Dartmoor Ponies!!!!!

Devonshire dumpling

Devonshire dumpling

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Well decided to take my 2 girls to see Dartmoor prison today, spent ages winding them up and scaring them and making them lock the car doors (aged 11 and 4) muahh haaa.

Anyway we decided to have a walk on the moor on the way home and in our carpark there were some very cheeky young ponies intent on sticking their heads through my car windows!! One had very minty breath so think someone had been naughty and feeding them!

I must say we did enjoy the ponies having a good old conversation with us with their heads stuck in the car investigating!

They were very cute... took loads of silly pics hehe .. Do love our natives! xx
 
Exmoors are my favourite as all pure! But these youngsters were seriously cheeky! I told hubby off for opening the car window and giving them a fuss,but like he pointed out to me the damage has already been done! They were quite obviously looking for food and one has breath like an extra strong mint! lol
 
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Over fifty years ago they used to hold a rodeo and auction of Dartmoor ponies fresh off the moor in the car park behind the Odeon (?) cinema in Paignton. The RSPCA eventually stopped it. You could buy a nice pony for £5 - £8 and a real cracker for £20. We kids rode Dartmoors and played "Cowboys and Indians". No saddles and our bridles were made of hay string!

But I have to say they were all typical Dartmor ponies which the ponies in the pictures, though cute, are not -- at least, not as I remember.
 
My mum bought a dartmoor for a pound when she was my age. :P

OP if you ever get a chance to go there in the spring it's lovely to see the foals out on the moors. :)
 
Sorry was out yesterday on Exmoor!! haha

To me it looked like its had tags in its ears????? Just like sheeps ears they were!

I did see a couple purebred Dartmoors, but they were in the distance :-(

There is one foalie photo :-)

They were very cute but far too tame and fighting around my car, I soon moved off haha XX

Very interesting about the round up etc, they still round them up once a year not sure when, but they brand them and worm etc i think!

found this on wikipedia :-Piebald and skewbald colouring is not permitted within the Dartmoor Pony breed. Ponies with this colouring, seen running on Dartmoor, are likely to be Dartmoor Hill Ponies as Dartmoor commoners may graze any type of pony out on the moors.[3] The Dartmoor Hill Pony is classified as a pony born on Dartmoor, but not a purebred registered Dartmoor Pony. It is not a true breed as such, as the registry for Dartmoor Hill Ponies is open only to those born on the moors, so a pony born of two Dartmoor Hill ponies, but not born on the moors, could not be registered with the Dartmoor Hill Pony Association. So thats what they are! lol


Most Dartmoor ponies stand between 11.1 to 12.2 hands (45 to 50 inches, 114 to 127 cm); a pony should stand at no more than 12.2 hands under the breed standard, introduced in 1924. Recognised colours include bay, brown, black, grey, chestnut or roan.[2]

XX
 
Heres a few more, the last photo being the traditional dartmoors you remember?? they were snoozing in the drizzle! Typical Dartmoor every few mins we had different weather!
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Giggled at this as its the sort of thing we do to our girls scaring them half to death! My eldest who is 13 we used to tell her we were gonna swap her for a white pony lol! :D:D
 
skydancer said:
Giggled at this as its the sort of thing we do to our girls scaring them half to death! My eldest who is 13 we used to tell her we were gonna swap her for a white pony lol! :D:D
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We told them on cloudy days ( was cloudy) its a hotspot for the prisioners escaping and they would look for a family car as the police wouldnt think of looking for a family car ( we have a grand scenic).. and they usually kidnap little girls and use them as randsom for when the police catch them! The 4 yr old was laughing the 11 yr old was freaking


muahhh haaaa haaaa loll
 
The ear marks on the coloured are the farmers identification marks sections of the ear in a certain shape of area of the ear is removed. Sheep and cattle have them too
 
lovely pics, even if they're not the 'proper' dartmoors of our youth ,it's still a nice sight:D
As a teen i lived in somerset for a while, we used to love going up on the Quantocks and looking for the ponies:)
 
Well, this thread bought back some memories. I haven't been on Dartmoor for 16 years now. I lived in Bovey then, and way back in the 80's - worked out at Yelverton and Meavy, and I did trail rides from Two Bridges too so the prison is pretty familiar, what a gloomy place that is, except for the Plume of Feathers that was always OK, we used to ride up there for drinks (although I have just read a review on it that wasn't so great)

It is always the hills and the tinyness (is that a word) of the roads that gets to me. We don't do hills, or small roads here, or even bends much come to think of it :(
 
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Enfys said:
Well, this thread bought back some memories. I haven't been on Dartmoor for 16 years now. I lived in Bovey then, and way back in the 80's - worked out at Yelverton and Meavy, and I did trail rides from Two Bridges too so the prison is pretty familiar, what a gloomy place that is, except for the Plume of Feathers that was always OK, we used to ride up there for drinks (although I have just read a review on it that wasn't so great)

It is always the hills and the tinyness (is that a word) of the roads that gets to me. We don't do hills, or small roads here, or even bends much come to think of it :(
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I am going to post a photo of the prison just for you!! haha
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Scary isn't it!!!
 
The only thing that worries me is that there is alot of ponies on the moor yet the true dartmoor and exmoor for that matter are dying out . The main thing is not to get them confused because there nice ponies (or at lest some of them are ). Dartmoor need to be seen as normal ponies though not just show ponies , they can be true alrounders and competition ponies . Some of the ponies in the pictures are so cute though.
 
Devonshire dumpling said:
I am going to post a photo of the prison just for you!! haha
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Scary isn't it!!!
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Thankyou :)

I don't think that I have EVER seen the sun shine over that place :( It is scarey, a friend of mine worked there as a Counsellor and said it is seriously depressing inside - "as it b***** should be!" he always used to add.
 
social outcast said:
The only thing that worries me is that there is alot of ponies on the moor yet the true dartmoor and exmoor for that matter are dying out . The main thing is not to get them confused because there nice ponies (or at lest some of them are ). Dartmoor need to be seen as normal ponies though not just show ponies , they can be true alrounders and competition ponies . Some of the ponies in the pictures are so cute though.
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I know what you mean, but those coloured ponies I poster are commoner ponies we found out, there are some true Dartmoor ponies up there. As regards Exmoor, the Exmoor pony is still pure on the moors and see plenty ..... alot go to Paington Zoo as ponies are cheaper than cows!!!!
 
Enfys said:
Thankyou :)

I don't think that I have EVER seen the sun shine over that place :( It is scarey, a friend of mine worked there as a Counsellor and said it is seriously depressing inside - "as it b***** should be!" he always used to add.
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It always surprises me how big it is! Also all the houses in Princetown are grey... the whole place is grey!! lol
 
Princetown is always bleak.
I have two rescued Dartmoors tho I only intended to get one. We came back from the field to find a little dun yearling trying to climb into the LandRover so we agreed to take them both.
 
I spent most of my teenage years living up in Princetown! As you can imagine, not a great deal to do.
We rescued quite a few moorland ponies whilst we were there. We had a little orphaned foal called Annie whose dam was sadly hit by a car. we had 15 foals at one point that we picked up from the farmer who just wanted rid of them. We even had one who was only about 3 months old who was separated from his mum at the pony drift bless him. They were all fantastic little ponies and we managed to find them good homes after they were halter broken and used to people.
It is a bleak place to live, but beautiful too
 
emmanash said:
I spent most of my teenage years living up in Princetown! As you can imagine, not a great deal to do.
We rescued quite a few moorland ponies whilst we were there. We had a little orphaned foal called Annie whose dam was sadly hit by a car. we had 15 foals at one point that we picked up from the farmer who just wanted rid of them. We even had one who was only about 3 months old who was separated from his mum at the pony drift bless him. They were all fantastic little ponies and we managed to find them good homes after they were halter broken and used to people.
It is a bleak place to live, but beautiful too
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It's funny you say its a bleak place to live, but beautiful too! My husband describes the Prison as so ugly and vast that its actually pretty amongst the background! I kind of get what he is saying!
 
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