CONNEMARA Ponies have thrived for hundreds of years in the beautiful, but sparse, mountains of Connemara in the west of Ireland and their body systems have adapted to gaining the nutrients required to survive from the minimum amount of feed.

Nowadays, Irish grass is naturally rich in non-structural carbohydrates (high simple sugars) and grass pastures that ponies are turned out on are often very different nutritionally to what the Connemara Pony has evolved to survive on.