Big Bear Farm

Big Bear Farm has been breeding Connemara ponies and Connemara crosses in Pine Mountain, Georgia since 1982, making it one of the longest-running Connemara pony programs in the Southeast. The farm sits in the rolling countryside of Harris County, roughly 30 minutes southwest of Columbus. Owner Leigh Ellen Ertle, who earned the Golden Shamrock Award riding Big Bear stallions, continues a multigenerational program originally rooted in her family's Roberts lineage.

The breeding focus centers on disposition, type, and talent, with horses from this program having competed through Grand Prix Dressage, Preliminary Eventing, hunters, and jumpers. Notable stallions that have shaped the Big Bear bloodlines include names such as Camus John's Gladiator, Kill-Dara Swift Jonathan, Canal Clancy, and Ballinaboy Eamonn, among many others developed on the property itself.

The farm also serves as home to Enoch Ministries, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit counseling program that incorporates the Connemara ponies into therapeutic sessions for individuals, group home residents, veterans, and military families working through trauma, PTSD, anxiety, and other mental health concerns. A third generation of the Ertle family is now actively involved, with Leigh Ellen's children establishing their own breeding lines and carrying the Connemara pony for sale in Georgia tradition forward.

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Species	Horse Connemara Pony
Website	www.enochministries.com
Email	lelittlebear@yahoo.com
Phone	+1 706-881-2141
Owner	Leigh Ellen Ertle
Location	Pine Mountain, GA, 31822, USA