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.