Montague, MA: The Annual Region 1 Tea was held Sunday January 7 at Windy Hollow farm in Montague MA, hosted by Amy Plavin, DVM, and her husband and ponies. On another beautiful sunny fall day, 35 or 30 people chose to get together and share coffee and tea and quiche and blueberry bread and happy stories about their ponies and their various exploits and plans. In our new western MA site, we had participants from NY state, RI, CT, NH, VT, and MA.

After tea we were treated to a tour of Windy Hollow Farm and her various ponies- Windy Hollow Modern Millie (Bantry Bay Kilcullen x Windy Hollow Lilia{Seaborne's Flagship}) socialized with the crowd, and Windy Hollow Finegas, a yearling colt (Balius Drumcolligan x Clove Nanoe {BB Dillon}) was critiqued for the crowd and contrasted with Paradox Pippin (Aladdin's Denver x Tower Hill's Carmody {Copa}) by long time breeder and inspector candidate Ginny Winkler. Then we all watched Lisa Malek put Pippin through his paces. A great time was had by all. Many thanks to Amy for hosting and to all who came. See you at Field day in May.

Fresno, California: On January 5, four year old stallion Wildwych Eclipse (Glenormiston Flurry Knox X Wildwych Dreamtime) along with owners Max and Lisa Gerdes of Redbud Ranch Connemaras made the four hour journey to Ram Tap, in Fresno, California to attend the 2-day Region Six Adult Riders Clinic with Yves Sauvignon of France. Yves is a former international level Event competitor who rode and trained throughout Europe before establishing his very successful “Oakridge Training Stables’ in Napa, CA. Eclipse, in his usual charismatic style, charmed both spectators and participants with his unflappable nature and willingness to try anything. “Your little horse is awesome!” exclaimed Yves of the four year old 14 HH stallion. Eclipse who is just beginning his career under saddle is aiming at his first recognized horse trial in mid February.

Galway, Ireland: On Dec 27, the Great Galway Drive took place in Connemara. Karen Vicencio has sent this report. “ We all met up in Newtown, which is just the Connemara side of Moycullen. One driver drove his pony several miles, just to get to the start of the drive. We overtook him in the jeep and horsebox, and I swear, Brannigan (Balius Derring Do – the American Connemara that Karen took to Ireland with her) was looking at the pony and saying "ha ha, I got my own limo driver!"

All of the ponies on the drive were either quite young and inexperienced, or were older but only just broken to drive. All behaved quite well, except for a couple of minor incidents. Nothing bad, just enough to keep things from getting boring and to give us stories to tell over a pint at the pub where we all met up in the evening. Brannigan was the only experienced pony in the group, so he took the lead most of the way. We picked up several other ponies and carriages on the way, as well as two mounted riders. We got VERY lucky with the weather. We had been suffering some very bad storms, but the day of the carriage drive, it wasn't particularly cold, no wind, and we even saw a bit of sun. As we pulled into Galway, it got foggy, but not terribly so. It did look quite funny though, as the warm ponies in the cool damp air had their own fogbanks surrounding them.

We drove through the city to Saint Patrick's Cathedral, where we were met by the mayor of Galway city. He was very excited about the drive, and in his welcoming speech he said that he was very pleased to see the ponies coming into the city, and that he hoped the drive would expand, and become an annual event. After the drive some people had had their trucks and trailers ferried to Galway. Some of us didn't have drivers though, so we turned around, and drove back! We met at the Forge pub and restaurant in Moycullen, and quite a lot of Connemara people who had not gone on the drive joined us, and there was an enjoyable evening of Connemara chat.”

Brisbane, Australia: Last week we reported that Glenormiston Stud, owned by Sue and Barton Clark, lost their two foundation stallions in 2006. Irish bred Abbeyleix Finbar (Ballydonagh Rob X Finola of Leam) was put down in March at the age of 28 and Australian bred Domo Cavallo Praize (Connemara Park Peter X Kirtling Haze) was put down in June aged almost 31. They had both lived at Glenormiston most of their lives. And while Glenormiston has retained a number of daughters as part of their broodmare band they miss the two old stallions who had become so much a part of their lives. Sue has sent this synopsis of their lives.

“In March 1976 we went to a stud farm near Sydney to look at a weanling Connemara filly and although we didn’t like the filly we fell in love with a weanling colt at this farm. At the time we had bought two mares in England and the odds were that at least one would produce a colt (in fact they both did) so we felt we were mad to be buying a colt!! Nevertheless Domo Cavallo Praize came to live at Glenormiston and was part of our family for the next 30 years - the two colts imported in utero were sold as weanlings and both went on to be successful stallions.

Praize became the family pony and was ridden or driven by all of us. The children as youngsters would ride him in his field with no saddle or bridle unbeknownst to me at the time! He competed in open dressage, showjumping and eventing (as he was just under 14.2) as well as in harness. Praize was the ultimate all rounder and his temperament was impeccable. In his twenties he was retired from riding due to a foot injury but he continued with stud duties right up to the end. He has left a lot of good and capable progeny and has a number of progeny in the USA as well as across Australia. We have two colts by him at Glenormiston at this current time.

Abbeyleix Finbar was purchased in Ireland in 1979 as a yearling after much searching for a suitable stallion to use over the Praize daughters. He was bred by the Viscountess de Vesci and sold on to Padraic Hynes as a weanling. He had won at several shows in Connemara and Padraic was reluctant to sell him but finally agreed provided he could keep him on until Clifden show. Finbar was placed second at Clifden after the Earl of Doon who had been bought by Bent Nielsen of the Oxenholm Stud in Denmark.

Finbar was out of the famous old mare Finola of Leam and as Carna Bobby had just died, Finola was sent to what Lady de Vesci felt was the best son of Carna Bobby at the time, Ballydonagh Rob who was out of Cashel Kate. Sadly Ballydonagh Rob died of tetanus at the age of 5 before getting a chance to prove himself. Finbar also competed widely but at 13.2 ½ he was limited to pony competitions and there weren’t so many of these at this time. Like his two ¾ brothers Coosheen Finn in Ireland and Leam Bobby Finn in the UK, Finbar made a real impact on the Connemara scene in this country. He also has progeny in the USA and Thailand.

Sadly both these stallions died in 2006, Praize aged almost 31 and Finbar aged 28. We have retained a number of daughters as part of our broodmare band but miss the two old stallions who had become so much a part of our lives.