ONE hundred shows on from when the Connemara Pony Show first began, three things remained integral to the success of both the ponies presented and the event itself last week in Clifden. The people, the ponies and the place, in the heart of the Connemara region, remain the steadfast pillars ensuring the prosperity of both the event and the breed, inside and outside the ring. Staged under the stewardship of the newly-formed Connemara Pony Show-Clifden CLG of Mary Coyne (Chair), John Sweeney, Karen Mannion, Terrence O’Toole, Cllr. Eileen Mannion and Cllr. Gerry King, the four-day showcase was both a tribute to the past and a promise to the future.

The aim of the new committee is to ensure the show thrives into its second century and, in this centenary year, a new generation of Connemara pony champions were crowned. Standing proudly beside them was, in many cases, the next generation of breeders carrying forward the legacy of their families with home-bred ponies.