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.
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.
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.