The second big change in Ireland at the beginning of the German Import (beginning of the 60's) was in 1965, the banning of BEC from the Irish stud book.
Until this year the BEC had been seen as bad luck but were tolerated. Then from 1965 on, they were seen as a damnation.
The biggest market in selling ponies then, was to sell ponies for breeding, so the selling of a BEC was nearly impossible from that time and when they were sold it was for about half the price of others. So there was an outbreak of panic.
This brought also problems for the German breeding, because Ireland tried to get rid of ponies carrying the dilutive gene. A lot of these ponies were the best of Irish Connemaras you could find.
So German buyers were excited to get these ponies and had not realized the BEC-problem. They had no idea even that it existed because breeders in Ireland avoided showing BEC-foals. Very often the BEC-foals were put down right after their birth.
So German buyers bought "the cat in the bag". The BEC-problem showed itself later on in Germany.
The fact that this problem still exists in Germany, I think it´s a good idea to enlarge it here.
First we should think about what a BEC is. It is a creme-coloured horse with pink skin and blue eyes. Often people refer to BEC as Albinos but this is not true. If they were, their eyes would be red. Also Albinos would not have any markings and BEC do have blazes, stars and white socks.
Beside this, it is scientifically quite clear that Albinos are not fit for living, often they are lethal foals or very weak ones.
In the middle ages the BEC were seen as very valuable and special. Everyone who thought he was important wanted to have a horse of that colour. There were big studs that only bred for this colour. BEC were the carriage horses of kings & queens. You just have to think about the "Royal Victorian Creams" in England or the ones at the French and Spanish court.
Especially in Spain they were very fashionable and horses of that colour were often the best ones of their breed. That was the reason rich Irish merchants from Galway, who were trading with Spain, bought these very best horses to bring them home and then they were crossed to the Native Irish ponies.
The BEC-factor is recessive which means it is lower to other "dominant" factors and there is no way to select a recessive factor out of a population because you cannot see the factor in each animal (for example grown up greys where you do not know the birth colour).
In Ireland some of the breeders became aware of that fact and they saw that having got rid of the carriers of the dilutive gene was not always positive. Some of the best bloodlines were dying out in Ireland and some of the best stallions had been lost. Just think of the stallion "Marble" by Rebel Wind who was sold only because of this problem. He went to Denmark and everybody knows what superb progeny he brought there.
Another point was that France, England and in some parts of Germany, BEC were still registered and the mares were used for breeding and they didn't care about the Irish point.
The third point was that for a certain period the Irish were only looking at using a stallion to avoid the BEC and the result was that the quality of the ponies was not as good as before.
So the situation in Ireland changed very slowly and today you will see BEC foals again. Only a few people would hide them but no one will kill them anymore at birth.
In Germany this process came later, some breeders thought the BEC the worst of everything. Good matings were never done again because there was the danger of a BEC and some very good stallions were castrated because they had BEC-foals.
Some thought the best way out was to use only black and brown ponies for breeding. This has caused just a bigger problem because the dark coloured ponies often were the ones with the most of non-Connemara blood and to mate two such animals meant that the foreign blood was doubled, not cut down.
It needed nearly 10 years to find out that way was wrong and it changed. Fortunately early enough to avoid anything that couldn’t be corrected.
There is nothing in a BEC that makes it not as good as the other Connemaras. It is just a combination of fashion, myth and prejudice that makes the problem bigger than it has to be.
Beatrice Milleder
Beatrice lives in Munich, Germany and is a veterinarian working on her Ph.D.. She has been involved with ponies for 25 years - has owned and bred Connemaras for the last 15 years.