Trustworthy as the Shetland pony is, it must still be added that not only must he be educated, mouthed, and mannered as carefully as a larger horse, but also he should not be subjected to the temptations of power. Until a child can really manage and control him, the leading rein must be kept in regular use, so as to avoid those premature conflicts and accidents that are as fatal to future horsemanship as they are to equine manners.
ON DUTY.
The Shetland pony now goes far afield. In the United States he has enthusiastic supporters, who allow more laxity in height than British breeders approve—admitting 44 inches as a legitimate stature. He goes to Australia, New Zealand, the Argentine Republic, and South Africa, as well as to many European countries. In Canada, at the moment, he is in great demand: there he is the school pony; for in the new wheat lands farms are far from the schools, and a pony is the child’s conveyance. For this purpose a mount is needed which is easily kept, docile, and hardy, and which can be hitched to a fence during school hours without being critical of the state of the thermometer. The Shetland pony supplies the demand, as if he had been created for that purpose; and Canadian buyers come to Britain year by year to take ponies in increasing numbers.
The Sheltie has the great advantage of a singular longevity. Every one who really associates with them knows how disastrously short a time dogs and horses live: on no reasonable calculation can they grow old with their owners. Even the Shetland pony fails of this, but he makes the bravest of attempts. There are many accredited instances of ponies living to thirty-five years and upwards; while, among Stud-book ponies, the famous Jack died at the age of thirty, and his son Odin at twenty-four, while his grandson Thor still lives in health and vigour at the age of twenty-seven: with a little luck father and son may learn to ride on the same Sheltie.
The pony is the most easily kept of all animals. For two or three pounds a-year he can be maintained; for a little more he can be kept in hard-working condition—a useful member of a small establishment, and no unprofitable part of the equine staff of a farm, going over much more ground, with light loads, and a boy to drive him, than a cart-horse that will cost nearly ten times as much to keep.
Yet in the end it is idle to deny that it is not his indisputable economic validity that binds the Sheltie’s lovers to him: rather it is himself—his wisdom and his courage, his companionable ways, his gay and willing service. Having taken from him their first falls and first riding lessons, and fought with him their first battles, they look forward to an old age in which he shall draw their bath-chairs; and in the interval of life he provides as a field animal the dual charm of a creature at once wild and tame—wild in his strong instincts, his hardihood, and his independence,—domestic in his wisdom and sweet temper, his friendly confidence in mankind, and his subtle powers of ingratiation.