About the end of the eighteenth century a Mr. Gilchrist employed on his farm in Sutherlandshire as many as ten “garrons” to carry peats from the hills and seaweed from the shore. These burdens were carried in crates or panniers:
“The little creatures do wonders; they set out at peep of day and never halt till the work of the day be finished—going 48 miles.”[8]
[8] Husbandry in Scotland, published by Creech, Edinburgh, 1784.
At the present time the most conspicuous field of utility open to the Scottish pony is that offered by the grouse-moors and deer-forests, though in the close season general farm and draught work affords them employment. A pony of from 13 to 14 hands may be strong enough for a man of average weight to ride on the grouse-moor; but for deer-stalking a sturdy cob of from 14 to 15 hands is necessary, a smaller animal is not equal to the task of carrying a heavy man or a 17-stone stag over the rough hills and valleys among which his work lies.
The origin of the “Sheltie,” like that of the other breeds considered in the foregoing pages, is unknown. Mr. James Goudie, whose essay on The Early History of the Shetland Pony is published in the first volume of the Shetland Pony Stud Book thinks there is every likelihood that it was brought to the islands from Scotland at some very early period. The “Bressay Stone,” a sculptured slab which was discovered in Bressay in 1864, bears, among other designs in low relief, the figure of a horse on which a human figure is seated. “As this monument is admitted by authorities on the subject to belong to a period before the Celtic Christianity of the islands disappeared under the shock of Norwegian invasion [A.D. 872], it may be inferred ... that the animal was known and probably found in the islands at this period.” Early writers state that the Scandinavian invaders introduced the foundation stock some time prior to the fifteenth century. Buchanan makes passing reference to the Orkney and Shetland ponies in his History of Scotland, written three centuries ago: but the first description which has completeness to recommend it is that of Brand, who visited the islands in 1700 and wrote A Brief Description of Orkney, Zetland, Pightland, Firth and Caithness, which was published at Edinburgh in the following year. This author writes:—
“They are of a less size than the Orkney Horses, for some will be but 9, others 10 nives or hand-breadths high, and they will be thought big Horses there if 11, and although so small yet they are full of vigour and life, and some not so high as others often prove to be the strongest.... Summer or winter they never come into an house but run upon the mountains, in some places in flocks; and if any time in Winter the storm be so great that they are straitened for food they will come down from the Hills when the ebb is in the sea and eat the sea-ware ... which Winter storms and scarcity of fodder puts them out of ease and bringeth them so very low that they recover not their strength till St. John’s Mass-day, the 24th of June, when they are at their best. They will live to a considerable age, as twenty-six, twenty-eight or thirty years, and they will be good riding horses in twenty-four, especially they’le be the more vigorous and live the longer if they be four years old before they be put to work. Those of a black colour are judged to be the most durable and the pyeds often prove not so good; they have been more numerous than they now are.”
Bengie, in his Tour in Shetland (1870), after remarking on their sure-footedness and hardiness of constitutions, suggests that the sagacity, spirit and activity for which they are remarkable may be due to the freedom of the life they live on the hills. “They are sprightly and active as terriers, sure-footed as mules and patient as donkeys.” They stand, he adds, at the head of the horse tribe as the most intelligent and faithful of them all; and he compares the intelligence of the Sheltie with that of the Iceland pony much to the advantage of the former. “Shorter in the leg than any other kind,” says Mr. Robert Brydon, of Seaham Harbour, “they are at the same time wider in the body and shorter in the back, with larger bones, thighs and arms; and therefore are comparatively stronger and able to do with ease as much work as average ponies of other breeds a hand higher.” The Shetland Stud Book Society will register no pony whose height exceeds 10 hands 2 inches, and the average height may be taken as 10 hands: many do not exceed 9 hands, and a lady who wrote an account of a visit to Shetland in 1840 speaks of one reared by Mr. William Hay, of Hayfield, which was only 26 inches, or 6 hands 2 inches high! It is however, unusual to find a pony measuring less than 8 hands at the shoulder, and we may perhaps doubt whether the 26-inch specimen was full-grown.
In colour the Shetlander varies: bays, browns and dullish blacks are most common: sometimes these hues are relieved by white markings and occasionally white specimens occur: piebalds are rare. The coat in winter is long, close and shaggy, fit protection against the inclemency of the weather the pony endures without cover or shelter: in spring the heavy winter coat is shed, and in the summer months the hair is short and sleek.
In former times it was customary to hobble the ponies; but this practice, which must have done much to spoil their naturally good action, has been abandoned for many years.
It is now usual to give the ponies a ration of hay in the winter months when the vegetation is covered deep with snow, and thus the losses by starvation, which formerly were heavy in severe winters, are obviated. Otherwise the Sheltie’s conditions of life to-day differ little from those that prevailed three centuries ago. Mr. Meiklejohn, of Bressay, states that in April, generally, the crofters turn their ponies out upon the common pasture lands, and leave them to their own devices. On common pastures where there are no stallions the mares are caught for service and tethered until the foal is born and can follow freely, when mother and child are turned out again.