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.
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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