit and they qualified three ponies too. We were going to HOYS anyway and then the letter came out of the blue. That was the icing on the cake. It was lovely to get it, no doubt,” Henry said.

This year marks his 40th anniversary of breeding Connemara ponies. Village Star, his first pony, was bought from the late Paddy King and all their home-breds, bar one outcross mare bought in France, are direct descendants of that Village line.

Among the countless successful ponies, bred on his Sky Road farm, is the 2002 HOYS and Olympia champion Castle Comet and several Clifden supreme championships.

“Castle Urchin won the Clifden supreme twice too and Castle Comet was junior champion twice,” he said, listing their home-bred Clifden champions, rating Clifden as the ultimate and “hardest one to win.”

Henry breeds an average of six or seven foals each year with most sold cross-channel. “The market is excellent. England is definitely the main market, we’d have sold ponies in the past to America and other countries. Now it’s England. Brexit is a huge worry. Even our breeding strategy is to breed for the UK market. I’m a farmer and I think Brexit is a huge worry for agriculture too.”

Henry received his award on Thursday evening at a function for Mountain and Moorland breeders in the National Exhibition Centre in Bermingham, where HOYS is hosted. “It was humbling really to get the Connemara breeder of the year award,” said O’Toole.

Castle Admiral and Castle Diceman (junior champion at Clifden in 2014) were two of his UK exports to qualify for HOYS and the third was Castle Emperor, owned by Vanessa Clark, who placed fourth in the ridden Connemara class. By Castle Comet, the dun was champion foal at Clifden in 2011.

Robbie Fallon’s home-bred winner was Cashelbay Rocket and completing a great result for Irish-breds was the Ciaran Curran-bred Glencarrig Rocco in third place.

Fallon jumped up from his seat in the grandstand on Wednesday morning as his nine-year-old Cashelbay Cruise-sired stallion, under Michael Harty, was called out as the winner in the 22-strong class.

Full report from HOYS in next week’s paper. Turn to A68-69 to read about Robbie Fallon in our new ‘West of the Shannon’ series.