HORSEWARE Ireland’s humorous commercial, featuring the four new Connemara pony employees at the Dundalk factory, scooped one of the ‘Winnie’ awards at the Equus Film Festival in New York last weekend.

The commercial, which won the best non-broadcasting commercial category has already had over two million Youtube hits and features The Irish Field’s Brendan McArdle.

Emma Massingale, who trained the clever Connemara stars, and Equine Productions were amongst the other winners at the event for the No Reins No Rules No Limits mini documentary. All the films were screened over two days at the Village East Cinema, also the venue for the Tribeca Film Festival, in the city’s historic Lower East Side.

Another of the Field’s team - Susan Finnerty - was in New York for the festival, which also featured tours of the Clinton Park Stables on Sunday afternoon.

Leitrim-born Conor Mc-Hugh, co-owner of the largest of the remaining carriage horse stables in Manhattan was profiled three years ago in The Irish Field and in next week’s report on the festival events, tells of the carriage drivers efforts to keep going in the face of Mayor Bill De Blasio’s bid to close the trade down.