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Title: Ponies past and present
Author: Sir Walter Gilbey
Release date: February 18, 2025 [eBook #75401]
Language: English
Original publication: United Kingdom: Vinton & Co., Ltd, 1900
Credits: Fiona Holmes and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archives.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PONIES PAST AND PRESENT ***
Transcriber’s Note
Page 51 — precints changed to precincts
Page 72 — atttention changed to attention
Illustration labelled ‘H. F. Lucas Lucas’ Page 110 — is left
as printed.
The Footnotes have been changed from alpha to numeric.
PONIES PAST AND PRESENT
[Illustration:
_Painted by A. Cooper, R.A._ _Engraved on wood by F. Babbage._
THE SHOOTING PONY.]
PONIES
PAST AND PRESENT
BY
SIR WALTER GILBEY, BART.
ILLUSTRATED
VINTON & CO., LTD.,
9, NEW BRIDGE STREET, LONDON, E.C.
1900
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Introduction 1
The New Forest Pony 11
The Welsh Pony 25
The Exmoor and Dartmoor Ponies 38
The Cumberland and Westmoreland Ponies 53
Ireland—The Connemara Pony 63
The Ponies of Scotland and The Shetland Islands 71
Uses and Characteristics of the Pony 87
Breeding Polo Ponies 97
ILLUSTRATIONS.
The Shooting Pony Frontispiece
The Pony Hack To face page 25
Little Wonder II. 59
Child’s Shetland Pony 82
“Princess Victoria in her Pony Phaeton” 87
The First Leap 89
Arab “Mesaoud” 104
The Polo Pony “Sailor” 110
_The increasing attention which during the last few years has been
devoted to breeding ponies for various purposes, more especially for
polo, suggested the collection of facts relating to our half-wild races
of ponies. It will be seen from the following pages that we possess
large supplies of small but strong and sound constitutioned horses
which may be turned to far more valuable account than has been done
hitherto. The Polo Pony Society set the example of drawing attention
to the possibilities of utilising profitably the Moorland and Forest
Mares, and it is hoped that these pages may be of some interest to
those who are giving attention to pony breeding whether for polo or for
any other purpose._
[Illustration]
_Elsenham Hall, Essex,
August, 1900._
PONIES PAST AND PRESENT
INTRODUCTION.
In another volume, _Horses Past and Present_, brief reference has been
made to the early subjugation of the horse in Eastern countries by man;
and it is unnecessary here to further touch upon that phase of our
subject.
The early history of the horse in the British Islands is obscure.
The animal is not indigenous to the country, and it is supposed that
the original stock was brought to England many centuries before the
Christian era by the Phœnician navigators who visited the shores of
Cornwall to procure supplies of tin. However that may be, the first
historian who rendered any account of our islands for posterity found
here horses which he regarded as of exceptional merit. Julius Cæsar,
when he invaded Britain in the year 55 B.C., was greatly impressed
with the strength, handiness, and docility of the horses which the
ancient Britons drove in their war chariots; his laudatory description
of their merits includes no remark concerning their size, and from this
omission we may infer that they were not larger than the breeds of
horses with which Cæsar’s travels and conquests had already made him
acquainted.
There can be no doubt but that these chariot horses were small by
comparison with their descendants—the modern Shire horses;[1] they
probably did not often exceed 14 hands, and were therefore much on
a par in point of height with the horses Cæsar had seen in Spain
and elsewhere. It is unlikely that so shrewd an observer would have
refrained from comment on the point had the British horses been
superior in size, as they were in qualities, to the breeds he already
knew. It is doubtful indeed whether the horses of Britain gained in
stature to any material extent until the Saxons and Danes introduced
horses from the Continent. These being for military purposes would
have been stallions without exception, and being larger than the
British breed must have done something to produce increase of height
when crossed with our native mares.
[1] See “The Great Horse or War Horse.” By Sir Walter Gilbey, Bart. 3rd
edition, 1899. Vinton & Co., Ltd.
This being the case, we are confronted with the difficulty of
distinguishing between the horses and ponies of these early times;
the chroniclers do not attempt to differentiate between “horse” and
“pony” as we understand the terms. The process of developing a big
horse was necessarily a slow one, from the system, or want of system,
which remained in vogue until the fifteenth century, and was still
in existence in some parts of England in Henry VIII.’s time. During
the long period the greater portion of the country lay under forest
and waste, it was the practice to let those mares which were kept
solely for breeding purposes run at large in the woodlands, unbroken
and unhandled. Doomsday Book contains frequent mention of _equæ
silvestres_, _equæ silvaticæ_, or _equæ indomitæ_ when enumerating
the live stock on a manor; and there is evidence to show that these
animals (always mares, it will be observed) were under a modified
degree of supervision. They were branded to prove their ownership,
and during the summer selected mares appear to have been “rounded
up” to an enclosure in the forest for service. Apart from this they
ranged the country at large, strangers alike to collar and bridle. It
would be unreasonable to suppose that the mares which were employed in
agricultural work were not also used for breeding; the surroundings of
the farmer’s mare in those days were not luxurious, but she undoubtedly
enjoyed shelter from the rigours of winter and more nourishing
food than her woodland sister. Hence it is probable that the first
differences in size, make and shape among English horses may be traced
to their domestic or woodland ancestry on the dam’s side.
The life led by these _equæ indomitæ_ made for hardiness of
constitution, soundness of limb, surefootedness, and small stature; and
we venture to think that the half-wild ponies England possesses to-day
in the New Forest, Exmoor, Wales and the Fell country are (or were,
until comparatively modern endeavours were made to improve them) the
lineal descendants of the woodland stock which is frequently referred
to in ancient records, and which in 1535 and 1541 Henry VIII. made
vigorous attempts to exterminate.
The law of 1535 (26 Henry VIII.) declares:—
“For that in many and most places of this realm, commonly little
horses and nags of small stature and value be suffered to
depasture, and also to cover mares and felys of very small stature,
by reason whereof the breed of good and strong horses of this
realm is now lately diminished, altered and decayed, and further
is likely to decay if speedy remedy be not sooner provided in that
behalf.
“It is provided that all owners or fermers of parks and enclosed
grounds of the extent of one mile in compass shall keep two mares,
apt and able to bear foals of the altitude or height of 13 handfuls
at least, upon pain of 40s.
“A penalty of 40s. is imposed on the Lords, Owners, and Fermers of
all parks and grounds enclosed, as is above rehearsed, who shall
willingly suffer any of the said mares to be covered or kept with
any Stoned Horse under the stature of 14 handfuls.”
This Act applied only to enclosed areas, and therefore would not affect
the wild ponies in any appreciable degree: but six years later another
Act was passed (32 Henry VIII., c. 13) which provided that—
“No person shall put in any forest, chase, moor, heath, common,
or waste (where mares and fillies are used to be kept) any stoned
horse above the age of two years, not being fifteen hands high
within the Shires and territories of Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge,
Buckingham, Huntingdon, Essex, Kent, South Hampshire, North
Wiltshire, Oxford, Berkshire, Worcester, Gloucester, Somerset,
South Wales, Bedford, Warwick, Northampton, Yorkshire, Cheshire,
Staffordshire, Lancashire, Salop, Leicester, Hereford and Lincoln.
And furthermore, be it enacted, that if in any of the said drifts
there shall be found any mare, filly, foal, or gelding that then
shall be thought not to be able nor like to grow to be able to
bear foals of reasonable stature or not able nor like to grow to
be able to do profitable labours by the discretions of the drivers
aforesaid or of the more number of them, then the same driver or
drivers shall cause the same unprofitable beasts ... every of them
to be killed, and the bodies of them to be buried in the ground, as
no annoyance thereby shall come or grow to the people, those near
inhabiting or thither resorting.”
This enactment was of a more far-reaching character than its
forerunner. The “shires and territories” enumerated were those in
which greatest attention was paid to the breeding of Great Horses;
“profitable labours,” in those times, could only mean military service,
agricultural work, and perhaps pack transport, for any of which
purposes the woodland ponies were useless. How far the law proved
effectual is another matter: laws more nearly affecting the welfare of
the subject were less honoured in the observance than the breach in the
remoter parts of the kingdom in those times.
In 1566, when Elizabeth was on the throne, Thomas Blundeville, of
Newton Flotman, wrote a book on _Horses and Riding_; and prefaced it
by an “Epistle dedicatorie” to Robert Lord Dudley, Master of the Horse,
which begins:
“It would be the means that the Queen may not only cause such
statutes touching the breeding of Horses upon Commons to be put in
execution: but also that all such parks within the Realme as be
in Her Highnesse hands and meet for that purpose might not wholly
be employed to the keeping of Deer (which is altogether without
profit), but partly to the necessary breeding of Horses for service
[_i.e._, military service] whereof this Realme of all others at
this instant hath greatest need.”
It would appear, therefore, that Henry’s laws had become a dead letter,
or something very like it, within twenty-five years of its finding
place on the Statute Book. It was afterwards repealed in respect of
certain counties by Queen Elizabeth and James I. (for particulars see
p. 26 and p. 33, “Horses Past and Present.”)
These various early edicts no doubt produced some result in the more
central parts of England, though, as we gather from Blundeville’s
“Epistle,” those charged with their administration failed to enforce
them in areas more remote. A certain amount of driving and killing no
doubt was done, but probably no more than enough to make the herds
wilder than before and send them in search of safety to the most
inaccessible districts. The natural result of this would be to preserve
the breeds in greater purity than would have been the case had they
been allowed to intermingle with horses which, after the harvest was
carried, were turned out to graze at will over the unfenced fields and
commons. It is worth glancing at these items of horse legislation to
discover that the half-wild ponies have survived, not by grace of man’s
aid or protection, but in defiance of his endeavours to stamp them out.
Nearly a century later (1658) the Duke of Newcastle published his work
on the _Feeding, Dressing and Training of Horses for the Great Saddle_
and therein, urged strongly the desirability of discouraging the
breeding of ponies. The records of subsequent reigns show occasional
endeavour to improve by legislation the breeds of horses needed for
military purposes, tournaments, racing and sport, but until we come
to the time of George II. we find no _positive_ attempt to discourage
the breeding of ponies. An Act passed in 1740 was definite enough in
the purpose it sought to attain. This was the suppression of races by
“poneys” and other small or weak horses.
Under this law matches for prizes under £50 were forbidden, save at
Newmarket and Black Hambleton, and the weights to be carried by horses
were fixed at 10 st. for a five-year-old, 11 st. for a six-year-old and
12 st. for a seven-year-old horse. This statute had two-fold intention:
it was framed “not only to prevent the encouragement of a vile and
paltry breed of horses, but likewise to remove all temptation from the
lower class of people who constantly attend these races, to the great
loss of time and hindrance of labour, and whose behaviour still calls
for stricter regulations to curb their licentiousness and correct their
manners.”
During the present century organised effort to improve these breeds has
followed recognition of their possibilities for usefulness, and in few
localities, if any, does the original stock remain pure. In Devonshire,
Hampshire, Wales, Cumberland, the Highlands, Shetland, and in the West
of Ireland, the original strains have been intermingled and alien blood
introduced. Small Thoroughbred, Arab and Hackney sires have produced
new and improved breeds less fitted to withstand the rigours of winter
and the effects of scanty food contingent on independent and useless
existence, but infinitely better calculated to serve the interests of
mankind.
Before the establishment of the Hackney Horse Society in 1883 the
dividing line between the horse and the pony in England was vague and
undefined. It was then found necessary to distinguish clearly between
horses and ponies, and accordingly all animals measuring 14 hands or
under were designated “ponies,” and registered in a separate part of
the Stud Book. This record of height, with other particulars as to
breeding, &c., serves to direct breeders in their choice of sires and
dams. The standard of height established by the Hackney Horse Society
was accepted and officially recognised by the Royal Agricultural
Society in 1889, when the prize list for the Windsor Show contained
pony classes for animals not exceeding 14 hands. The altered Polo-rule
which fixes the limit of height at 14 hands 2 inches may be productive
of some little confusion; but for all other purposes 14 hands is the
recognised maximum height of a pony. Prior to 1883 small horses were
called indifferently galloways hobbies, cobs, or ponies, irrespective
of their height.
THE NEW FOREST PONY.
The New Forest in Hampshire now cover some 63,000 acres of which about
42,000 acres are common pasture, the remaining 21,000 acres having been
enclosed in 1851 for the growth of timber. The greater portion of the
common land is poor and boggy moor, and on these areas ponies have been
bred in a semi-wild state from the earliest times. It is considered
more than probable that the New Forest ponies are the survival of the
stock which, before the time of Canute (1017-1035), was found in the
district formerly called Ytene, and which was afforested in the year
1072 by the Conqueror.[2]
[2] Mr. W. J. C. Moens, in a pamphlet printed for private circulation.
Henry III. (1216-1272), on 15th March, 1217, ordered the Warden of the
pony stud kept in the New Forest to give to the Monks of Beaulieu all
the profits accruing from the droves from that date till November,
1220, this donation being for the benefit of the soul of his late
father, King John. Thus it is evident that the New Forest ponies of the
thirteenth century were numerous enough to form a source of revenue to
the Crown.
The remote history of the breed need not concern us; for it was not
until comparatively recent times that any endeavour was made towards
the improvement of the “forester,” as it is called. The first infusion
of alien blood likely to be beneficial seems to have been made about
1766; and the circumstances under which this fresh blood was introduced
are interesting. In 1750, H.R.H. the Duke of Cumberland acquired by
exchange a thoroughbred foal from his breeder, Mr. John Hutton. The
animal was named Marske, and was run at Newmarket: achieving no great
success on the turf, he was put to the stud, but up to the time of
the Duke’s death his progeny had done nothing to win reputation for
their sire. When the Duke died, in 1765, his horses were sold at
Tattersall’s, and Marske was knocked down “for a song” to a Dorsetshire
farmer. The farmer kept him in the New Forest district, and here Marske
the sire of Eclipse served mares at a fee of half-a-guinea, till his
famous son achieved celebrity. Eclipse was foaled in 1764, won his
first race on 3rd April, 1769, at Epsom, and made his name in a single
season on the turf.
For four years at least, therefore (until Mr. Wildman ferreted out
“the sire of Eclipse” and bought him for £20 to go to Yorkshire),
the New Forest breed of ponies were being improved by the very best
thoroughbred blood, the effects of which continued to be apparent for
many years after Marske had left the district.
It is at least probable that Marske ran in the Forest during the
lifetime of the Duke of Cumberland; for that prince was Warden of
the New Forest, and evidence is forthcoming to show that he made a
systematic attempt to better the stamp of pony.
For many decades after this infusion of thoroughbred blood nothing was
done to maintain the improvement made. On the contrary, the demand for
New Forest ponies increased, and the commoners took advantage of the
higher prices obtainable to sell the best of their young stock; thus
the breed steadily degenerated, until the late Prince Consort sent a
grey Arab stallion to stand at New Park. The effects of this fresh
strain of blood were soon evident; but history, as exemplified by the
beneficial results of Marske’s service, repeated itself; the commoners
were too ready to sell the pick of the young animals, whereby the
benefits which should have accrued were heavily discounted.
It must be explained that the large breeders have running in the
Forest a hundred ponies, or even more; many breeders possess forty or
fifty, while the small occupiers own as many as they can keep during
the winter. Their sole responsibility to the Crown in respect of the
ponies is the “marking fee” (raised in 1897 from eighteen pence to two
shillings per head), which goes to the Verderer’s Court. The marking
system enables the Court to know how many ponies are running in the
Forest, and the latest census showed about 3,000 animals, of which it
was estimated some 1,800 were breeding mares.
From spring to autumn the droves range the Forest at will, affecting,
of course, the best pasturage, or, in the heat of summer, the shadiest
localities; in winter about 1800 ponies are taken into pastures, the
remaining 1200 being left at large.
It is to be observed that the most profitable animals are the hardy
ones, which run in the Forest all the year round. The majority of the
young animals are handled only for the purpose of marking, and are
never, if possible, driven off their own ground. Thus, unless strange
stallions are used, it is very difficult to change the blood, the
forest-born stallion remaining in his own locality and collecting his
own harem around him. “In-and-in” breeding is therefore inevitable.
Besides these 3,000 it is estimated that about the Forest neighbourhood
some 2,000 ponies are worked in light carts and other vehicles, and,
as many of these ponies are used for breeding purposes, it will be
seen what an important source of pony supply we have in the New Forest
district.
When the influence of the Arab sire sent by the Prince Consort
ceased to be felt, degeneration again set in, the decreased prices
brought by ponies at the fairs proving conclusively how the breed
was deteriorating. To combat the evil the Court of Verderers in 1885
hired four well-bred stallions, which were kept by the “Agisters,”
or markers of ponies, for the service of commoners’ mares at nominal
fees. Two seasons’ experience proved that funds would not bear the
strain, and the horses were sold; with the less hesitation because it
was found that in the absence of any inducement to the breeders to
retain promising young stock, good foals and bad were alike sent for
sale to the fairs. Moreover, the wild mares were not of course covered
by these stallions, and the majority of the New Forest stock obtained
no benefit from their presence in the district. The “ponies in hand,”
nevertheless, were more than sufficiently numerous to be considered,
and in 1889 it was arranged to provide the necessary inducement to keep
promising youngsters by giving premiums at a stallion show in April of
each year, winners of premiums to run in the Forest till the following
August; and this scheme has been productive of very marked results in
the way of keeping good stock to reproduce their kind. Her Majesty
in 1889 lent two Arab stallions, Abeyan and Yirassan, for use in the
district, and these, remaining for two and three seasons respectively,
did much good. A son of the former, out of a Welsh mare, now stands in
the district. His owner, Mr. Moens, states that his produce show great
improvement, and his services are in eager demand among the commoners.
The general improvement in the Forest ponies since 1890 is very
striking.
Lack of funds has seriously handicapped the New Forest Pony Association
in its work, and the burden of carrying out the programme has fallen
upon the shoulders of a few. Conspicuous among those who have borne
the lion’s share of the task is Lord Arthur Cecil, who now turns out
no fewer than twenty-two stallions for the benefit of the commoners
generally. For many years past Lord Arthur has interested himself in
the improvement of the breed; he has been using with much success
stallions of a distinct and pure breed from the Island of Rum off the
West coast of Scotland. These are the original Black Galloways which
were found in a wild state on the island in 1840 by the late Marquis
of Salisbury, and were always kept pure. Lord Arthur secured the whole
stock in the year 1888. I cannot do better than give, practically in
its entirety, his interesting letter on the subject of the ponies which
for the last ten years have been increasingly used in the New Forest so
much to the advantage of the breed:
“The Rum ponies which were much thought of by my father seem to
be quite a type of themselves, having characteristics which would
almost enable one to recognise them anywhere. Every one of those
I bought in 1888 had _hazel_, not _brown_ eyes; and though only
a small boy in 1862, when six or seven of those ponies came to
Hatfield, I can remember that they also had the hazel eye. They
have, almost without exception, very good hind-quarters, with the
tail well set up; and it is in this respect that I hope they will
do good in the New Forest. On the other hand, they have big plain
heads which are not liked by the commoners. This defect, however,
is rapidly disappearing with good keep, as it does with all breeds
of ponies.
“After I bought the ponies in 1888 and began breeding I was at a
loss to know how to continue the breed, as I could not well use
the stallion which accompanied the mares to his own progeny. I
remembered having seen at the Highland and Agricultural Society’s
Show, in 1883, a stallion which had interested me very much, being
exactly like the ponies I remembered coming to Hatfield. I enclose
... copy of a letter[3] received from his breeder.
[3] “The pony, Highland Laddie ... was bred by us at Coulmore,
Ross-shire; being the youngest, I think, of seven foals thrown by
the black mare, Polly, to Allan Kingsburgh (Lord Lovat’s stallion)
... and, as far as I know, Polly was never covered by any other
horse. Most of her foals, if not all, were shown by us and won
prizes at country and the Highland Agricultural Society’s Meetings
in the North. Her third foal, Glen, a jet-black stallion, took 2nd
prize in his class at the Aberdeen Show in 1880 (I think), and
again took the medal for pony stallions at Perth in 1881 or 1882.
At the same show Polly’s second foal, Blackie, took second prize
in the gelding class, and her fourth foal (the eldest of the bay
mares), shown at Inverness by McKenzie of Kintail, would easily
have taken a prize in her class but for an accident on the railway
or ferry ... which lamed her for the meeting. Your pony has, of
course, the same pedigree as those.... The Rum ponies were always
supposed to be pure, as the Marquis of Salisbury was known to take
a great interest in the breed ... though not sure, I believe a pony
stallion of another strain, a dun with black mane and tail (Lord
Ronald) was sold by my father to go to Rum.... Allan Kingsburgh
and Polly were both bred by my father.... Allan’s dam was a bay
mare, Polly’s was a grey named Maria. I know the stock from which
both came: it was brought long ago from Glenelg and bred and kept
pure by my grandfather and ancestors who lived in Glenelg when
that Barony belonged to the MacLeod of MacLeods. I am not sure of
the sires of either Allan or Polly, but know they were both pure
Highland. One, I think, was Lord Ronald which I formerly mentioned,
and the other a pony belonging to a Mr. Stewart in Skye (a known
breeder of Highland cattle).”
... It is curious that I should have thus dropped on to exactly the
same kind of thing that my father is supposed to have used; he used
the same blood years ago in Lord Ronald.
“I think what first interested me so much in these ponies was
that, as long ago as I can remember anything, I heard my father
describing them to old Lord Cowley and the Duke of Wellington. He
told them how like the Spanish horses he had thought the ponies
in 1845; and mentioned how he had turned down a stallion on the
island and a Spanish jackass—some of the mules are still (1889)
at Hatfield. He also said that he saw no reason why they should
not be descended from some of the Spanish Armada horses which were
wrecked on that coast. When the ponies—most of them stallions—came
to Hatfield in 1862, I remember some of them broke out of the
station; it took several days to catch them again. They were almost
unbreakable, but my brother, Lionel, and I managed to get two of
them sufficiently quiet for _us_ to ride, though they would not
have been considered safe conveyances for an elderly gentleman.
We were never quite sure of their age, but they must have been
nearly thirty when they died. I believe my father had intended
these ponies to be kept entire, but they were so hopelessly savage
they had to be cut. They could trot twelve miles in fifty-five
minutes after they were twenty years old, and could gallop and jump
anything in the saddle.
“My father’s theory about the Spanish Armada receives curious
corroboration in the well-known fact that a galleon lies sunk in
Tobermory Bay; while, in the “Armada” number of the _Illustrated
London News_ which was published in 1888 (the same year that I
bought the ponies), there was a small map which showed the storms
off the North and West of Scotland, which are almost exactly
coincident with the occurrence of this particular type of pony,
though no place was so favourable for breeding a type as a remote
island like Rum.
“When my mother visited Rum the people of the adjacent island of
Canna gave her a pony mare which I also remember, very old, at
Hatfield. She was a rich cream colour; she threw a foal which had
all the characteristics, the hazel eye, long croup and big head.
“I have noticed all the deer-stalking ponies I could see on the
look-out for some of these characteristics; but, with the exception
of the hazel eye and a somewhat strong inclination towards
blackness in colour, I cannot say that I have seen much trace of
the same kind of pony on the mainland in Scotland. This, however,
is no doubt rather through crossing with other strains than because
they have not some of the original blood; and I feel sure that the
Galloway of olden days was of the same type, though that term has
now come to mean something quite different and in no way connected
with the district on the West Coast of Scotland.
“The hazel eye is not uncommon on Exmoor, and occurs in the Welsh
pony. It would be a very interesting study to try and trace the
tendency to show that colour; it would, I think, throw light on the
ancestry of many horses and ponies; or, at least, it would reveal
many curious instances of _reversion_.”
Lord Arthur, in conclusion, deprecates the susceptibility of pony
breeders generally to the influence of fashion; he is of opinion
that efforts made in some districts to increase size, while efforts
elsewhere are directed to its reduction, cannot in the long run be
beneficial; whereas, if Nature were allowed to determine the size of
pony suitable for each locality, valuable results might be obtained
by crossing the different breeds. It is quite certain that the
perpetuation of a breed larger than the character of the country and
pasture can support can only be secured by the constant introduction of
alien blood, which in course of time will completely alter the local
stamp, and not necessarily for the better.
The Hon. Gerald Lascelles, Deputy Surveyor of the New Forest, has
said of this locality: “You have a magnificent run for your ponies.
Your mares might breed from ponies of almost any quality.... Ponies
running out all winter in the mountains of Ireland and of Wales, on
Exmoor, in Cornwall, and on the Cumberland and Yorkshire fells, have a
far worse climate to face than that of the New Forest, and no better
pasture. Such ponies would laugh at the hardships of the New Forest.”
The New Forest pony is perhaps less hardy than some of the hill breeds,
but his constitution is quite robust enough to be one of his most
valuable attributes; and opinions are not unnaturally divided as to the
desirability of increasing his size, if gain of inches mean sacrifice
of hardiness. Thirteen hands was the height the Forest breeders
formerly admitted to be the maximum desirable; but of recent years
their views on this point have been somewhat enlarged.
The close resemblance of the Rum ponies to the native of the New Forest
marks out these stallions as peculiarly suitable for crossing purposes.
For this reason, and also because their number must exercise strong and
speedy influence upon the wild Forest mares, the foregoing particulars
have been given in detail.
Lord Arthur believes that the Welsh pony stallion of about 13·1 or 13·2
would be as good a cross for the New Forest pony as any now obtainable.
Lord Ebrington, who bought Exmoor and the Simonsbath stud of improved
Exmoor ponies, lent one of his stallions to the New Forest Association
in the summer of 1898, and this sire has done good service among the
wild mares.
When broken the New Forest ponies are generally far more spirited than
the ordinary run of British ponies. The practice of using the “ponies
in hand” for driving the wild mobs to be branded, &c., teaches them to
turn quickly and gallop collectedly on rough ground; they thus acquire
great cleverness.
As regards their market value, the following letter from Mr. W. J. C.
Moens, a most energetic member of the Council of the Association,
gives the best idea.
“At the last Ringwood Fair, December 11th, 1897, there was a larger
outside demand for suckers than ever experienced; buyers coming
from Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Essex, Somersetshire and Dorsetshire.
The prices ran from £4 to £6 10s.; the larger dealers buying about
fifty to sixty each, which they trucked (25 to 30 in a truck)
away by rail. One lot of about 55 were sold at once by auction at
Brighton, and realised £6, £7 and £8 each, one fetching £10. The
foals improve enormously on good keep. Our Forest feed is hardly
good enough; on richer lands the ponies grow nearly a hand higher
and get more substance. Since our Association has improved the
breed, of late years, very many have gone to the Kent Marshes,
where they are highly thought of, very much more so than the
Dartmoor ponies. Yearlings at last Lyndhurst Pony Fair, in August,
fetched £5 to £8, but the average was spoiled by two large sales
by auction of ‘lane haunters’—old mares and other cast-offs—which
realised small prices.... I have seen some of our improved ponies
at Hastings and elsewhere, broken in, and about five years old.
They are much valued and sell for about £25.... The general
improvement since 1889 or 1890 is very marked; and, though there
was some opposition to the idea of bettering ‘the real Forester’ at
first, now all admit the benefit of the work.”
For the information of those interested in this breed, the following
description, furnished to the Polo Pony Society for their Stud Book
(vol. v.) by the New Forest Local Committee, may be quoted:
_For the New Forest pony it is difficult to give any exact
description, but the best class of them are from 12 hands to 13
hands 2 inches high according to the portion of the Forest on which
they are reared. If taken off the Forest when they are weaned and
well kept during the first two winters, they are said very often
to attain the size of 14 hands 1 inch. There is sometimes an
apparent deficiency of bone, but what there is should be of the
very best quality. The feet are wide and well formed. They are
often considered goose-rumped, but their hocks should be all that
could be desired. In colour they may be said to range through every
variety, though there are not many duns, and few if any piebalds
left. The flea-bitten greys which are still very numerous on the
Forest show strong traces of an Arab cross. The shoulders, though
not always what might be desired in point of depth, are almost
invariably fine and well laid. It is a great characteristic of the
New Forest pony to be always gay and alert, and, though they are
extremely good-tempered and docile when fairly broken, they are
quite indomitable until they are completely cornered. The true
Forester is never sulky._
[Illustration:
A PONY HACK.
_Engraved on wood by F. Babbage._
A pony well-known on Newmarket Heath and North Country racecourses
about 1828.]
THE WELSH PONY.
At the period when Wales was an independent kingdom live stock was
protected by a singularly comprehensive series of laws. These were
originally codified by Howel Dda (the Good), a prince who reigned from
A.D. 942 to 948, and at a somewhat later period they were embodied in
three distinct legal codes, the Venedotian, Dimetian and Gwentian,
applicable respectively to North, South and South-eastern Wales,
conforming to the local customs which prevailed in each area. Under
these laws no Welsh serf was permitted to sell a stallion without the
permission of his lord. The value of a horse (or, accurately speaking,
pony, as the hill ponies were the only equine stock the country
possessed in those days) was laid down without regard to individual
merit till he reached his third year. A foal until a fortnight old was
worth four pence; from the fifteenth day of his age till one year old,
24 pence; when a year and one day old he was worth 48 pence, and stood
at that value till he began his third year when he was valued at 60
pence. When in his third year he was broken in, and his value depended
on the work he was fitted for. A palfrey or sumpter horse was valued
at 120 pence, and a working horse to draw cart or harrow 60 pence. It
was not permissible to use horses, mares or cows for ploughing for fear
of injury; oxen only might be employed for such labour. Any entire male
animal was worth three females; thus a wild stallion was worth nine
score pence to the mare’s value of three score pence.
If a horse were sold he was to be warranted against staggers for three
nights, against “black strangles”[4] for three months, and against
farcy for a year. He was to be warranted against restiveness until the
purchaser should have ridden him three times “amid concourse of men and
horses;” and if he proved restive the seller had to refund one third of
the price he had received.
[4] The commentators believe the disease so termed to be glanders; but
inasmuch as the warranty against farcy held good for twelve months,
perhaps we should accept this reading with reserve.
The value of each part of the horse was strictly specified by these
laws; the worth of his foot was equal to his full value; each eye
was esteemed worth one third of his full value. For every blemish in
a horse one third of the total worth was to be returned, his ears
and tail included: a not obscure hint that cropping and docking were
practised in Wales at this period, and that opinions varied concerning
the desirability of the operations. That docking was in vogue is
certain, for a special clause makes the “tail of a filly for common
work” worth the total value of the animal. The peculiar value of the
tail of a “filly for common work” lay in the fact that the harrow was
often secured to the tail, as was the practice in parts of Ireland and
Scotland until near the end of the last century. In Wales, as in other
parts of Britain, the mare was preferably used for draught and pack
work, horses being reserved for military service. The mane and bridle
were worth the same amount, viz., four pence; the forelock and halter
were also coupled as worth one penny each.
Howel Dda’s “Law of Borrowing” was equally comprehensive. The man who
borrowed a horse and fretted the hair on his back was to pay four
pence; if he broke the skin to the flesh eight pence; and if skin and
flesh were broken to the bone sixteen pence. Borrowing without the
owner’s leave was expensive: the borrower had to pay four pence for
mounting, and four pence for each rhandir (supposed to be a league) he
rode the horse. He also had to pay a fine to the owner’s lord.
If a hired horse fell lame or was injured by accident the owner had
to furnish the hirer with one equally good until the injured horse
recovered.
The laws which regulated compensation for trespass show that it was
customary to fetter or clog the horses when they were turned out to
graze. Trespass in corn by a clogged horse was to be compensated by
payment of one penny by day and two pence by night. Trespass by a
horse free of restraint was recompensed by half those sums. In this
connection it must be noted that stallions were “privileged;” and
though a broken-in entire ran at large for three seasons (season from
mid April to mid May and the month of October), he did not lose the
privilege which relieved his owner from fine for any damage he might do
in the standing crops.
The Welsh pony is more numerous than any other breed. He wanders
over the hills and waste lands in all the twelve counties of the
Principality, and also on the borders of Shropshire, Herefordshire and
Monmouth; whereas his congeners are limited to areas insignificant by
comparison. The distribution is of course very unequal, the strength
and number of droves varying with the character of the country; there
are no statistics in existence nor has there been made any estimate of
their number.
Many of the common lands which were once open to the Welsh pony have
been enclosed of recent years; but in spite of his exclusion from
the better pastures and the warfare waged against him by shepherds
and their dogs in the interests of grazing for sheep, he thrives
marvellously. There are thousands of acres of wet and boggy lands
whose grasses “rot” sheep, but which afford the hardy pony nourishing
diet. In some districts he is kept on the move almost as unceasingly
as are the deer in Scotland or on Exmoor; and the life he leads has
done much to develope his instincts of self-preservation. Accustomed
from earliest foalhood to the roughest ground, he is sure-footed as the
goat, and neither punishment nor persuasion will induce him to venture
upon unsafe bog. He has good shoulders, strong back, neat head and most
enduring legs and feet; he is, in short, a strong, sound and useful
animal. Some of the stoutest and best hunters bred on the borders of
Wales trace their descent from the Welsh pony mare crossed with the
thoroughbred sire; and the same may be said of some of the best modern
steeplechasers.
J. C. Loudon, in his work, _An Encyclopedia of Agriculture_, published
in 1825, writes:—
“The Welsh horse bears a near resemblance in point of size to the
best native breed of the Highlands of Scotland. It is too small for
the two-horse ploughs; one that I rode for many years, which, to
the last, would have gone upon a pavement by choice, in preference
to a softer road.”
Again, the celebrated sporting writer, “Nimrod” (C. J. Appleby), in his
book _The Horse and the Hound_, published in 1842, writes of this breed
as follows:—
“They are never lame in the feet, or become roarers; they are
also very little susceptible of disease in comparison with other
horses, and as a proof also of their powers of crossing a country,
the fact may be stated of the late Sir Charles Turner riding a
pony ten miles in forty-seven minutes, and taking thirty leaps in
his course, for a wager of 1,000 guineas, with the late Duke of
Queensberry.... The Earl of Oxford had a mare pony, got by the
Clive Arabian, her dam by the same horse, out of a Welsh mare pony,
which could beat any of his racers four miles at a feather-weight;
and during the drawing of the Irish lottery the news was conveyed
express from Holyhead to London chiefly by ponies, at the rate of
nearly twenty miles an hour.”
Endeavours have been made from time to time to improve the breed, but
these efforts have been made by individuals, and the benefits, when any
followed, were local and temporary. The first recorded introduction of
superior alien blood occurred in the first quarter of the eighteenth
century, when that famous little horse, Merlin, was turned out to
summer on the Welsh hills after his retirement from the Turf. The
small horses which George II.’s Act (p. 8) sought to banish from the
race-course were not all worthless; “vile and paltry” they may have
been as a class, but there were some good ones among them, and Merlin
was the best. This little horse, who owed his name to the smallest of
British hawks, beat every animal that started against him, and enjoyed
a career of uninterrupted success until he broke down; he was then
purchased by a Welsh gentleman, said to have been an ancestor of Sir
Watkin Williams Wynn, and turned out to run with the droves on the
hills. So remarkable was the improvement wrought upon the breed by this
one stallion that in course of a few years the value of the ponies in
that locality greatly increased. The name of the sire was applied to
his stock and their descendants, which became famous as “Merlins”; and
the certificate that proved an animal one of the true Merlin breed made
all the difference in the market.
That usually accurate authority, Richard Berenger, in his _History and
Art of Horsemanship_, says, the Welsh breed, “once so abundant, is now
[1771] nearly extinct;” but in this he must have been mistaken, as
there is evidence from the district to show that twenty-six years later
it was very far from extinct. “A Farmer” writes to the _Gentleman’s
Magazine_ of July, 1797, complaining of the “injurious increase of
the smallest breed of ponies, which are no kind of use,” and which,
he says, do an immense amount of mischief to the growing corn. He
ventured to assert that for one cow found trespassing ten ponies would
be seen, and strongly urged that an Act of Parliament should be passed
forbidding right of common to horses under 14 hands high.
In the middle of the present century, when fast-trotting animals for
harness and saddle were in great demand, it was thought desirable to
see what could be done with the Welsh pony, and accordingly Comet,
Fire-away, Alonzo the Brave, and other fast-stepping small-sized
Hackney sires were brought from Norfolk into Cardiganshire and
Breconshire to cross with the native ponies. Such a cross could have
hardly failed to result in a strong, fast-trotting and useful pony.
The Report issued by the recent Royal Commission on Land in Wales
and Monmouthshire contains some remarks on the subject which must be
reproduced here:—
“With regard to cobs and ponies, breeding in this direction is
a much larger factor in the farming of Wales. There is plenty
of material to make use of, and the breeding of ponies might be
made much more profitable than it is at present. In the counties
of Radnor and Brecon there has been some systematic attempts to
encourage the breeding of cobs, with satisfactory results. On the
mountains of North Wales, which were formerly famous for wild
herds of ‘Merlins,’ little has, however, been done. Lord Penrhyn
purchased an excellent stallion, Caradoc, who might have done much
good had he been more patronised. The fault seems to lie in the
careless treatment of the herds of ponies, which are allowed to
ramble at will, winter and summer, to live or starve as nature may
please. No attention whatever is paid to the breeding, the herds
being wild to all intents and purposes. It seems a pity that such
waste should be allowed. The stoutness and endurance of the Welsh
pony is proverbial, and if attention were paid to selection in
breeding, separation of the sexes, and feeding and shelter in the
winter, an exceedingly valuable addition to the mountain farmer’s
profits might be found at a small cost.
“Turning to the evidence upon this subject: Mr. J. E. Jones, who
appeared before us at Tregaron, gave it as his opinion that the
breed of cobs was deteriorating; while Mr. Bowen Woosnam, of
Tynygraig, near Builth, himself a successful breeder, stated that
not nearly as much attention was paid to breeding cobs as formerly.
Mr. Woosnam also said: If Welsh farmers were to have a portion of
their money invested in ponies and cobs which are suitable to the
farms that they are occupying, they would derive proportionately a
larger income from them than they would from the cattle or sheep
that they are rearing.... I do not mean to say that their stock
should exclusively consist of ponies and cobs, but that they should
have a few on every suitable farm. There is the greatest difficulty
at the present time in getting good ponies and cobs.”
The Commissioners were evidently unaware of the work which has been
done by the Church Stretton Hill Pony Improvement Society. This society
was formed to encourage and assist the farmers in the work of improving
the ponies which they only too generally neglect. The plan followed
was to take up the best of the native stallions for service: those of
the truest type only were used, and the improvement in the young stock
got by these selected sires was marked: they showed more compactness
of build, better bone and greater spirit than their promiscuously bred
brethren of the wilds. There can be no doubt but that continuance of
work on these lines would do much towards converting the scarcely
saleable raw material of the Hills into profitable stock.
Mr. John Hill, of Marshbrook House, Church Stretton, in his endeavours
to breed polo ponies has shown that a valuable riding and harness
animal can be obtained by judicious crossings on the Welsh pony.
Running more or less wild on the hills in the immediate neighbourhood
of Church Stretton are ponies closely allied to and very similar to the
Welsh mountain breed. These usually range from 10 hands to 11 hands 2
inches in height, 12 hands 2 inches being considered the outside limit.
About the year 1891 Mr. Hill purchased several of the best and most
typical mares, wild and unbroken, from the hills: these mares, which
averaged only 10 hands, were put to an Arab. His stock were handsome,
compact and hardy, and grew to an average height of 13 hands. The
fillies of this cross when two years old were put to the best Welsh
pony procurable, a 14-hand 1-inch stallion with riding shoulders and
showing bone and quality. These mares were subsequently put to a small
thoroughbred, and to him threw foals full of quality and in every way
promising. Mr. Hill’s breeding experiments have all been made with the
14-hand 2-inch polo pony in view: and he has shown that Welsh ponies
judiciously crossed with suitable alien blood produce stock for which a
ready market should be found.
Mr. W. J. Roberts, the Hon. Secretary of the Church Stretton Hill
Pony Society, states that he has tried the Arab cross, but “the
offspring is useless on the hills.” A half-bred Arab is not the animal
to successfully withstand the hardships and exposure of half-wild
existence on the Welsh hills. The object sought in improving the
Welsh or any other of these breeds is not to fit it for a life of
semi-wildness but to make it more serviceable to man.
For the information of those interested in this breed, the following
descriptions, furnished to the Polo Pony Society for their Stud Book
(vol. v.) by the Local Committees, may be quoted:
(NORTH WALES DIVISION.)
HEIGHT. _Not to exceed 12·2 hands._ COLOUR. _Bay or brown
preferred; grey or black allowable; but dun, chestnut, or broken
colour considered objectionable._ ACTION. _Best described as that
of the hunter; low “daisy-cutting” action to be avoided. The pony
should move quickly and actively, stepping out well from the
shoulder, at the same time flexing the hocks and bringing the hind
legs well under the body when going._ GENERAL CHARACTER. _The
pony should show good “pony” character and evidence of robust
constitution, with the unmistakable appearance of hardiness
peculiar to mountain ponies, and at the same time have a lively
appearance._ HEAD. _Should be small, well chiselled in its
outline and well set on; forehead broad, tapering towards nose._
NOSTRILS. _Large and expanding._ EYES. _Bright, mild, intelligent
and prominent._ EARS. _Neatly set, well-formed and small._ THROAT
AND JAWS. _Fine, showing no signs of coarseness or throatiness._
NECK. _Of proportionate length; strong, but not too heavy, with
a moderate crest in the case of the stallion._ SHOULDERS. _Good
shoulders most important: should be well laid back and sloping,
but not too fine at the withers nor loaded at the points. The
pony should have a good long shoulder-blade._ BACK AND LOINS.
_Strong and well covered with muscle._ HIND QUARTERS. _Long, and
tail well carried, as much like the Arab as possible, springing
well from the top of the back._ HOCKS. _Well let down, clean cut,
with plenty of bone below the joint. They should not be “sickled”
or “cow-hocked.”_ FORELEGS. _Well placed; not tied in any way at
the elbows; good muscular arm, short from the knee to the fetlock
joints; flat bone; pasterns sloping but not too long; feet well
developed and open at the heel; hoof sound and hard._
(SOUTH WALES DIVISION.)
_The South Wales hill pony seldom exceeds 13 hands, and in a pure
state is about 12 hands. His attributes are a quick, straight
action and sure-footedness; he is low in the withers, short in his
forehand, and with faulty hind quarters as far as appearance goes,
his tail being set on low and his hocks sickled, but his forelegs
and feet are good. His head and eye show breed, courage and sense,
and his constitution is strong or he could not live where he does.
Of late years he has been crossed with the Cardiganshire cob to
some extent; and half-bred two-year-old shire colts have been
allowed access to the hills in summer in some places, much to the
detriment of the breed. In colour, bays and brown prevail._
THE EXMOOR AND DARTMOOR PONIES.
It is certain that ponies have run in these districts for many
centuries in a practically wild state, and probably have always
supplied the tillers of the soil with beasts of burden. In times when
these localities were without roads of any kind and wheeled traffic
was impossible, the sled and the pack-horse were used for transporting
agricultural produce. The sleds were drawn by oxen and small horses;
and ponies were employed to carry corn, &c., in pots and panniers; the
ponies used for this purpose being the animals which ran at large upon
the wastes. As recently as 1860 packhorses might still be met with in
the western and southern districts. They were the larger ponies of
the Dartmoor and Exmoor breed, and were indispensable to the farmers
whose holdings at that time lay beyond the region of roads in secluded
districts. The practice of taking up a few of the best mares for
breeding purposes and keeping them in enclosed pasture is no doubt an
old one; but the vast majority of the droves have always been left to
their own devices. They bred and interbred without let or hindrance,
and by consequence the weakly died off, leaving the fittest, _i.e._,
the hardiest and the best able to withstand the rigours of exposure.
Carew, in his _History of Cornwall_, which was written in the early
part of the reign of James I. (1603-1625), says:—
“The Cornish horses are hardly bred, coarsely fed, and so low in
stature that they were liable to be seized on as unstatutable,
according to the statute of Henry VIII., by anyone who caught them
depasturing the commons.”
In the year 1812 Exmoor was disforested by George III., and a
commission was appointed to survey and value the lands. The total
acreage was found to be 18,810 acres, of which 10,262 acres were
adjudged the property of the Crown. In 1820 Mr. John Knight purchased
the Crown allotment; at a later date he acquired Sir Thomas Acland’s
portion, and Sir Arthur Chichester’s property of Brendon which
adjoined it, the total area so acquired being over 16,000 acres. Sir
Thomas Acland had bred ponies, and when Mr. Knight bought the land he
applied himself to the task of improving the ponies, which for some
years previously had been fetching only from £4 to £6. The low prices
obtainable, we infer, were due in a measure to the ease with which the
local shepherds “took liberal tithe” of the ponies, which, despite the
anchor-brand they bore to prove ownership, were readily purchased in
Wiltshire.
The only pure Exmoor ponies now existing, so far as enquiry has
disclosed, are those bred by Sir T. Dyke Acland, Bart., of Holnicote,
Taunton. When Sir Thomas Acland sold his Exmoor property to Mr.
Knight he removed his original uncrossed stock to Winsford Hill, near
Dulverton; these ponies alone preserve the full characteristics of the
old strain; they run from 11·2 hands to 12·2 hands, are dark-brown with
black points, and have the mealy tan muzzle. It is stated that only
about a dozen mares were left in their old quarters.
Mr. Knight and some other gentlemen were attracted by the accounts
of the Dongola Arab horses given by the great traveller Bruce,
and after considerable delay a number of stallions and mares were
procured through the British Consul in Egypt. They proved to be
black, short-backed animals with lean heads, and rather Roman noses.
Their hind quarters were good, but, unlike the typical Arab, they had
“flattish ribs.” Mr. Knight became the owner of two sires and three
mares, which he brought to Simonsbath. One of these Dongola stallions
was mated with a number of 12-hand Exmoor mares; the foals generally
grew to about 14 hands 2 inches, and though they followed their dams in
the colour of coat, the distinctive mealy muzzle disappeared. There was
a desire to retain as much of the Exmoor character as was compatible
with improvement in the breed; hence those half-bred mares by the
Dongola horse which did not retain as much as possible of the native
type were drafted from the stud.
The thoroughbred horse Pandarus, a 15-hand son of Whalebone, succeeded
the Dongola horse; foals of his get retained the original colour, but
were smaller, ranging from 13 hands to 13·2. Another thoroughbred,
Canopus, a grandson of Velocipede, followed Pandarus at the stud, and
with equally satisfactory results in respect of improved size and
conformation; but, as might have been expected, these cross-bred ponies
proved incapable of enduring the hardships of moorland life when turned
out. Hence, about 1844, Mr. Knight gave up the use of alien blood and
used his own stallion ponies; the only exceptions being Hero, a sturdy
chestnut out of a Pandarus mare, and Lillias, a grey of nearly pure
Acland strain.
After Mr. Knight’s death, which event occurred in 1850, the practice
of selling the ponies by private contract was abandoned in favour of
an annual auction, held at Simonsbath. The comparative inaccessibility
of the spot, however, soon indicated the need of change, and in 1854
the sale was first held at Bampton fair. The system on which the ponies
were kept was also changed in the later fifties; some 130 acres of
pasture were set apart, and on this the foals were wintered instead of
remaining at large on the bleak hill-sides. The effect thus produced
upon the size and development of the young stock was very marked. In
1863 the ponies mustered about four hundred strong, nearly one hundred
of which were brood mares, young and old. Much of the land which in
former days was given up to the droves has been reclaimed during recent
years, and improved methods of cultivation have made it capable of
growing various crops and of grazing cattle and sheep.
Mr. Robert Smith, of Emmett’s Grange, also devoted attention to the
improvement of the Exmoor breed. The “Druid,” who described a visit
to Devonshire about the year 1860 or 1861, remarks that “the original
colour of the Exmoor seems to have been a buffy bay, with a mealy
nose, and it is supposed to have preserved its character ever since the
Phœnicians brought it over when they visited the shores of Cornwall
to trade in tin and metals.” Enquiry into the ground for supposing
that the original stock was introduced by the Phœnicians would perhaps
produce results hardly commensurate with the labour of research.
When the “Druid” paid his visit to the district in 1860 or 1861, only
250 acres of moorland remained unenclosed, and the breeding stock on
Mr. Smith’s holding consisted of “some twenty-five short-legged brood
mares of about 13 hands 2 inches.” These passed the better part of the
year on the hills and were wintered in the paddocks furnished with open
sheds for shelter.
After experimenting with thoroughbreds, Mr. Smith procured a 14-hand
pony sire named Bobby, by Round Robin out of an Arab mare, and used him
with the most encouraging results for two seasons. Bobby’s stock were
almost invariably bays. At a sale held at Bristol, in 1864, twenty-nine
cobs galloways and ponies, nearly all of which were Bobby’s get, made
an average price of 23 guineas a head, several realising over 30
guineas. The highest price (figure not recorded) was paid for a bay
stallion, five years old and 13 hands high.
Whether Youatt refers to the improved breed or not it is impossible to
say: but that authority states that about the year 1860 a farmer who
weighed 14 stone rode an Exmoor pony from Bristol to South Molton, a
distance of 86 miles, beating the coach which travelled the same road.
This feat proves the pony to have been both fast and enduring.
A most competent authority who a couple of years ago paid a visit
to Simonsbath to inspect the ponies of the district, describes the
“Acland” as a wonderfully thoroughbred looking and handsome pony with
fine lean head, intelligent eye and good limbs. The only fault he had
to find was in the matter of size: he considered it a shade too small
for general purposes.
The “Knights” were described as larger than the “Aclands”: they also
retain the thoroughbred look derived from the Arab and other alien
blood introduced by Mr. Knight in the second quarter of the century. My
informant remarks that one of the most interesting sights he witnessed
was the display of jealousy by the stallions when two droves of ponies
were brought up for inspection. Each kept his harem crowded together
apart from the other, “rounding in” his mares with the greatest fire.
Needless to say the little horses would show at their very best under
such conditions.
Among the gentlemen who have endeavoured to improve the Exmoor pony,
mention must also be made of the Earl of Carnarvon, Viscount Ebrington
and Mr. Nicholas Snow, of Oare, who have breeding studs; but their
strains, like those of the farmers’ who rear a few each, are larger
than the representative “Aclands.”
Dr. Herbert Watney, of Buckhold, near Pangbourne, until recently
possessed herds of Exmoor and Arab-Exmoor ponies; their numbers have
quite lately been greatly reduced by the sale of mares and young stock,
Dr. Watney holding the writer’s view that ground in time becomes staled
if grazed by numerous horses.[5] Dr. Watney laid the foundations of
his herd by the purchase of about a dozen mares of the Knight and
Ackland strains, and to serve them he acquired the 13·2 Exmoor stallion
Katerfelto, winner of the first prize for pony stallions at the Devon
County Show, and first prize in his class at the “Royal” in 1890. The
stallion runs with the mares, and the herd lead on the Berkshire downs
exactly the same free life they led on Exmoor; they are never brought
under cover, and only when snow buries the herbage in severe winters
do they receive a daily ration of hay. The richer grazing and their
exclusive service by Katerfelto has resulted in distinct increase of
size, the ponies ranging from 11·3 to 13·3 in height, yet retaining all
the characteristics of the Exmoor native stock.
[5] See “Young Racehorses” (Suggestions for Rearing), by Sir Walter
Gilbey, Bart., Vinton & Co., Ltd.
Dr. Watney drafted off a number of the best mares to form a herd for
service by the Arab pony stallion Nejram, a bay standing 14·1, bred by
Mr. Wilford Blunt at Crabbet Park. Nejram’s stock show in marked degree
the distinctive character of their sire in the high set and carriage of
the tail, full barrel, blood-like head and the long pastern; but at the
same time they inherit from their dams the wonderful sure-footedness
of the Exmoor pony. These ponies run from about 13 hands to 13·3. Half
a dozen of these Arab-Exmoors, three years old, handled but unbroken,
were sold in the year 1898 at an average price of over £14 14s. each.
Twelve pure Exmoors by Katerfelto, also handled but unbroken, three
years old, brought an average of over £16 16s.
Bampton Fair, held in October, is now the great rendezvous for Exmoor
ponies. Every fair brings several hundred animals in from the moors for
sale. Like other horses and ponies, the Exmoors are suffering from the
competition of the bicycle, but good prices are still obtained under
the hammer. They are much used for children, and the less desirable
find ready sale to coster-mongers and hawkers. Newly-weaned suckers of
five or six months old fetch from £3 to £6; exceptionally promising
youngsters command a higher figure.
The Dartmoor pony’s good points are a strong back and loin, and
substance. For generations past the farmers appear to have been in the
habit of taking up a few mares for riding and breeding purposes; to
these 11 or 12-hand dams—they rarely reach 13 hands—a small Welsh cart
stallion is put, and the result is an animal hardy and serviceable
enough for ordinary farm work. Even these would seem to form a small
minority. For the most part the Dartmoor ponies still run wild, shaggy
and unkempt, on the waste lands on which they breed uncontrolled, on
which they are foaled and live and die; often without having looked
through a bridle. Those taken up for riding purposes or for breeding
are of course the pick of the droves, and thus we find an active force
at work which is calculated to lower the average standard of quality
among the wild ponies.
In considering the various efforts which from time to time have been
made in the direction of improvement by the introduction of fresh
blood, we must bear in mind that the mares on which such experiments
have been made are those which have been taken up by farmers and kept
within fences. We cannot find that stallions of alien blood have ever
been turned out to run on the moors, and in view of the conditions
under which the moor ponies exist it is highly improbable that a
stallion boasting such blood as would produce beneficial results on the
native breed would long enough survive the exposure and scanty food
to make any appreciable mark thereon. The endeavours, more or less
continuous and successful, to improve the breed have been confined to
the few, and have, therefore, produced little effect or none on the
main stock.
Early in the present century Mr. Willing, of Torpeak, made successful
experiments in crossing the Exmoor pony with the smaller variety
peculiar to the Dartmoor “tors.” Mr. Wooton, of Woodlands, says a
writer in the _Field_ of 9th October, 1880, was in the habit of
purchasing mares of this cross from Mr. Willing from about the year
1820, and possessed a considerable number of them. He used to put
these to small thoroughbred horses standing in the district. The names
of Trap, Tim Whiffler, Rover, and Glen Stuart are mentioned, and
about 1860 he sent some of his Exmoor-Dartmoor mares to a small Arab
belonging to Mr. Stewart Hawkins, of Ivybridge. Mr. Wooton’s endeavours
to improve the Dartmoor breed are the first that were made on any
considerable scale, so far as it is possible to discover.
About 1879 a resident who devoted much attention to the improvement
of the Dartmoor breed introduced a brown stallion by Mr. Christopher
Wilson’s Sir George out of Windsor Soarer, and as his mares—a selected
lot, 12·2 to 13 hands, either brown or chestnut—came in use, put them
to this pony with the object of getting early foals. The young stock
thus got were carefully weeded out, the best stallions and mares only
being retained. The colt foals were kept apart and at two years old put
to the mares got by their sire. The experiment was very successful,
browns, black-browns and chestnuts being the colours of this improved
breed, which sold well.
Mr. S. Lang, of Bristol, some years prior to 1880 sent down two good
stallions, Perfection and Hereford, for use in the district, but it
is stated that these ponies were little patronised by the farmers.
Hereford, a pure thoroughbred pony only 13 hands high, left a few
beautiful foals behind him.
A description of Exmoor and Dartmoor ponies exhibited at the Newton
Abbott Agricultural Show in May, 1875, may have had reference to these
improved ponies. The following is quoted from the _Field_ of 29th May
in that year:—
“Instead of deteriorating the stock improves yearly, and the
care which is now taken to infuse pure blood without harming the
essential characteristics of the original denizen of the moor has
succeeded in producing an animal of superlative merit, fitted for
any kind of work, whether for the field, the road, or the collar.
It must be observed that the word ‘moor’ should apply to Exmoor
and the Bodmin wastes as well as the Forest of Dartmoor, Dartmoor
Forest itself being within the precincts of the Duchy of Cornwall.
The moor pony or galloway of 14 hands is often in reality a little
horse; and when it is stated that Tom Thumb, the well-known hunter
of Mr. Trelawny, was a direct descendant of the celebrated Rough
Tor pony of Landue, and that Foster by Gainsborough, belonging to
the late Mr. Phillips, of Landue, carrying for many years fifteen
stone and upwards in the first flight, was from a moor pony near
Ivybridge, the assertion is not made without bringing strong
collateral proof of the validity of the statement. Moreover, a host
of other examples could be added. These animals possess many of
the properties of the thorough-bred—speed, activity, any amount of
stay, with legs of steel; they can jump as well as the moor sheep,
and much after the same fashion, for no hedge fence can stop either
one or the other.”
For the information of those interested in this breed the following
descriptions furnished to the Polo Pony Society for their Stud Book
(vol. v.) by Local Committees may be quoted:
(THE EXMOOR DIVISION.)
_The Exmoor pony should average 12 hands and never be above 13
hands; moorland bred; generally dark bay or brown with black
points, wide forehead and nostril; mealy nose; sharp ears; good
shoulders and back; short legs, with good bone and fair action._
_There are a few grey ponies in Sir Thomas Acland’s herd, but no
chestnuts._
(THE DARTMOOR DIVISION.)
The official description of points is identical with that given for the
North Wales pony, with the following amendments and additions:—
HEIGHT. _Not exceeding 14 hands for stallions, 13·2 for mares._
COLOUR. _Brown, black, or bay preferred; grey allowable, other
colours objectionable._ HEAD. _Should be small, well set on, and
blood-like._ NECK. _Strong but not too heavy, and neither long nor
short; and, in case of a stallion, with moderate crest._ BACK,
LOINS, AND HIND QUARTERS. _Strong and well covered with muscle._
THE CUMBERLAND AND WESTMORELAND PONIES.
The ponies and galloways, for which the waste lands of these
counties have long been known, appear to possess no distinguishing
characteristics that would permit it to be said they form a distinct
breed. An authority resident at Harrington who gives much information
concerning the ponies of the heafs—fell-side holdings—and moors, states
that there are several strains, and the appearance and character of
each differs in various districts under the varying local influences
of climate, feed, &c. Little or nothing is known of the origin of
these ponies. The resemblance to “Shelties,” borne by those of certain
localities until about the middle of the century, suggested that they
were descended from a mixed stock of galloways and Shetland ponies;
but some forty or fifty years ago endeavours were made to improve them
by careful selection and mating; and the resemblance, which did not
necessarily imply possession of the merits of the Shetland pony, has in
great measure disappeared.
They are generally good-tempered; so sure-footed that they can gallop
down the steep hill-sides with surprising speed and fearlessness;
but their paces on level ground are not fast. Their endurance has
been remarked by many writers. Brown’s _Anecdotes and Sketches of the
Horse_, published about sixty years ago, contains an account of an
extraordinary performance by a galloway, at Carlisle, in 1701; when
Mr. Sinclair, of Kirkby Lonsdale, for a wager of 500 guineas, rode the
animal 1000 miles in 1000 hours.
The ponies run in “gangs” on the holdings, the gang numbering from half
a dozen to forty or even sixty individuals. In some cases a few ponies
are taken up, broken and worked all the year round, carrying the farmer
to market, drawing peat and hay, and ploughing. The stony nature of
the heaf-lands requires only a light plough, which is easily drawn by
one or two of the half-pony, half-horse nondescripts; the extent of
arable land farmed by any one farmer is only from four to six acres.
A stallion is sometimes used for the farm-work, and in such cases the
neighbouring farmers bring mares to be served; some such stallions will
serve from thirty to fifty mares in the season. In the larger gangs
the stallion runs with the mares on the hills; a good breeding mare
often lives and dies without knowing a halter, running practically
wild from the day she is dropped on the fell-side till she dies. These
unhandled ponies pick up their living on the hills, and during winter a
little hay is brought out to them by the shepherds.
The “Fell-siders,” as the holders of heafs are called locally, make no
attempt to improve their wild pony stock; under the existing conditions
the wild mares drop their foals, it may be without the knowledge of
their owner. Farmers who bring their mares to a neighbour’s working
stallion exercise no discrimination in their choice; the cheapest and
most accessible horse receives their preference.
Where skill and judgment have been brought to bear upon the improvement
of the Fell ponies the result has been very marked. Mr. Christopher
W. Wilson, of Rigmaden Park, Kirkby Lonsdale, Westmoreland, was the
pioneer of an improved breed of ponies, and he has shown what can be
done with the material at hand, having built upon that foundation a
breed which at the present day stands unrivalled for shape and action.
Having in the year 1872 taken the matter in hand, Mr. Wilson selected
his breeding mares from among the best ponies of the districts, and put
them to the pony stallion, Sir George, a Yorkshire-bred Hackney (by
Sportsman (796) by Prickwillow, who was descended through Phenomenon
from the Original Shales), which won for eight years the first prizes
at the Shows of the Royal Agricultural Society. The female offspring
were in due time mated with their sire, and threw foals which showed
Hackney characteristics in far more marked degree than did their dams,
as might be anticipated in animals three-parts instead of one-half bred.
The chief difficulty Mr. Wilson had to contend against was the tendency
of these ponies to exceed the 14 hands which is the limit of the pony
classes at the shows. This was overcome by turning out the young
stock after the first winter upon the rabbit warrens and moorlands of
Rigmaden to find their own grazing among the sheep and rabbits as their
maternal ancestors had done. This measure not only succeeded in its
direct object, but went far to preserve that hardiness of constitution
which is by no means the least valuable attribute of the mountain pony.
This judicious system of breeding and management was maintained with
the best results; the third direct cross from Sir George produced a
mare in Georgina V. which had constitution and stamina, and also more
bone than her dam or grand-dam. The breeder’s name has been given
to the fruits of his wisely directed efforts, and the “Wilson pony”
is now universally famous for its hunter-like shape and action, and
for the numerous successes it has achieved at the principal shows at
home and abroad. Mr. Wilson won the Queen’s Jubilee gold medals for
both stallions and mares at the Royal Agricultural Society’s Show at
Windsor, and sold the stallion for a large sum to go to America. On one
occasion the R.A.S.E. Show included three classes for pony stallions
and three prizes in each. Mr. Wilson entered nine ponies and won all
these prizes; also 1st and 2nd prizes for pony brood mares.
Sir Humphrey de Trafford, Bart., was also most successful in producing
ponies from stock purchased from Mr. Christopher Wilson. At the Flordon
Sale, Norfolk, held in September, 1895, Sir Humphrey disposed of his
large stud, when some of the ponies realised prices which are worth
quoting: Snorer II., a brown mare, 13.3, eight years old, by Sir
George—Snorer—Sir George, 600 gs.; Georgina V., a bay mare, 14 hands,
six years old, by Sir George—Georgina II., Sir George—Georgina—Sir
George, 700 gs.; Dorothy Derby, a bay mare, 14 hands, eight years old,
by Lord Derby II.—Burton Agnes, 600 gs.; Dorothy Derby II., a bay mare,
14 hands, six years old, by Little Wonder II.—Dorothy Derby, 720 gs.;
Snorter II., bay filly, two years old, by Cassius—Snorer II. by Sir
George—Snorer—Sir George, 700 gs., and Miss Sniff, bay yearling filly,
by Cassius—Snorer II., 900 gs.; the average for these six lots being no
less than £756.
It is true that Sir Humphrey had spared neither money nor labour in
founding the Flordon stud, and the ponies were animals of exceptional
merit. Their high quality had won them prizes at all the principal
shows in England, and their fame was literally “world-wide.”
Illustration:
_S. Clark, Hallgarth, Photo._
LITTLE WONDER II.]
Twenty years ago, the late Rev. J. M. Lowther, rector of Boltongate,
made an attempt on a modest scale to improve the ponies of the Caldbeck
Fells by selecting sires and dams from among the best of them.
Two or three ponies of his breeding won prizes at Whitehaven and
Carlisle; his best sire was a 13-hand pony named Mountain Hero. This
little animal had splendid bone and was as hardy as the wildest of his
kin. The picture here given is a portrait of LITTLE WONDER II., the
property of the Marquis of Londonderry. He was bred by Mr. Christopher
W. Wilson, his sire being Little Wonder I., and his dam Snorer by Sir
George.
Mr. William Graham, of Eden Grove, Kirkbythorpe, Penrith, writes:—
“Up to about twenty years ago great interest seems to have been
taken in pony or galloway cob breeding throughout the whole
district of the Eden valley in the villages and hamlets that
lie scattered all along the foot of the Pennine range of hills.
Previous to the days of railway transit the ponies and small
galloway cobs were employed in droves as pack horses, as well as
for riding, and many men now living can remember droves of from
twenty to thirty continually travelling the district, carrying
panniers of coal and other merchandise between the mines and
villages.
“The village of Dufton, in which the hill farm of Keisley is
situated, was quite a centre of pony breeding, and for many
generations the Fell-side farmers in this district have been noted
for their ponies; they bred them to the best Fell pony stallions,
most of which were trained trotters of great speed. Each of the
three mares originally purchased to found the stud at Keisley
were got from well-known locally bred dams and grand-dams, and
all were selected to match each other in character and style. The
mare from which two of them were bred was from a very old strain
by a stallion pony called Long Cropper, a record trotter; and all
the three mares were themselves by a pony called Blooming Heather,
another well-known pony stallion of a few generations younger.
These mares have been put to a stallion got by Mars from a pony
mare belonging to Col. Stirling, Kippendavie, and the present stud,
with the exception of two of the mares originally purchased, are
all by him. Last season, and this, a pony stallion by Little Wonder
II. has been in use, and five or six of the mares have foaled to
him, the end of May and beginning of June being quite early enough
for these mares to foal, as they are never under cover unless
broken-in, especially as they very readily stand to their service
at first season after foaling.
“When safe in foal they are turned out to the higher allotments
and the open fell with their foals, where they run from July to
November; save in exceptionally hard winters they get no hand
feeding in the shape of hay, as they thrive and do well in the
rough open allotments, to which they are generally brought down in
November to remain until the end of March.
“In height these ponies run from 12 to 13 hands, and with the
exception of two blacks all are of uniform rich dark bay colour
with black points. Just at first, when brought in wild to break,
they are a little nervous, but if kindly treated soon become very
docile and easily handled. They are very easily broken both for
riding and driving, and ponies comparatively quite small carry with
ease men of ordinary stature. They are the most useful means of
locomotion in crossing the mountain ranges and traversing the hilly
roads of the district. Although of no great size these ponies are
very muscular, their bones and joints are fine, hard and clean,
and, generally speaking, they have good middles. Some are perhaps a
little short in quarter, but with a fair shoulder, and their legs,
ankles and feet are all that can be desired. There certainly seems
to be very fair field in the district for breeding ponies, as they
are very cheaply and easily reared, and when fit to break in can be
disposed of for a very fairly good figure.”
The Cumberland “Fell-siders” are wedded to the customs and usages of
their ancestors, and endeavours to promote schemes for the general
improvement of the ponies have met with small success. Colonel
Green-Thompson, of Bridekirk, Cockermouth, in 1897, offered the farmers
the opportunity of using an Arab stallion, but the chance of thus
bettering their stock appears to have been neglected by the breeders.
This is to be regretted, for the fells and dales offer thousands of
acres of good, sound grazing land which might be far more profitably
devoted to pony-breeding than given up to the few scattered flocks of
Herdwick sheep which they now carry. The sheep farmers of Caldbeck
and Matterdale in Cumberland pay some attention to the business,
asserting that the ponies are less trouble and involve less risk than
sheep. Their fillies are put to the horse at two years old, and they
frequently obtain a second foal before sending the dam to market. The
colts command a readier sale than the mares. The ordinary Fell pony,
outside the district, is in demand for pit work, for which purpose
suitable animals bring from £12 to £15.
Mr. W. W. Wingate-Saul supplies the following description of the Fell
ponies:—
“_A very powerful and compact cobby build, the majority
having a strong middle piece with deep chest and strong loin
characteristics, which, combined with deep sloping shoulders
and fine withers, make them essentially weight-carrying riding
ponies. The prevailing—indeed, the only—colours are black, brown,
bay, and, quite occasionally, grey. I do not remember ever having
seen a chestnut, and if I found one I should think it due to the
introduction of other blood. The four colours prevail in the order
named, the best animals often being get black and usually without
white markings, unless it be a small white star. The head is
pony-like and intelligent, with large bright eyes and well-placed
ears. The neck in the best examples being long enough to give a
good rein to the rider. The hind quarters are square and strong,
with a well-set-on tail. The legs have more bone than those of any
of our breeds; ponies under 14 hands often measuring 8-1/2 inches
below the knee. Their muscularity of arm, thigh and second thigh
is marvellous. Their habitat (having been bred for centuries on
the cold inhospitable Fells, where they are still to be found) has
caused a wonderful growth of hair, the winter coat being heavy and
the legs growing a good deal of fine hair, all of which, excepting
some at the point of the heel, is cast in summer. Constitutionally
they are hard as iron, with good all-round action, and are very
fast and enduring._”
IRELAND—THE CONNEMARA PONY.
Richard Berenger, Gentleman of the Horse to King George III. in his
work, _The History and Art of Horsemanship_, 1771—says that—
“Ireland has for many centuries boasted a race of horses called
Hobbies, valued for their easy paces and other pleasing and
agreeable qualities, of a middling size, strong, nimble, well
moulded and hardy.... The nobility have stallions of great
reputation belonging to them, but choose to breed for the _Turf_
in preference to other purposes; for which, perhaps, their country
is not so well qualified, from the moisture of the atmosphere, and
other causes, which hinder it from improving that elastic force and
clearness of wind; and which are solely the gifts of a dry soil,
and an air more pure and refined. This country, nevertheless, is
capable of producing fine and noble horses.”
The great stud maintained in England by Edward III. (1327-1377)
included a number of Hobbies which were procured from Ireland. A
French chronicler named Creton, who wrote a _Metrical History of the
Deposition of Richard II._,[6] refers with great admiration to the
Irish horses of the period. He evidently accompanied King Richard
during his expedition to Ireland in the summer of 1399, for he says
the horses of that country “scour the hills and vallies fleeter than
deer;” and he states that the horse ridden by Macmore, an Irish
chieftain, “without housing or saddle was worth 400 cows.”
[6] See vol. xx. of _Archeologia_ for prose translation.
At a much later date the character of this breed was changed by the
introduction of Spanish blood. Tradition asserts that the ponies which
inhabited the rough and mountainous tracts of Connemara, in the county
Galway, were descended from several animals that were saved from the
wreck of some ship of the Spanish Armada in 1588. It is, however,
quite needless to invoke the aid of a somewhat too frequently employed
tradition to explain the character which at one period distinguished
these ponies. Spanish stallions were freely imported into England from
the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries; and it is probable that the
character of the Connemara pony was derived not from shipwrecked stock
but in more prosaic fashion by importation of sires from England.
The testimony of many old writers goes to prove the high esteem in
which Spanish horses were held. The Duke of Newcastle, in his famous
work on Horses and Horsemanship, written in 1658, says: “I have had
Spanish horses in my own possession which were proper to be painted
after, or fit for a king to mount on a public occasion. Genets have a
fine lofty air, trot and gallop well. The best breed is in Andalusia,
especially that of the King of Spain at Cordova.” The Spanish horse of
those times owed much to the Barbs, which were originally introduced
into the country by the Moors; and if the Connemara pony was permitted
to revert to the original type, something was done to re-establish the
Spanish—or, perhaps, it were more accurate to go a step further back
and say the “Barb”—character in the early thirties.
Mr. Samuel Ussher Roberts, C.B., in course of evidence given before
the Royal Commission on Horse Breeding in Ireland (1897), stated that
he lived for five-and-twenty years in the west of Galway, and when in
that part of the country, “there was,” he said, “an extremely hardy,
wiry class of pony in the district showing a great deal of the Barb
or Arab blood. Without exception they were the best animals I ever
knew—good shoulders, good hard legs, good action, and great stamina ...
they were seldom over 14·2. I never knew one of them to have a spavin
or splint, or to be in any respect unsound in his wind.... There was
a strong trace of Arab blood which I always understood arose from the
introduction into Connemara of the Barb or Arab by the Martin family
many years ago—you could very easily trace it to the Connemara ponies
at the time I speak of.” In answer to a subsequent question Mr. Ussher
Roberts fixed the date of the introduction of the Barb or Arab blood by
Colonel Martin at about 1833.
The old stamp of Connemara pony was described by another witness, Mr.
R. B. Begley, as “long and low with good rein, good back, and well
coupled”; but the majority of witnesses from Galway, and those who had
personal knowledge of the breed, shared Mr. Ussher Roberts’ opinion
that it had greatly deteriorated since the middle of the century
when the influence of the Barb or Arab sires had died out. The young
animals, it was stated, were collected in droves when about six months
old, and hawked about the country for sale, bringing prices ranging
from thirty shillings to £3. Many of these were purchased for use in
the English coal pits. Evidence was forthcoming to show that there
are still some good specimens of the breed. Mr. John Purdon described
a drove he had recently seen in Connemara: “They were beautiful mares,
I never saw lovelier mares; about twenty in the drove, and foals with
them. They were the perfect type of a small thoroughbred mare.” These
animals were the property of Mr. William Lyons, who kept a special
breed for generations.
The falling off in quality was generally attributed to promiscuous
breeding and to in-breeding. “In some parts of Connemara,” said Mr. H.
A. Robinson, “they just turn a stallion out loose on the mountains,
mongrels of the very worst description.” There is, however, another
factor in the loss of quality, namely, the terrible straits to which
the peasantry were reduced in the time of the famine. A correspondent
informs me that in south-west Cork, in the fifties, nearly all the
people had mare ponies; in west Galway in the sixties there was
scarcely an ass in Connemara west of Spiddal and Oughterard; and the
case in west Mayo was the same. When my informant visited the same
districts fifteen or twenty years later, he observed a remarkable
change. “Hard times” had come upon the people in the interim, and all
the small holders had donkeys instead of ponies; poverty had obliged
them to sell their mares; and when times improved they were too
impoverished to buy new ponies, and replaced them with asses.
Under such circumstances, of course, the better the mare owned by
the peasant the more likely it was to find a purchaser; and little
but the “rag, tag and bobtail” was left to perpetuate the species.
However considerably the remainder depreciated in quality, they still
retained their characteristic hardiness of constitution and the germs
of those qualities which under better auspices gained the breed its
reputation. Some of the witnesses who gave evidence before the Royal
Commission mentioned experiments in cross breeding which prove how
well and rapidly the Connemara pony responds to endeavour to improve
it by the introduction of suitable fresh blood. Mr. Samuel Johnston
stated that he had bred one of the best hunters he ever possessed out
of a Connemara mare; and Mr. R. B. Begley described a mare got by
the pure-bred Hackney sire Star of the West from a “mountainy pony.”
This Hackney-Connemara cross could cover an English mile in three
minutes; Mr. Begley had driven her fifty-six Irish (over seventy-one
statute) miles in a day, and had repeatedly driven her twelve Irish
(over fifteen statute) miles in an hour and ten minutes; he had won
two prizes with her for action in harness at the Hollymount Show;
and had hunted her with ten stone on her back. With hounds as in the
shafts this really remarkable pony proved herself able to go and stay,
performing well across country.
These Connemara ponies stand from 12 hands to 14 hands or more. Like
other breeds which run practically wild in mountainous country, they
are above all things hardy, active and sure-footed: in response to
the climatic conditions of their habitat—the climate of West Galway
is the most humid of any spot in Europe—they grow a thick and shaggy
coat which is very usually chestnut in colour betraying their descent.
Although they have lost in size owing to the conditions of their
existence and are rounder in the croup, they retain the peculiar
ambling gait which distinguished their Spanish ancestors. Those with
whose breeding care has been taken, such as the drove belonging to Mr.
William Lyons, of Oughterard, show the characteristics implanted by
the infusion of Barb blood in their blood-like heads and clean limbs.
Even those which have suffered through promiscuous breeding conform in
their ugliness and shortcomings to the original type.
For some years past systematic endeavours to improve the breed have
been in progress. The Congested Districts Board, under the Land
Commission of Ireland, introduced small Hackney stallions whose
substance, action and robust constitution render them particularly well
adapted to correct the defects of weedy and ill-shaped mares without
impairing their natural hardiness.
THE PONIES OF SCOTLAND AND THE SHETLAND ISLANDS.
The Scottish nation from early times have possessed a breed of horses
which was held in great esteem; and, as in England, laws were passed
from time to time prohibiting their export from the country. The second
parliament of James I. in the year 1406 enacted (cap. 31) that no horse
of three years old or under should be sent out of Scotland. In 1567,
James VI. forbade the export of horses in an Act (Jac. VI., cap. 22)
whose preface makes specific reference to Bordeaux, from which place
there was a great demand for horses.
In a curious old book entitled _The Horseman’s Honour_ or the _Beautie
of Horsemanship_, published in the year 1620 by an anonymous writer, we
find the following passage:—
“For the horses of Scotland they are much less than those of
England, yet not inferiour in goodnesse; and by reason of their
smallnesse they keep few stoned but geld many by which likwise
they retaine this saying ‘That there is no gelding like those
in Scotland,’ and they, as the English, are for the most part
amblers. Also in Scotland there are a race of small nagges which
they call galloways or galloway nagges, which for fine shape easie
pace, pure mettall and infinit toughnesse are not short of the
best nagges that are bred in any countrey whatsoever; and for
soundnesse in body they exceede the most races that are extant, as
dayly experience shews in their continuall travels journeyings and
forehuntings.”
Berenger[7] says:—
“This kingdom (Scotland) at present encourages a fleet breed
of horses, and the nobility and gentry have many foreign and
other stallions of great value in their possession with which
they cultivate the breed and improve it with great knowledge and
success. Like the English they are fond of racing and have a
celebrated course at Leith which is honoured with a royal plate
given by his present Majesty [George III.]
“The wisdom and generosity likewise of the nobility and gentry have
lately erected a riding house in the City of Edinburgh at their own
expense and fixed a salary upon the person appointed to direct it.
“This kingdom has been famous for breeding a peculiar sort of
horses called Galloways. From the care and attention paid at
present to the culture of horses it is to be expected that it will
soon be able to send forth numbers of valuable and generous breeds
destined to a variety of purposes and equal to all: the country
being very capable of answering the wishes of the judicious breeder
who need only remember that colts require to be well nourished in
winter and sheltered from the severity of a rigorous and changeable
sky.”
[7] “The History and Art of Horsemanship,” by Richard Berenger,
published by Davies and Cadell, London, 1771.
The Galloway, so called from the part of Scotland known by that name,
is a diminutive horse resembling the Welsh cob, to which the author
of an _Encyclopædia of Agriculture_ compares it in a passage quoted on
a former page. The breed gradually diminished in number as the advances
of law and order deprived the mosstroopers and other predatory border
men of a method of livelihood which involved the use of hardy and
enduring horses.
Before the commencement of the nineteenth century and during more
recent years this animal, which cannot be described either as a horse
or a pony, has played an active part in agricultural work on the low
lands of Scotland. In localities where no roads existed, and wheeled
traffic was impossible, galloways were used not only for riding but for
the transport of agricultural produce; as they lacked the weight and
strength to draw the two-horse plough, ploughing was done by oxen, but
the sledges which held the place of carts and waggons were drawn by the
galloways, which were also used to carry corn and general merchandise
in pots and panniers.
In height the original Galloway was generally under 14 hands.
Youatt (second edition, 1846) describes it as from 13 to 14 hands,
and sometimes more; it was a bright bay or brown, with black legs
and small head. The purposes for which it was used indicated the
desirability of increasing its height and strength, and with this end
in view cross breeding was commenced in the early part of the century,
and continued until so late a date as 1850. By consequence, the old
Galloway has now almost disappeared from all parts of the mainland and
survives only in such remote situations as the Island of Mull.
About the end of the eighteenth century a Mr. Gilchrist employed on his
farm in Sutherlandshire as many as ten “garrons” to carry peats from
the hills and seaweed from the shore. These burdens were carried in
crates or panniers:
“The little creatures do wonders; they set out at peep of day and
never halt till the work of the day be finished—going 48 miles.”[8]
[8] _Husbandry in Scotland_, published by Creech, Edinburgh, 1784.
At the present time the most conspicuous field of utility open to the
Scottish pony is that offered by the grouse-moors and deer-forests,
though in the close season general farm and draught work affords
them employment. A pony of from 13 to 14 hands may be strong enough
for a man of average weight to ride on the grouse-moor; but for
deer-stalking a sturdy cob of from 14 to 15 hands is necessary, a
smaller animal is not equal to the task of carrying a heavy man or a
17-stone stag over the rough hills and valleys among which his work
lies.
The origin of the “Sheltie,” like that of the other breeds considered
in the foregoing pages, is unknown. Mr. James Goudie, whose essay
on _The Early History of the Shetland Pony_ is published in the
first volume of the _Shetland Pony Stud Book_ thinks there is every
likelihood that it was brought to the islands from Scotland at some
very early period. The “Bressay Stone,” a sculptured slab which was
discovered in Bressay in 1864, bears, among other designs in low
relief, the figure of a horse on which a human figure is seated. “As
this monument is admitted by authorities on the subject to belong to a
period before the Celtic Christianity of the islands disappeared under
the shock of Norwegian invasion [A.D. 872], it may be inferred ...
that the animal was known and probably found in the islands at this
period.” Early writers state that the Scandinavian invaders introduced
the foundation stock some time prior to the fifteenth century.
Buchanan makes passing reference to the Orkney and Shetland ponies in
his _History of Scotland_, written three centuries ago: but the first
description which has completeness to recommend it is that of Brand,
who visited the islands in 1700 and wrote _A Brief Description of
Orkney, Zetland, Pightland, Firth and Caithness_, which was published
at Edinburgh in the following year. This author writes:—
“They are of a less size than the Orkney Horses, for some will be
but 9, others 10 nives or hand-breadths high, and they will be
thought big Horses there if 11, and although so small yet they are
full of vigour and life, and some not so high as others often prove
to be the strongest.... Summer or winter they never come into an
house but run upon the mountains, in some places in flocks; and if
any time in Winter the storm be so great that they are straitened
for food they will come down from the Hills when the ebb is in the
sea and eat the sea-ware ... which Winter storms and scarcity of
fodder puts them out of ease and bringeth them so very low that
they recover not their strength till St. John’s Mass-day, the
24th of June, when they are at their best. They will live to a
considerable age, as twenty-six, twenty-eight or thirty years, and
they will be good riding horses in twenty-four, especially they’le
be the more vigorous and live the longer if they be four years old
before they be put to work. Those of a black colour are judged to
be the most durable and the pyeds often prove not so good; they
have been more numerous than they now are.”
Bengie, in his _Tour in Shetland_ (1870), after remarking on their
sure-footedness and hardiness of constitutions, suggests that the
sagacity, spirit and activity for which they are remarkable may be due
to the freedom of the life they live on the hills. “They are sprightly
and active as terriers, sure-footed as mules and patient as donkeys.”
They stand, he adds, at the head of the horse tribe as the most
intelligent and faithful of them all; and he compares the intelligence
of the Sheltie with that of the Iceland pony much to the advantage of
the former. “Shorter in the leg than any other kind,” says Mr. Robert
Brydon, of Seaham Harbour, “they are at the same time wider in the
body and shorter in the back, with larger bones, thighs and arms; and
therefore are comparatively stronger and able to do with ease as much
work as average ponies of other breeds a hand higher.” The Shetland
Stud Book Society will register no pony whose height exceeds 10 hands
2 inches, and the average height may be taken as 10 hands: many do not
exceed 9 hands, and a lady who wrote an account of a visit to Shetland
in 1840 speaks of one reared by Mr. William Hay, of Hayfield, which was
only 26 inches, or 6 hands 2 inches high! It is however, unusual to
find a pony measuring less than 8 hands at the shoulder, and we may
perhaps doubt whether the 26-inch specimen was full-grown.
In colour the Shetlander varies: bays, browns and dullish blacks are
most common: sometimes these hues are relieved by white markings and
occasionally white specimens occur: piebalds are rare. The coat in
winter is long, close and shaggy, fit protection against the inclemency
of the weather the pony endures without cover or shelter: in spring the
heavy winter coat is shed, and in the summer months the hair is short
and sleek.
In former times it was customary to hobble the ponies; but this
practice, which must have done much to spoil their naturally good
action, has been abandoned for many years.
It is now usual to give the ponies a ration of hay in the winter months
when the vegetation is covered deep with snow, and thus the losses by
starvation, which formerly were heavy in severe winters, are obviated.
Otherwise the Sheltie’s conditions of life to-day differ little from
those that prevailed three centuries ago. Mr. Meiklejohn, of Bressay,
states that in April, generally, the crofters turn their ponies out
upon the common pasture lands, and leave them to their own devices. On
common pastures where there are no stallions the mares are caught for
service and tethered until the foal is born and can follow freely, when
mother and child are turned out again.
In autumn when crops have been carried the ponies come down from the
hills to their own townships, where they feed on the patches of fresh
grass which have been preserved round the cultivated areas. The nights
being now cold, they remain in the low-lying lands sheltering under the
lee of the yard walls; and “when winter has more fully set in the pony
draws nearer his owner’s door, and in most cases is rewarded with his
morning sheaf on which, with seaweed and what he continues to pick off
the green sward, the hardy animal manages to eke out a living until the
time rolls round again that he is turned on the hill pasture, never
being under a roof in his life.”
At one period the ponies were apparently regarded almost as public
property; for, among the “Acts and Statutes of the Lawting Sheriff and
Justice Courts of Orkney and Shetland,” was one passed in the year 1612
and frequently renewed, which forbade the “ryding ane uther manis hors
without licence and leave of the awner,” under penalty of fine; and
also provided that “quhasoever sall be tryet or fund to stow or cut ane
uther man’s hors taill sall be pwinischit as a theif at all rigour in
exempill of utheris to commit the lyke.”
The number of ponies on the islands has decreased in recent years
by reason of the steadily growing demand from without. The latest
available Government returns are those of 1891, and for the sake of
comparison the returns of 1881 are given below:—
1881 1891
Horses (including ponies) as returned by occupiers
of land used solely for agriculture 921 787
Unbroken horses and mares kept solely for breeding 4,323 4,016
————— —————
5,244 4,803
————— —————
The ponies are little used for farm work in the Shetlands; they carry
loads of peat from the hills to the crofts, and apart from this are
used only for riding; they are beyond question the most wonderful
weight-carriers in the world, a 9-hand pony being able to carry with
the greatest ease a full-grown man over bad ground and for long
distances.
They owe their value to the combination of minuteness and strength,
which renders them peculiarly suitable for draught work in the coal
mines. Many ponies will travel thirty miles a day, to and fro in the
seams, drawing a load, tilt and coals included, of from 12 to 14
cwt. The Sheltie’s lot underground is admittedly a hard one, but his
tractable disposition usually ensures for him kindly treatment at the
hands of the boy who has him in charge.
These ponies, says Mr. Brydon, were first used in the coal pits of
the North of England about the year 1850. Horse ponies from 3 to 5
years old could then be purchased for £4 10s. each delivered at the
collieries. Since that time prices have risen enormously, though for
the smallest animals they fluctuate from time to time in sympathy with
the price of coal. As the cause of the influence of the coal market
upon the price of Shetland ponies is perhaps not quite obvious, it
must be explained that the chief value of these little animals is
their ability to work in the low galleries of thin-seamed pits; when
the price of coal sinks to a certain point these thin seams cannot be
profitably worked, the pits are “laid in,” or temporarily closed, and
the ponies withdrawn. In 1891 the average yearling was worth £15 and
a two-year-old £18, while full-grown ponies were scarcely procurable.
In 1898 a four-year-old could be bought at from £15 to £21, owing to
the depression in the price of coals and the suspension of work in
thin-seamed pits.
It will be understood that only small animals of the commoner sort
suitable for pit work are affected by the coal market. Horse ponies
of the right stamp with good pedigree and suitable for the stud still
command from £30 to £50, and in some cases even more. Mare ponies of
good pedigree also command high prices; at the last Londonderry sale,
the mares, Mr. R. Brydon informs me, sold at an average of £19 per
head; but the average obtained for second-class mares would little
exceed six guineas per head.
The docility and good temper of the Shetland pony make him, above all,
the best and most trustworthy mount for a child. Captain H. Hayes
has remarked that “a comparatively high degree of mental (_i.e._,
reasoning) power is not desirable in a horse, because it is apt to make
him impatient of control by man.” The Shetland pony is the rule-proving
exception; for he combines with the highest order of equine
intelligence a disposition curiously free from vice or trickiness. Mr.
Brydon has never known a Sheltie withdrawn from a pit as wicked or
unmanageable; withdrawal for such reasons being very frequent with
ponies of other breeds.
[Illustration:
_Engraved by F. Babbage._
CHILD’S SHETLAND PONY.
The property of Sir WALTER GILBEY, Bart.]
It may be observed that about the middle of the century there were a
number of Shelties in Windsor Park, which were used to do various kinds
of work.
During recent years a demand for mares for breeding purposes has grown
up in America, much to the advantage of the crofter, who finds a market
in the colliery districts for horse ponies only.
Many attempts have been made to increase the size of the Sheltie.
About the middle of the last century Norwegian pony stallions were
introduced into Dunrossness with the result that a distinct variety was
established and still continues; this is called the Sumburgh breed;
in size these ponies range from 12 hands to 13·2. Another variety
known as the Fetlar breed owes its origin to the introduction by Sir
Arthur Nicolson of a Mustang stallion named Bolivar over half a century
ago; the Fetlar ponies run from 11 to 13 hands, and are described as
remarkably handsome, swift and spirited, but less tractable than the
pure Shetlander. The Sumburgh and Fetlar varieties deserve mention
only as experiments; the result having been to increase the height of
the pony, it follows, after what has been said on a former page, that
these cross-bred animals are of comparatively small value.
Far more importance attaches to the efforts which have been made to
improve the pure breed while preserving its diminutive size. The
Marquis of Londonderry, some twenty-five years ago, acquired grazings
on Bressay and Moss Islands; and having procured the best stock
obtainable from all over the Shetlands, began breeding on judicious and
methodical lines. Twelve or fifteen mares with a carefully selected
stallion are placed in an enclosure, and the young stock, after
weaning, are turned out on the hills; they are hand-fed in winter,
but are never given the protection of a roof, whereby their natural
hardiness is preserved. The Marquis of Zetland in Unst, and Mr. Bruce
in Fair Isle, follow a somewhat similar method of mating and rearing.
Messrs. Anderson & Sons have on Northmavine done much to promote the
interests of the breed by purchasing good stallions, often at Lord
Londonderry’s annual Seaham Harbour Sale, and distributing these over
the common pastures. The benefits which have accrued from this policy
are very marked; and though the crofters yield to the temptation of
high prices, and sell their best animals for export, the endeavours of
the gentlemen named above to maintain the quality of the breed in its
native habitat cannot fail to largely counteract the evil results of
such sales.
Among the studs on the mainland the best known, perhaps, is that of the
Countess of Hopetoun at Linlithgow. Her ladyship’s success has been due
in no small measure to that beautiful little sire the Monster. This
pony is a perfect example of the Shetland stallion, as may be gathered
from his showyard record: he was first in the class for Shetland
ponies under 10 hands 2 inches at the Royal Agricultural Society’s
Show in 1895, at Darlington, and has been preferred by judges to Lord
Londonderry’s Excellent and the Elsenham pony, Good Friday, Excellent
having taken many first prizes, and Good Friday five firsts at the
London shows.
Mr. James Bruce has a drove of Shetland ponies at Inverquhomery,
Longside, Aberdeenshire. These are descended from two mares and a
stallion imported in the year
1889. Three years ago Mr. Bruce replenished his breeding stock by the
purchase of five more mares. A noteworthy feature of this stud is the
colour, which in every case is chestnut, Mr. Bruce’s 1889 importations
being of that rare colour among Shelties.
Since the establishment of the _Shetland Pony Stud Book_, several
studs have been founded in Scotland and England. The chief difficulty
the owners have to contend with is the proneness towards increase of
size due to milder climate and richer feed. This tendency can only be
checked by the periodical importation of stock from the Shetland Isles.
[Illustration:
_Drawn by J. Doyle._ _Engraved on wood by F. Babbage._
H.R.H. PRINCESS VICTORIA IN HER PONY PHAETON.]
USES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PONY.
It would be difficult to name a class of work in which the pony is not
employed. He is used by all, from the sovereign to the peasant and
costermonger. Pony racing has been recently re-established as a sport
after temporary suspension, due to no shortcoming on the pony’s side.
It is rare that a meet of hounds is not attended by a sprinkling of
ponies carrying future sportsmen and women, and it is safe to assert
that every master of hounds and every man who takes his own line across
country served his apprenticeship to the saddle on the back of a pony.
The reason is that few men who do not learn to ride in early boyhood,
when a pony is the only possible mount, completely master the art in
later life; hence we meet few good horsemen who do not receive their
first riding lessons on a steady pony. There is no stamp of vehicle
which is not drawn by ponies. Her Majesty, for many years, drove a
pony in her garden-chair; in double or single harness we find the pony
driven in victoria, dog-cart, governess cart, and Irish car; in the
tradesman’s light van and in the market cart drawing wares of every
description; in the itinerant fishmonger’s, coster’s and hawker’s
nondescript vehicle.
The country clergyman and doctor would be in sore straits without the
thirteen hand pony, which does a horse’s work on one-half a horse’s
feed, and requires no more stable attendance than the gardener or
handy man can spare time to give him. As shown in the foregoing pages,
his labours are not confined to saddle and harness; in some parts of
the country he is still used for pack-work, carrying agricultural
produce and peats from the hills and moorlands to the farmstead; and
in the low seams of the coal-pits which the horse cannot enter he is
indispensable. Large though our native stock of ponies is, we do not
breed them in numbers nearly sufficient for our needs, and each year
brings thousands of small cheap ponies to our ports from Norway, Sweden
and Russia. These, like the gangs purchased from breeders on Exmoor
and elsewhere, are driven from one fair to another, to be sold by twos
and threes all over the country by persons who cannot afford to keep a
horse, but are obliged to provide themselves with a cheap and useful
beast for draught or carriage.
[Illustration:
_Engraved by F. Babbage._
THE FIRST LEAP.
From the picture by Sir EDWIN LANDSEER, R.A.]
It is very generally admitted that the intelligence of the pony is of
higher degree than that of the horse; and the fact, we cannot doubt, is
attributable to the different conditions under which ponies and horses
are reared. The former, foaled and brought up on the hills and wastes,
develope ability, like other wild animals, to look after themselves,
and the intelligence so evolved is transmitted to generations born
in domestication. The horse, foaled and reared in captivity, with
every precaution taken for his security, has no demands made upon
his intelligence, and his mental faculties remain to a great extent
undeveloped. The same causes operate to furnish the pony’s stronger
constitution and greater soundness; greater soundness not only in limb
but also organic; roaring and whistling are unknown in the pony, common
as they are in the horse.
This superiority of constitution accounts for the marked superiority
of the pony over the horse in endurance. The small and compact horse
is always a better stayer than the large, loosely-built animal, and
in the pony we find the merits of compactness at their highest.
Numberless instances of pony endurance might be quoted, but two or
three will suffice. Reference has been made on p. 30 to Sir Charles
Turner’s achievement of riding a pony ten miles and over thirty leaps
in forty-seven minutes, and to the conveyance of news from Holyhead to
London by relays of ponies at the rate of twenty miles an hour. Whyte,
in his _History of the British Turf_, states that in April, 1754, a
mare, 13 hands 3 inches high, belonging to Mr. Daniel Croker, travelled
300 miles on Newmarket Heath in 64 hours 20 minutes; she had been
backed to perform the journey in 72 hours, and therefore completed her
task with seven hours and forty minutes to spare. Her best day’s work
was done on Tuesday, April 23. Mr. Whyte gives the following details
of this extraordinary performance:—“24 miles and baited; 24 miles and
baited; 24 miles and baited; 36 miles without baiting; total 108 miles.
On the Monday and Wednesday she covered 96 miles each day. She was
ridden throughout by a boy who scaled 4 stone 1 lb. without reckoning
saddle and bridle. Another performance worth citing as proof of pony
endurance was Sir Teddy’s race with the London mail coach to Exeter, a
distance of 172 miles. Sir Teddy, a twelve hand pony, was led between
two horses all the way, and carried no rider himself. He performed the
journey in 23 hours and 20 minutes, beating the coach by fifty-nine
minutes.”
We generally find that great feats of endurance, involving capacity
to thrive on poor and scanty food, have generally been performed by
ponies.[9] In the Nile Campaign of 1885 the 19th Hussars were mounted
on Syrian Arabs, averaging 14 hands, which had been purchased in Syria
and Lower Egypt at an average price of £18. The weight carried was
reduced as much as possible in view of the hard work required of the
ponies, but each of the 350 on which the Hussars were mounted carried
about 14 stone. Their march from Korti to Metammeh as part of a flying
column showed what these little horses could do; between the 8th and
20th of January, both days included, they travelled 336 miles; halting
on the 13th. On the return March from Dongola to Wady Halfa, 250 miles,
after nearly nine months’ hard work on poor food they averaged 16 miles
a day, with one halt of two days. Colonel Burrow, in reviewing the
work performed by these ponies, says: “Food was often very limited,
and during the desert march, water was very scarce. Under these
conditions I venture to think that the performances of the regiment
on the Arab ponies will compare with the performance of any horsemen on
record.”[10]
[9] See _Small Horses in Warfare_. By Sir Walter Gilbey, Bart. Vinton &
Co., Ltd., 1900.
[10] _The XIXth and Their Times_, Colonel John Biddulph. Murray, 1899.
Captain Fred Burnaby, in his well-known work “A Ride to Khiva,” bears
witness to the wonderful endurance of a fourteen-hand Tartar pony
which he purchased with misgivings for £5, in default of any better
mount. This pony, he tell us, was in such miserable condition, his men
complained among themselves that it would not be worth _eating_, they
looked upon the little beast as fore-doomed from the moment Captain
Burnaby mounted it. Yet this pony, its ordinary diet supplemented by
a few pounds of barley daily, carried its rider, who weighed twenty
stone in his heavy sheepskin clothes, safely and well over 900 miles
of bad roads, often through deep snow, and always in bitterly cold
weather, the thermometer being frequently many degrees below zero. On
the concluding day of the return journey this pony galloped the last 17
miles in 1 hour and 25 minutes. It would be easy to multiply examples
of pony endurance; but we forbear.
The greater stamina of the pony is evidenced in another direction,
namely, length of life. Instances in which ponies have attained to
a great age are more numerous than those recorded of horses, and
further the pony lives longer. Mr. Edmund F. Dease, of Gaulstown, Co.
Westmeath, lost a pony in December, 1894, which had reached the age
of 39 years; in 1896, Mrs. Pratt, of Low Pond House, Bedale, Yorks,
lost a pony mare aged 45 years; on Christmas Day, 1863, there died
at Silworthy, near Clovelly in North Devon, a pony which had arrived
within a few weeks of his sixtieth year. Accounts of ponies which
lived, and in some cases worked, until they reached 40, 38, 37, and 35
years also recur to mind.
There is a degree of cold beyond which the horse cannot exist; and as
he approaches the latitude where the limit prevails, the effect of
climate is apparent in his conformation.
The frozen and ungenial country of Lapland has its small ponies; they
are employed in drawing sledges over the snow and transporting forage
and merchandise, which in summer are conveyed in boats. In Iceland he
is dwarfed to a Liliputian size, and thriving in the comparatively mild
climate of the Shetlands we find a pony smaller than any other in the
British Islands.
It would seem from the facts it has been possible to collect that the
New Forest, Welsh, Exmoor and Dartmoor, Fell and Connemara breeds
of ponies are in their natural state of small value to man, though
they owe to the natural conditions under which they exist qualities
which may be turned to very valuable account by judicious crossing
with breeds of a recognised stamp. Improvement must involve partial
sacrifice of qualities such as ability to withstand exposure and
cold on insufficient food, sure-footedness, and the sagacity which
avoids bog and treacherous ground. These qualities, in their highest
development, are indispensable to a wild animal; but the improved pony
obtained by crossing is not destined for a wild life on the hills and
wastes, and is less dependent upon them.
Partial loss of such attributes, therefore, is a price well worth
paying for the increased size and better conformation which render
the produce suitable for man’s service with the more artificial and
luxurious conditions of life inseparable from complete domesticity. The
remarkable soundness of limb and constitution, developed by centuries
of free life on the hills, are enduring qualities which appear in
generation after generation of stock descended on one side from the
half-wild breeds; and these are the qualities which above all it is
desirable to breed into our horses of all sizes and for all purposes.
The advantage to be gained by systematic improvement of these wild
breeds of ponies is therefore not by any means advantageous to one side
only.
The Polo Pony Society at their meeting of 7th December, 1898, resolved
to set apart a section of their Stud Book for the registration of
Welsh, Exmoor, New Forest and other breeds of ponies; and with
reference to this step Lord Arthur Cecil, in his Introduction to the
fifth (1899) volume of the Polo Pony Stud Book, says:—
“It is in the limit of height that the greatest difficulty of
the Society lies. Could we be certain of breeding every animal
between 14 hands and 14 hands 2 inches our course would be
tolerably clear.... There is always, however, the danger that
the best-looking and best-nourished of our young stock will, if
some means be not found to prevent it, exceed this limit. The
remedy is more or less within our reach by utilising the hardy
little stocks of ponies which are to be found almost indigenous
in those districts of the British Isles where there are large
tracts of mountain or moorland ground. I refer to such ponies as
those found in North and South Wales, the New Forest, Exmoor,
Dartmoor, and the hills of the north of England and west coast
of Scotland.... Perhaps it may not be out of place to mention
that the present is not an inappropriate time for upholding the
breeding of ponies on hill lands. The keeping of hill sheep is not
so remunerative as of yore, the price of wool being so low and
the demand for four-year-old mutton not being anything like what
it was a few years ago; whereas, on the other hand, the demand
for ponies, especially good ones, is likely to increase, and if
farmers will only give them a fair chance they will amply repay
them for their keep up to three years old. It is hoped that by
careful consideration of their various characteristics, and by
registering such of them as are likely to breed riding ponies, and
by periodically going back to this fountain head of all ponies, we
may be able to regulate the size of our higher-class riding ponies
to the desired limit, while at the same time we shall infuse into
their blood the hardiness of constitution and endurance, combined
with a fiery yet even temper, so pre-eminently characteristic of
the British native breeds.”
The Shetland pony stands upon a different footing. In him we have
a pony whose characteristics are equally valuable to it as a wild
animal and as one in a state of domestication. It is the only one of
our half-wild breeds which gains nothing from an infusion of alien
blood; its value depends upon the careful preservation of distinctive
peculiarities of size and make, which fit it above all others for
special purposes.
BREEDING POLO PONIES.
With only the limited experience in breeding ponies for Polo possessed
by all who breed stock, remarks hazarded under this heading must
necessarily be guided by general principles of breeding, and readers
must be left to take them for what they may be worth.
The steadily increasing popularity of the game of Polo has naturally
produced an increased demand for suitable ponies; and Polo players
being as a rule wealthy men, to whom a really good animal is cheap at
almost any price, the value of first-rate ponies has risen to a level
which compels attention to their breeding as a probably remunerative
branch of industry. It was difficult to find ponies when an elastic
14-hand limit was the rule; and if we may judge from the prices which
have been paid since the regulation height was raised to 14 hands 2
inches, the greater latitude thus afforded players in selecting mounts
has done little or nothing towards solving the difficulty.
What is this Polo Pony for which a fancy price is so readily
forthcoming? In the first place, it is not a pony at all, but a small
horse; we may let that pass, however. The modern Polo Pony must be
big and powerful, at once speedy, sound, handy and docile, having
also courage, power to carry weight, and staying power. And, as the
necessary speed and courage are rarely to be found apart from blood, it
has become an article of faith with players that the first-class pony
must have a preponderance of racehorse blood in his veins.
Hence a serious difficulty faces the breeder at the outset. For
generations we have devoted all our care to increasing the height of
the racehorse, and with such success that in 200 years we have raised
his average stature by nearly 2 hands. The great authority Admiral
Rous, writing in the year 1860, said that the English racehorse had
increased in height an inch in every twenty-five years since the year
1700. We now regard a thoroughbred as under size if he stand less than
15 hands 3 inches. This is an important point to bear in mind; for if
we are to breed blood ponies of 14 hands 2 inches to meet the demand
which has recently arisen, it is plain that we must undo most that our
fathers and ancestors have done.
A Polo Pony to command a price must be able to carry from 12 to 14
stone, and must be sound. Nine stone seven lb. is nowadays considered
a crushing burden for a racehorse of 16 hands to carry a mile and a
quarter. Never are the weights for a handicap published but the air
grows thick with doubts and forebodings as to whether this horse or
that can possibly stand the strain required by the handicapper’s
impost, or whether it is worth risking his valuable legs under such a
weight at all. And yet, to a certain extent, it is among small blood
horses, no better endowed with bone and no sounder than the big ones,
that we seek animals capable of carrying 12 or 14 stone in first-class
Polo.
The strain of playing a single “period” in a tournament match, in which
the pony is required to make incessant twists, turns, sudden starts at
speed, is continually being pulled up short, and is sent short bursts
of hard galloping, takes far more out of the pony than does a race out
of a racehorse, or an average day’s hunting out of the hunter. The
marvel is, not that fast and well-bred ponies capable of doing this
should command fancy prices, but that such should be obtainable at any
figure.
Under existing conditions, a small blood horse that looks like making
a Polo Pony is neither more nor less than an accidental deviation from
the normal. It is an accident that his height at five years does not
exceed the regulation 14 hands 2 inches; it is an accident—unhappily,
a rare one—that he has bone to carry weight; and before the trainer
can make a Polo Pony of him he must be fast, handy, kind, and
docile—another set of accidents; we might, indeed, almost call the
first-rate Polo Pony a phenomenal chapter of accidents. For let us bear
in mind that when we have found our 14 hands 2 inches endowed with the
needful make and shape we have not by any means necessarily got our
Polo Pony. Only the smallest percentage of the thousands of racehorses
foaled annually prove good enough to pay their trainers’ bills; and
when we reflect upon the nature of the work required on the polo
ground, the sterling good qualities demanded of a pony for first-class
Polo, we should indeed be sanguine did we look for high and uniform
merit in the race of animals we hope to found upon a basis of pure
blood! The clean thoroughbred, except in very rare instances, has not
the power needful to enable him to stop quickly and turn sharply at the
gallop. Speed he has, but he lacks the strong hind-quarters essential
to carry 12 or 13 stone.
The pony possessing the needful qualifications of make and shape has
yet to be “made;” and only a trainer of experience could tell us what
proportion of the likely-looking animals that come into his hands turn
out worth the trouble of educating. Herein we find the reason for the
vast difference in value which exists between a pony that is untrained
and one which has gone through the various stages of stick-and-ball
practice, the bending courses, practice games, and has finally been
proven in matches. In the raw state the best-looking 14-hands 2-inch
pony is worth £25 to £50; when trained—when he has proved to his
exacting trainer’s satisfaction that he is a Polo Pony, and does
not merely look like one—he is worth, as we know, any sum up to 750
guineas, and there is no reason to suppose that this figure marks the
limit which enthusiastic players are prepared to pay; on the contrary,
the tendency is to go further.
Such ponies as Mr. George Miller’s Jack-in-the-Box, Lord Kensington’s
Sailor, Captain Renton’s Matchbox, Mr. Buckmaster’s Bendigo, the late
Mr. Dryborough’s Mademoiselle, Mr. Walter Jones’s Little Fairy, have
acquired their fancy value through their amenability to the training
which has fitted them for the game. As to the breeding of these
ponies, it is doubtful if their respective owners know as a certainty
whether they were got by a thoroughbred pony sire or by an Eastern
sire; in the case of many high-class ponies nothing is known of their
breeding. All probably have a strong strain of pure blood in them, but
in the absence of certain knowledge concerning their pedigrees they
are of comparatively little use to us as object lessons in Polo Pony
breeding. Whether, in view of the extremely “accidental” character of
the Polo Pony already referred to, that knowledge would be helpful if
available is another matter.
And while we make the English Turf pony which can carry weight our
ideal, we acknowledge the difficulty of procuring it by seeking
ready-made ponies in every corner of the horse-breeding world. Arabs
and their near allies—Egyptian, Syrian and Barb ponies; Australian,
Argentine, Canadian and Cossack ponies; ponies from the Tarbes district
of France; ponies from Texas, Wyoming and Montana—all these have
been imported and are played on English Polo grounds, and though not
considered equal in speed, bottom, and courage to the English pony,
the best of them when “made” are good enough to command high, if not
extravagant, prices.
The great object, it is granted once for all, is to get a pony as
nearly thoroughbred as possible, for none other is good enough to play
in the best class of game. At the same time, a large and representative
proportion of players, while heartily granting the superiority of the
well-bred pony when it can be obtained, consider it wiser to look the
situation squarely in the face and admit that the supply of such ponies
cannot be depended on to meet the demand.
If it be a choice between an utterly inadequate supply of English-bred
ponies with blood, speed, stamina and weight-carrying power, to be
bought only at prices which reserve them to the wealthiest, and a
sufficiency of ponies with a strain of alien blood, somewhat less
speedy, courageous and enduring, the latter must be chosen; and as
already said the Polo Pony Stud Book Society has recognised this by
opening sections of their Stud Book for suitable individuals among our
Forest and Moorland breeds, with a view of obtaining foundation stock.
We may take it as an axiom in our endeavour to produce a breed of
14-hands 2-inch Polo Ponies that the sire must be a small thoroughbred,
or, if not a thoroughbred, an Arab. The reader may be reminded that
adoption of this alternative involves no departure from the principle
of a pure blood basis. It was the Arab that laid the foundation of our
thoroughbreds in England, and the best horses on the Turf of to-day may
be traced to one of the three famous sires—the Byerly Turk, imported in
1689, the Darley Arabian in 1706, and the Godolphin Arabian in 1730;
all of them, it may be remarked, horses under 14 hands 1 inch.
There is, indeed, much to be said in favour of the policy of returning
to the original Eastern stock to find suitable sires for our proposed
breed of 14-hands 2-inch ponies. While we have been breeding the
thoroughbred for speed, and speed only, Arab breeders have continued to
breed for stoutness, endurance, and good looks. By going to Arab stock
for our sires we might at the beginning, sacrifice some measure of
speed; but what was lost in that respect would be more than compensated
by the soundness of constitution and limb which are such conspicuous
traits in the Eastern horse. Furthermore, the difficulty of size, which
first of all confronts us in the thoroughbred sire, is much diminished
if we adopt the Arab as our foundation sire.
[Illustration: ARAB HORSE MESAOUD—14.2 hands.
The property of Mr. WILFRED SCAWEN BLUNT.]
We need not consider the game as played by Orientals. The Manipuris,
whose national game it is, and from whom Europeans first learned it,
use ponies which do not often exceed 12 hands in height. The game was
introduced into India proper in 1864,[11] and was first played in
England by the officers of the 10th Hussars in the year 1872, on their
return from service in India.
[11] “_Recollections of my Life._” By Sir Joseph Fayrer, Bart. 1900.
In India, where the game of Polo was first played by Englishmen, the
Arab is thought the perfect pony, the more so because the height
of ponies played under the Indian Polo Association’s code of rules
must not exceed 13 hands 3 inches. The extensive operations of the
Civil Veterinary Department have proved again the truth that no sire
impresses more certainly and more markedly his likeness upon his stock
than the Arab, a fact which is due to the high antiquity, and therefore
“fixed” character of the breed.
If, therefore, we find the stock got by the thoroughbred sire too prone
to outgrow the limit of height, we may, without self-reproach, turn for
assistance to the Eastern stock, from which we have evolved the modern
racehorse, as in doing so we shall simply be going a step farther
back, and thereby avoid in great measure the difficulty of stature
which our fathers and ancestors have created for us in our endeavour to
breed a small compact horse from the pure strain.
The next point that presents itself is, On what sort of animal would it
be most advisable to cross our thoroughbred or Arab? In the absence of
any long-continued series of experiments, which alone could have led to
definite results in the production of a fixed type of pony, or a stamp
of pony worth trying to perpetuate as a fixed type, the answer must be
conjectural; we can only deal in probabilities.
We may not be able to establish a breed of which a specimen exceeding
14 hands 2 inches shall be something quite abnormal; on the contrary,
the whole course of experience in breeding horses of whatever class
goes to prove the impossibility of ensuring that the progeny of any
given sire and dam shall attain to a specified height, neither less
nor more. Nevertheless, there seems no reason why skill and care in
breeding should not in course of time produce an animal whose _average_
height at maturity shall be the desired 14 hands 2 inches.
There are, it must be repeated, several essential points to be kept
clearly in view in our endeavour to develop a Polo Pony on the
foundation of Thoroughbred or Arab blood. We have primarily to guard
against the tendency to exceed the regulation height, and we must seek
means to obtain the bone and stamina which are so necessary. Our Forest
and Moorland mares suggest themselves as the material at once suitable
for the purpose and easily obtainable. In these ponies we have the
small size which will furnish the needful corrective to overgrowth,
and we have also that hardiness of constitution and soundness of limb
which are invaluable in laying the foundation of our proposed breed of
14-hands 2-inch ponies.
Many attempts have been made from time to time to improve these breeds;
indeed, some have been so frequently crossed with outside blood that
the purity of the strain has nearly disappeared; this is believed to be
the case with the Dartmoor pony. At the same time these infusions of
blood have done nothing to impair the value of the ponies in respect of
their intrinsic qualities of hardiness and soundness.
That small thoroughbred and Arab blood blends well with the Forest
and Moorland strains has been abundantly proved; Marske, the sire of
Eclipse, who was under 14 hands 2 inches, as is well known, stood at
service in the New Forest district for three or four seasons from about
the year 1765, and produced upon the New Forest breed a beneficial
effect which remained in evidence for many years. The late Prince
Consort sent a grey Arab stallion to stand at New Park, which did much
good in improving the stamp of pony; and in 1889 as before mentioned
Her Majesty lent two Arab sires, which remained respectively for two
and three seasons and produced a marked effect on the Forest breed.
One of the Dongola Arabs or Barbs which Mr. Knight used gave the best
results on the Exmoor ponies, and the use of the thoroughbred horses,
Pandarus by Whalebone, and Canopus, grandson of Velocipede, also
improved the breed in point of size.
Some of the best hunters in the West of England trace their descent on
the dam’s side to the Welsh Mountain pony, the sire of some of the best
horses, however, being a horse with a stain in his pedigree, viz., Mr.
John Hill’s Ellesmere by New Oswestry. In this connection it may be
remarked that Bright Pearl, winner in the class for unmade Polo Ponies
at the Crystal Palace Pony Show, held in July, 1899, was got by the
thoroughbred Pearl Diver out of a Welsh Hill Pony mare whose wonderful
jumping powers had gained her many prizes.
The fact that the Forest and Moorland breeds owe their small size to
the rigorous conditions of a natural free life and the spare diet
accessible must not be lost sight of, for their tendency to increase
in size when taken up, sheltered and well fed is very marked. The fact
is of importance, because we could not expect that foals got by a
thoroughbred or Arab sire would possess the stamina that enables the
Forest or Moorland pony to withstand exposure. It is true that the
stock got by Marske throve under the comparatively mild rigours of New
Forest life; but the thoroughbred of 135 years ago was a stouter and
hardier animal than is his descendant of to-day. It would therefore
be necessary to choose between losing the young half-bred stock
altogether, and of rearing it under more or less artificial conditions
with the certainty of rearing an animal which would respond to those
conditions by increased stature.
The same remarks apply equally to stock got from Forest or Moorland
mares by an Arab sire which flourishes in a high temperature, but is
not adapted to endure continuous cold and damp.
Judgment and care might do something to obviate the tendency to
overgrowth; the happy medium to adopt would be to allow the dams
with their half-bred youngsters as much liberty as varying climatic
conditions indicated the well-being of the latter could withstand.
It has been suggested that the mares which have finished their active
career of four or five seasons on the Polo ground might with advantage
be used for breeding purposes, being mated with a small Forest or
Moorland stallion. This suggestion does not commend itself to the
practical breeder, who is well aware that a big mare throws a big foal
even to a small horse. Were increase of size the object in view the
worn-out Polo Pony mares might be used thus with every prospect of
success; the reverse being our aim, it is to be feared that experiments
conducted on these lines would lead to failure.
[Illustration:
_From a sketch by H. F. Lucas Lucas._
POLO PONY SAILOR.]
It is reasonable to think that a breed of small horses can be
established by the judicious intermingling of our Forest or
Moorland mares with small Thoroughbred or Arab sires, but past
experience in stock-raising has taught breeders that the creation of a
new and improved strain, whether of horses, cattle, or other domestic
animals, is a slow process. Failures must be corrected and errors
retrieved by gradual and cautious steps before we can hope to succeed
in creating a breed of ponies true to the required type. That it can
be done with patience and skilled judgment there need be no doubt;
but the evolution of the animal required, whether on the thoroughbred
foundation or on the original progenitor of the thoroughbred, the Arab,
will be a matter of time. It may be that the present generation will
lay the foundation of a breed of 14-hands 2-inch Polo Ponies, and that
posterity will build the edifice and enjoy the benefits.
To summarise briefly what has been said in this chapter, the position
is this:—
(1) Ponies with blood, speed, courage, and the many qualities essential
to make a first-class Polo Pony are rare.
(2) (_a_) They command fancy prices when trained, but (_b_) it is only
when trained and _proven_ that they command high prices.
(3) The difficulty of producing a breed of blood ponies is due (_a_) to
the long-maintained and successful endeavour to increase the size of
the thoroughbred, and (_b_) to the fact that racehorses are bred for
speed only, whereas speed is but one of the many qualities essential to
the Polo Pony.
(4) To avoid this difficulty—
(_a_) The sire chosen for the foundation stock should be a small
and compact Thoroughbred or an Arab.
(_b_) The dam used for foundation stock should be chosen from the
best of our Forest or Moorland ponies.
(5) The tendency to undue increase in height should be counteracted—
(_a_) In the individual, by a free and natural life as far as
climate permits.
(_b_) In the breed, by recourse to further infusion of Forest or
Moorland blood when necessary.
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