All colours are permissible in the Shetland pony, although black and dark-brown are now most common, and are preferred in the Islands by the oldest traditions, which associate piebald and skewbald colours with softness of temper and with a strong suspicion of Norwegian cross. White markings in ponies other than piebalds and skewbalds are an undeniable blemish, particularly if they take the form of white stockings and the accompanying white hoofs. Dun, grey roan, and dappled grey are good colours, which should not be allowed to die out: the dappled grey should have blue hoofs.
Action is increasingly regarded, and rightly so, by judges in the showyard; and it is of the utmost importance in practice. It should, of course, be perfectly true and straight: dishing, straddling, and wide hock action are glaring faults. But action should also be vigorous, light, and springy, not showing the roundness that often disfigures hackney gait, but with fore-legs well thrown forward from the shoulder both in walking and trotting, while knees, pasterns, and hocks are freely and powerfully flexed. It must be admitted that in many Shetland ponies activity has been unduly sacrificed to abnormal shortness of limb. This is a point which demands careful attention; and it may be worth while to note that the ponies in the Islands are, as a rule, singularly active, as indeed the conditions of their existence require that they should be.
STELLA (1692.)
In one other respect modern show standards and conditions threaten rather to impair than to improve the breed. The appearance of the pony in the Islands almost invariably suggests a strong and vigorous frame: in the showyard there are few ponies whose appearance suggests any frame at all. This is, no doubt, greatly aggravated by the extreme and excessive fatness of most ponies in the ring; but it points to a real defect also. Every good horse ought to suggest to the imagination the general structure of his bony framework; and it ought scarcely to be possible to conceal this by any reasonable degree of condition, or to bring about, in a horse, a general appearance of bonelessness such as might be proper to the carcase of a perfectly fattened Aberdeen-Angus bullock. Partly from the practice of showing ponies much too fat, and partly also from the fact that breeders have neglected to seek for strength of frame as distinct from mere thickness of bones, the Shetland pony in the showyard has undergone some little deterioration in this respect. It should not be forgotten by breeders or judges that a pony whose shoulders, hips, and stifles are not prominent in his appearance, is either defective in structure or very improperly overfed.
It may well be the case that a rather too exclusive use of the excellent “Londonderry” strain of ponies requires now to be corrected by a careful introduction of new blood, and that it is desirable to make use for that purpose of active, large-framed, vigorous mares of other Island strains. It cannot be too strongly emphasised that no risk should be run of sacrificing the results already attained—the power substance and well-formed joints and limbs, in which the “Londonderry” ponies excel. On the other hand, there is room, in very important respects, for progress and improvement in order to bring the Shetland pony to perfection.