The captivating Connemara! We are celebrating these horses as our May Breed of the Month on YourDressage!
Did you know that dressage riders who choose a Connemara as their dressage mount are eligible for special awards through the Adequan®/USDF All-Breeds Awards program, as the American Connemara Pony Society is a participating organization?
Here, a rider from Region 6 shares how her experience with Olympians led her to first fall in love with Connemaras and the “Mulligan” she took with a pony who told her he’d much rather dance than jump.
By Sondra Marshall
My formative years as a groom for Jessica Ransehousen in the 1980s exposed me to Seldom Seen, Lendon Gray’s decade-long nationally renowned partner. Regardless, I fell smitten with him, and that solidified my desire to own a Connemara someday!
Finally, as an adult, I got the chance to buy several well-bred full and part Connemaras from Chris Knox and decided, going into my “vintage” years, that I wanted just one more – you know, to jump some jumps, event, and trail ride! I contacted Chris, who described KF Mulligan, and told me that he had been destined to be on her husband Phil Knox’s four-in-hand purebred FEI pony driving team. When it became clear he was going to be oversized, well… Mulligan was kicked off of the team. At six years of age, he had lived a life of leisure, but Chris said he was a very good mover, and she was willing to part with him.
Mulligan almost immediately expressed his clear “disinterest” in jumping. In fact, getting him over a pole proved challenging, so much so that I placed poles all around his paddock just so he had to walk over them to get to essentials such as food and water. I thought it was simply a little “glitch,” but I have always strived to listen to my horses and be guided by their strengths, and jumping was simply not what Mulligan wanted to do!
Mulligan also proved to be very cheeky and unpredictable, with impressive “airs above the ground” moves. Every time I came off of him, which was many, I vowed to keep him another year, because while I typically like buying, training, and selling horses, I did not want to sell a horse whose “enthusiasm” may result in being poorly treated by someone else.
I actually had Mulligan all but sold to a young rider, but I had signed up for an adult dressage camp and thought I would take him there as one last hurrah. Ernst Hermann was one of the instructors, and after the camp, he encouraged me to keep Mulligan as he saw “potential.”
That potential has taken years to shape, but this little Connemara has proven his exceptional work ethic, and he can have strong opinions. But over the last couple of years, we have cultivated a partnership that led us to be the Oregon Fourth Level State Champions in 2021. In 2022, we earned my USDF Silver Medal together, and Mulligan even turned in a respectable enough performance to finish in fifth-place in the Purebred Connemara Dressage USEF Horse of the Year standings that year.
Last year, we took a break from competing but worked all winter with a focus on quality of movement, and he feels so strong, albeit still cheeky, and ready to start at PSG and possibly move up to Intermediate 1 this season. From there, I will continue listening to him, and given how talkative he is, I am confident he will tell me what more he wants to do. Living where we do, there is an abundance of places to explore, and while he dislikes jumping, he absolutely loves being out on the trails!
