After experimenting with thoroughbreds, Mr. Smith procured a 14-hand pony sire named Bobby, by Round Robin out of an Arab mare, and used him with the most encouraging results for two seasons. Bobby’s stock were almost invariably bays. At a sale held at Bristol, in 1864, twenty-nine cobs galloways and ponies, nearly all of which were Bobby’s get, made an average price of 23 guineas a head, several realising over 30 guineas. The highest price (figure not recorded) was paid for a bay stallion, five years old and 13 hands high.
Whether Youatt refers to the improved breed or not it is impossible to say: but that authority states that about the year 1860 a farmer who weighed 14 stone rode an Exmoor pony from Bristol to South Molton, a distance of 86 miles, beating the coach which travelled the same road. This feat proves the pony to have been both fast and enduring.
A most competent authority who a couple of years ago paid a visit to Simonsbath to inspect the ponies of the district, describes the “Acland” as a wonderfully thoroughbred looking and handsome pony with fine lean head, intelligent eye and good limbs. The only fault he had to find was in the matter of size: he considered it a shade too small for general purposes.
The “Knights” were described as larger than the “Aclands”: they also retain the thoroughbred look derived from the Arab and other alien blood introduced by Mr. Knight in the second quarter of the century. My informant remarks that one of the most interesting sights he witnessed was the display of jealousy by the stallions when two droves of ponies were brought up for inspection. Each kept his harem crowded together apart from the other, “rounding in” his mares with the greatest fire. Needless to say the little horses would show at their very best under such conditions.
Among the gentlemen who have endeavoured to improve the Exmoor pony, mention must also be made of the Earl of Carnarvon, Viscount Ebrington and Mr. Nicholas Snow, of Oare, who have breeding studs; but their strains, like those of the farmers’ who rear a few each, are larger than the representative “Aclands.”
Dr. Herbert Watney, of Buckhold, near Pangbourne, until recently possessed herds of Exmoor and Arab-Exmoor ponies; their numbers have quite lately been greatly reduced by the sale of mares and young stock, Dr. Watney holding the writer’s view that ground in time becomes staled if grazed by numerous horses.[5] Dr. Watney laid the foundations of his herd by the purchase of about a dozen mares of the Knight and Ackland strains, and to serve them he acquired the 13·2 Exmoor stallion Katerfelto, winner of the first prize for pony stallions at the Devon County Show, and first prize in his class at the “Royal” in 1890. The stallion runs with the mares, and the herd lead on the Berkshire downs exactly the same free life they led on Exmoor; they are never brought under cover, and only when snow buries the herbage in severe winters do they receive a daily ration of hay. The richer grazing and their exclusive service by Katerfelto has resulted in distinct increase of size, the ponies ranging from 11·3 to 13·3 in height, yet retaining all the characteristics of the Exmoor native stock.
[5] See “Young Racehorses” (Suggestions for Rearing), by Sir Walter Gilbey, Bart., Vinton & Co., Ltd.
Dr. Watney drafted off a number of the best mares to form a herd for service by the Arab pony stallion Nejram, a bay standing 14·1, bred by Mr. Wilford Blunt at Crabbet Park. Nejram’s stock show in marked degree the distinctive character of their sire in the high set and carriage of the tail, full barrel, blood-like head and the long pastern; but at the same time they inherit from their dams the wonderful sure-footedness of the Exmoor pony. These ponies run from about 13 hands to 13·3. Half a dozen of these Arab-Exmoors, three years old, handled but unbroken, were sold in the year 1898 at an average price of over £14 14s. each. Twelve pure Exmoors by Katerfelto, also handled but unbroken, three years old, brought an average of over £16 16s.
Bampton Fair, held in October, is now the great rendezvous for Exmoor ponies. Every fair brings several hundred animals in from the moors for sale. Like other horses and ponies, the Exmoors are suffering from the competition of the bicycle, but good prices are still obtained under the hammer. They are much used for children, and the less desirable find ready sale to coster-mongers and hawkers. Newly-weaned suckers of five or six months old fetch from £3 to £6; exceptionally promising youngsters command a higher figure.
The Dartmoor pony’s good points are a strong back and loin, and substance. For generations past the farmers appear to have been in the habit of taking up a few mares for riding and breeding purposes; to these 11 or 12-hand dams—they rarely reach 13 hands—a small Welsh cart stallion is put, and the result is an animal hardy and serviceable enough for ordinary farm work. Even these would seem to form a small minority. For the most part the Dartmoor ponies still run wild, shaggy and unkempt, on the waste lands on which they breed uncontrolled, on which they are foaled and live and die; often without having looked through a bridle. Those taken up for riding purposes or for breeding are of course the pick of the droves, and thus we find an active force at work which is calculated to lower the average standard of quality among the wild ponies.