“When safe in foal they are turned out to the higher allotments and the open fell with their foals, where they run from July to November; save in exceptionally hard winters they get no hand feeding in the shape of hay, as they thrive and do well in the rough open allotments, to which they are generally brought down in November to remain until the end of March.
“In height these ponies run from 12 to 13 hands, and with the exception of two blacks all are of uniform rich dark bay colour with black points. Just at first, when brought in wild to break, they are a little nervous, but if kindly treated soon become very docile and easily handled. They are very easily broken both for riding and driving, and ponies comparatively quite small carry with ease men of ordinary stature. They are the most useful means of locomotion in crossing the mountain ranges and traversing the hilly roads of the district. Although of no great size these ponies are very muscular, their bones and joints are fine, hard and clean, and, generally speaking, they have good middles. Some are perhaps a little short in quarter, but with a fair shoulder, and their legs, ankles and feet are all that can be desired. There certainly seems to be very fair field in the district for breeding ponies, as they are very cheaply and easily reared, and when fit to break in can be disposed of for a very fairly good figure.”
The Cumberland “Fell-siders” are wedded to the customs and usages of their ancestors, and endeavours to promote schemes for the general improvement of the ponies have met with small success. Colonel Green-Thompson, of Bridekirk, Cockermouth, in 1897, offered the farmers the opportunity of using an Arab stallion, but the chance of thus bettering their stock appears to have been neglected by the breeders. This is to be regretted, for the fells and dales offer thousands of acres of good, sound grazing land which might be far more profitably devoted to pony-breeding than given up to the few scattered flocks of Herdwick sheep which they now carry. The sheep farmers of Caldbeck and Matterdale in Cumberland pay some attention to the business, asserting that the ponies are less trouble and involve less risk than sheep. Their fillies are put to the horse at two years old, and they frequently obtain a second foal before sending the dam to market. The colts command a readier sale than the mares. The ordinary Fell pony, outside the district, is in demand for pit work, for which purpose suitable animals bring from £12 to £15.
Mr. W. W. Wingate-Saul supplies the following description of the Fell ponies:—
“A very powerful and compact cobby build, the majority having a strong middle piece with deep chest and strong loin characteristics, which, combined with deep sloping shoulders and fine withers, make them essentially weight-carrying riding ponies. The prevailing—indeed, the only—colours are black, brown, bay, and, quite occasionally, grey. I do not remember ever having seen a chestnut, and if I found one I should think it due to the introduction of other blood. The four colours prevail in the order named, the best animals often being get black and usually without white markings, unless it be a small white star. The head is pony-like and intelligent, with large bright eyes and well-placed ears. The neck in the best examples being long enough to give a good rein to the rider. The hind quarters are square and strong, with a well-set-on tail. The legs have more bone than those of any of our breeds; ponies under 14 hands often measuring 8-1/2 inches below the knee. Their muscularity of arm, thigh and second thigh is marvellous. Their habitat (having been bred for centuries on the cold inhospitable Fells, where they are still to be found) has caused a wonderful growth of hair, the winter coat being heavy and the legs growing a good deal of fine hair, all of which, excepting some at the point of the heel, is cast in summer. Constitutionally they are hard as iron, with good all-round action, and are very fast and enduring.”
IRELAND—THE CONNEMARA PONY.
Richard Berenger, Gentleman of the Horse to King George III. in his work, The History and Art of Horsemanship, 1771—says that—
“Ireland has for many centuries boasted a race of horses called Hobbies, valued for their easy paces and other pleasing and agreeable qualities, of a middling size, strong, nimble, well moulded and hardy.... The nobility have stallions of great reputation belonging to them, but choose to breed for the Turf in preference to other purposes; for which, perhaps, their country is not so well qualified, from the moisture of the atmosphere, and other causes, which hinder it from improving that elastic force and clearness of wind; and which are solely the gifts of a dry soil, and an air more pure and refined. This country, nevertheless, is capable of producing fine and noble horses.”
The great stud maintained in England by Edward III. (1327-1377) included a number of Hobbies which were procured from Ireland. A French chronicler named Creton, who wrote a Metrical History of the Deposition of Richard II.,[6] refers with great admiration to the Irish horses of the period. He evidently accompanied King Richard during his expedition to Ireland in the summer of 1399, for he says the horses of that country “scour the hills and vallies fleeter than deer;” and he states that the horse ridden by Macmore, an Irish chieftain, “without housing or saddle was worth 400 cows.”
[6] See vol. xx. of Archeologia for prose translation.