Part 6

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.