In considering the various efforts which from time to time have been made in the direction of improvement by the introduction of fresh blood, we must bear in mind that the mares on which such experiments have been made are those which have been taken up by farmers and kept within fences. We cannot find that stallions of alien blood have ever been turned out to run on the moors, and in view of the conditions under which the moor ponies exist it is highly improbable that a stallion boasting such blood as would produce beneficial results on the native breed would long enough survive the exposure and scanty food to make any appreciable mark thereon. The endeavours, more or less continuous and successful, to improve the breed have been confined to the few, and have, therefore, produced little effect or none on the main stock.
Early in the present century Mr. Willing, of Torpeak, made successful experiments in crossing the Exmoor pony with the smaller variety peculiar to the Dartmoor “tors.” Mr. Wooton, of Woodlands, says a writer in the Field of 9th October, 1880, was in the habit of purchasing mares of this cross from Mr. Willing from about the year 1820, and possessed a considerable number of them. He used to put these to small thoroughbred horses standing in the district. The names of Trap, Tim Whiffler, Rover, and Glen Stuart are mentioned, and about 1860 he sent some of his Exmoor-Dartmoor mares to a small Arab belonging to Mr. Stewart Hawkins, of Ivybridge. Mr. Wooton’s endeavours to improve the Dartmoor breed are the first that were made on any considerable scale, so far as it is possible to discover.
About 1879 a resident who devoted much attention to the improvement of the Dartmoor breed introduced a brown stallion by Mr. Christopher Wilson’s Sir George out of Windsor Soarer, and as his mares—a selected lot, 12·2 to 13 hands, either brown or chestnut—came in use, put them to this pony with the object of getting early foals. The young stock thus got were carefully weeded out, the best stallions and mares only being retained. The colt foals were kept apart and at two years old put to the mares got by their sire. The experiment was very successful, browns, black-browns and chestnuts being the colours of this improved breed, which sold well.
Mr. S. Lang, of Bristol, some years prior to 1880 sent down two good stallions, Perfection and Hereford, for use in the district, but it is stated that these ponies were little patronised by the farmers. Hereford, a pure thoroughbred pony only 13 hands high, left a few beautiful foals behind him.
A description of Exmoor and Dartmoor ponies exhibited at the Newton Abbott Agricultural Show in May, 1875, may have had reference to these improved ponies. The following is quoted from the Field of 29th May in that year:—
“Instead of deteriorating the stock improves yearly, and the care which is now taken to infuse pure blood without harming the essential characteristics of the original denizen of the moor has succeeded in producing an animal of superlative merit, fitted for any kind of work, whether for the field, the road, or the collar. It must be observed that the word ‘moor’ should apply to Exmoor and the Bodmin wastes as well as the Forest of Dartmoor, Dartmoor Forest itself being within the precincts of the Duchy of Cornwall. The moor pony or galloway of 14 hands is often in reality a little horse; and when it is stated that Tom Thumb, the well-known hunter of Mr. Trelawny, was a direct descendant of the celebrated Rough Tor pony of Landue, and that Foster by Gainsborough, belonging to the late Mr. Phillips, of Landue, carrying for many years fifteen stone and upwards in the first flight, was from a moor pony near Ivybridge, the assertion is not made without bringing strong collateral proof of the validity of the statement. Moreover, a host of other examples could be added. These animals possess many of the properties of the thorough-bred—speed, activity, any amount of stay, with legs of steel; they can jump as well as the moor sheep, and much after the same fashion, for no hedge fence can stop either one or the other.”
For the information of those interested in this breed the following descriptions furnished to the Polo Pony Society for their Stud Book (vol. v.) by Local Committees may be quoted:
(THE EXMOOR DIVISION.)
The Exmoor pony should average 12 hands and never be above 13 hands; moorland bred; generally dark bay or brown with black points, wide forehead and nostril; mealy nose; sharp ears; good shoulders and back; short legs, with good bone and fair action.
There are a few grey ponies in Sir Thomas Acland’s herd, but no chestnuts.