Ponies past and present

by Sir Walter Gilbey

Elsenham Hall, Essex,
August, 1900.

PONIES PAST AND PRESENT

INTRODUCTION.

In another volume, Horses Past and Present, brief reference has been made to the early subjugation of the horse in Eastern countries by man; and it is unnecessary here to further touch upon that phase of our subject.

The early history of the horse in the British Islands is obscure. The animal is not indigenous to the country, and it is supposed that the original stock was brought to England many centuries before the Christian era by the Phœnician navigators who visited the shores of Cornwall to procure supplies of tin. However that may be, the first historian who rendered any account of our islands for posterity found here horses which he regarded as of exceptional merit. Julius Cæsar, when he invaded Britain in the year 55 B.C., was greatly impressed with the strength, handiness, and docility of the horses which the ancient Britons drove in their war chariots; his laudatory description of their merits includes no remark concerning their size, and from this omission we may infer that they were not larger than the breeds of horses with which Cæsar’s travels and conquests had already made him acquainted.

There can be no doubt but that these chariot horses were small by comparison with their descendants—the modern Shire horses;[1] they probably did not often exceed 14 hands, and were therefore much on a par in point of height with the horses Cæsar had seen in Spain and elsewhere. It is unlikely that so shrewd an observer would have refrained from comment on the point had the British horses been superior in size, as they were in qualities, to the breeds he already knew. It is doubtful indeed whether the horses of Britain gained in stature to any material extent until the Saxons and Danes introduced horses from the Continent. These being for military purposes would have been stallions without exception, and being larger than the British breed must have done something to produce increase of height when crossed with our native mares.

[1] See “The Great Horse or War Horse.” By Sir Walter Gilbey, Bart. 3rd edition, 1899. Vinton & Co., Ltd.

This being the case, we are confronted with the difficulty of distinguishing between the horses and ponies of these early times; the chroniclers do not attempt to differentiate between “horse” and “pony” as we understand the terms. The process of developing a big horse was necessarily a slow one, from the system, or want of system, which remained in vogue until the fifteenth century, and was still in existence in some parts of England in Henry VIII.’s time. During the long period the greater portion of the country lay under forest and waste, it was the practice to let those mares which were kept solely for breeding purposes run at large in the woodlands, unbroken and unhandled. Doomsday Book contains frequent mention of equæ silvestres, equæ silvaticæ, or equæ indomitæ when enumerating the live stock on a manor; and there is evidence to show that these animals (always mares, it will be observed) were under a modified degree of supervision. They were branded to prove their ownership, and during the summer selected mares appear to have been “rounded up” to an enclosure in the forest for service. Apart from this they ranged the country at large, strangers alike to collar and bridle. It would be unreasonable to suppose that the mares which were employed in agricultural work were not also used for breeding; the surroundings of the farmer’s mare in those days were not luxurious, but she undoubtedly enjoyed shelter from the rigours of winter and more nourishing food than her woodland sister. Hence it is probable that the first differences in size, make and shape among English horses may be traced to their domestic or woodland ancestry on the dam’s side.

The life led by these equæ indomitæ made for hardiness of constitution, soundness of limb, surefootedness, and small stature; and we venture to think that the half-wild ponies England possesses to-day in the New Forest, Exmoor, Wales and the Fell country are (or were, until comparatively modern endeavours were made to improve them) the lineal descendants of the woodland stock which is frequently referred to in ancient records, and which in 1535 and 1541 Henry VIII. made vigorous attempts to exterminate.