04/02/2024
I thought I would reproduce a post I put up on Connemaras Australia recently as it gives a little insight into some past breeding decisions leading to our most recent foal, Clairvale Enif.
Although all of the foals I have bred so far except for one have been grey, colour is actually one of the factors I have taken into consideration in breeding decisions made.
For historical context, my first three Connemara ponies were non-grey including the first two mares I bred from, Shelford Downs Castanette and Shelford Downs Rana. Shelford Downs stud imported a large number of non-grey ponies (as well as some grey) for a couple of reasons - they personally preferred non-grey and also it was much easier to convince Irish and British breeders to part with very good non-grey fillies and mares at the time as grey was far and away the ‘trendy’ colour. So from a young age I have been exposed to Connemaras in a variety of colours and as such do not view any particular colour as being more or less typey, despite Connemaras being a breed in which the majority are grey. My favourite pony at Shelford Downs stud was the grey imported mare Chiltern Saffron, who I learned to ride on, and she has been the pony I have had as my breeding model or goal as far as type, temperament, conformation and character throughout my breeding journey.
The one non-grey foal I have bred is the stallion Clairvale Constellation, a buckskin roan stallion with a buckskin roan sire and a black dam. I considered both stallions I was looking at using over his dam Glenrose Roisin, Pattys Somertiden and Pattys V***e Cosmic, to be good matches both phenotypically and genetically, both for the foal and more broadly in Australia if I were to breed from the resulting foal in the long term. In this instance colour was the deciding factor as I thought with a potential breeding future in mind for the foal, a non-grey in the mix was preferable for my breeding program and the wider Australian herd. I did not know that Cosmic was roan when I used his semen. I thought from a photo I saw of him that he might be, but even Patty was unsure at that stage. So specific colour was not a factor, only the lack of grey when all other considerations were fairly equal.
I actively try to avoid breeding homozygous greys because of the compounding effect of the melanoma gene as per recent scientific research, but I have bred from homozygous grey ponies, and our younger mare is homozygous grey. So, as well as seeking a stallion who compliments her in other ways, I would look for a non-grey stallion for her. She also has one copy of Cr, so I also keep that in mind.
Of interest genetically, my daughter Isobel recently sent me ranked lists of Australian Connemara stallions COIs when bred to each of our mares and fillies. For the top 5 lowest COI pairings of all of our grey mares, the majority were non-grey (the lowest COI combination for Clairvale Eibhlin is Clairvale Constellation), and for our non-grey mare , two of the top five (the top two) were also non-grey.
