Plight of the Dartmoor pony-opinions wanted!

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Juni141

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Following on from the Bodmin pony thread and the discussion about (lack of) breeding control, I would be really interested to know if anyone else is following the plight of the Dartmoor/Dartmoor Hill ponies and the current debate that is raging on about how best to manage the ponies on the moor?

Here are a few articles explaining the situation, including details of Robyn Petrie-Ritchie's thesis on the pony management:

http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk...artmoor-help/story-21656972-detail/story.html

http://www.dartmoorpreservation.com...2-news-from-friends-of-the-dartmoor-hill-pony

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...moor-ponies-shot-animal-feed-fall-demand.html

(Miraculously, a Daily Fail article that is fairly accurate!)

http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk...ponies-issue/story-22766917-detail/story.html


It is an incredibly emotive subject and I think it is a wider reflection of the horse world in the UK today in terms of how to manage the continually growing horse/pony population combined with the ever increasing costs of keeping equines. All opinions welcome, the more publicity this subject gets the better!
 
OP, I have read a fair bit on it.

IMHO, if the non-pure bred ponies were removed completely, there would be no big problematic issues with over breeding & the subsequent overgrazing.

Not many will like that sentence above, but that is purely my opinion. They are (the Hill pony) to all intents, a mixed breed and one that is not recognised as a pure bred native of the UK because there is such mixed breeding.

The pure bred ponies would then have a better chance to flourish - just like Exmoor ponies do :)

TFF, fully expecting a blasting, but the above is MY opinion :)
 
TFF I think you are right, the first step needs to be removing the stallions that are not purebred from the moor and bringing the breeding under control. The current quality, and by quality I mean conformation, type, 'usability' etc, is absolutely shocking and rendering them worthless.

If the only stallions running up there were purebred and therefore subject to stringent conditions i.e. would only be approved by the DPS if they were of good enough quality then the standard of foals would improve.
 
The Fuzzy Furry said:
OP, I have read a fair bit on it.

IMHO, if the non-pure bred ponies were removed completely, there would be no big problematic issues with over breeding & the subsequent overgrazing.

Not many will like that sentence above, but that is purely my opinion. They are (the Hill pony) to all intents, a mixed breed and one that is not recognised as a pure bred native of the UK because there is such mixed breeding.

The pure bred ponies would then have a better chance to flourish - just like Exmoor ponies do :)

TFF, fully expecting a blasting, but the above is MY opinion :)
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You'll get no argument from me. Much as I hate to advocate culling, it would make sense to eradicate the hill ponies, and focus on the purebreds.
 
Auslander said:
You'll get no argument from me. Much as I hate to advocate culling, it would make sense to eradicate the hill ponies, and focus on the purebreds.
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The sad thing is Auslander is there is already much culling happening but just to manage rather than solve or remedy the situation. I grew up on Dartmoor and spent most of my childhood out on the moor on various 'hill' ponies, as in bred on the moor, sold at the pony sales and raised and broken locally... All these ponies were 11-12.2hh, bay or black with the very occasional (shock horror!) chestnut with barely any white markings. Essentially unregistered Darties. Now you go up there and the poor ponies are horrendous and most of them pretty much useless.
 
When this has been brought up in the past I've dared to say remove the hill ponies and only allow those registered or of correct breed type to run on the moor, as on Exmoor. Those who haven't witnessed first hand get very upset about this. There will always be the occasional post about their quality hill pony, a few are fine. However the majority are poor, and bear no resemblence in shape or colour to Darties. They are a cash crop, so when coloureds became popular, coloureds were allowed to run so now many are not solid colours, but anything you can think of (including spotties). Hill ponies are not a breed, just something that was born on the moor. They could be left on Bodmin, for those who want hill ponies. To be frank though, if they were such superb animals most would not go for cheap meat at the local sales. It is a real issue to feed the hill ponies in a hard winter. Being a cash crop that makes little profit the farmers financially struggle to provide additional feed. They aren't marked, so if any are found in a bad way the owner can't be traced, so they are easily disposed of. The snowy winter there were ponies literally starving to death on Bodmin, SWEP did a great job trying to get feed to them.
 
There are the same problems with the 'hill' ponies on the commons in Wales. They are a cash crop as they have to spend no money on them before they go to slaughter, if they travel of the hill straight to the slaughterhouse no passport is needed, so if they only make £10 they have made £10.
Please think about signing this petition, the idea is to make trading standards enforce existing regulations, so that all mares and colts have to be passported .

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/66742

I think if all animals had to be passported before 2months ie before weaning there would be no profit and an less incentive to breed for the meat market mainly for animal consumption.
 
I agree. If the world were a sensible place, Dartmoor would have a managed breeding programme, a bit like the New Forest; the Dartmoor pony would be true to type, and valued the world over as the finest first-ridden money can buy!

Instead, too many hill ponies have no value, and crap lives. Meanwhile we lose valuable bloodlines, and hundreds of children struggle with unsuitable sneaky Shetland and fiery Welsh, when they should be charging about on kind, honest, safe little Darties.

[Gratuitous picture of Buster - just because it's my favourite...]
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If you look into the history of the Dartmoor Hill Pony you will find they have been bred for various work purposes over the years. Sadly many had been shipped overseas to become pet food and handbags for many years without many of us realizing. Live Exports have been banned ( in theory) which has resulted in ponies being used for zoo meat and now promoted for meat for humans. The hill pony has evolved to live on the moor and has adapted brilliantly through the decades. They make fantastic riding/driving/companion ponies. The purebred pony will never return to the moor. The pony keepers need to seek other forms of income, hand the management to DNPA.
 
Further to above I think this is representative of equine and other companion animal crisis in the uk. I think that in order to breed any companion animal a license should be obtained. Any breeding without the license should be fined a large sum of money
 
Why on earth would you hand the management to the DNPA!? They struggle enough with all they have to do at the moment. The commoners should sort this out themselves if they consider there is a problem and regulate their herds accordingly.
 
I do not understand why anyone would think the dartmoor pony would not manage on the moor there are several privately owned studs of high quality registered dartmoor ponies doing just that. Round up and geld / ligate the mares/neuter or destroy all the scrub mixed breed ponies and then start to increase the registered ones they are a wonderful breed who are endangered. It is such a shame to see the suffering that goes on Charities and defra need to support the existing welfare laws get their finger out and ensure fines are prohibitive, imposed and if not paid horses regardless of circumstance the horses/ponies destroyed. As OH said today if you don't pay fines for driving offenses your car is crushed If you dont keep your horse according to the law it should be impounded and PTS no questions asked and no quarter given the fines would pay for the law to be enforced
Sounds harsh but something needs to be done
 
I agree with the Fuzzy Furry.
The moor should be rid of 'hill ponies' and only registered Dartmoor stock allowed. The option of ahem, 'organic Tafferty' is just another way of breeding any size or type of pony for meat and making it seem OK, whilst really its a way of allowing more mixed breed stock to propagate and hand 'owners' of hill ponies a few quid per head. Some, I won't say all, of the commoners ihave created a monster and largely, profit and bullheadedness are at the centre of it.
Rid the moor of mixed breeds and let the Dartmoor ponies have a renaissance. They will be a tourist draw again, let's face it, you can see hill pony types almost anywhere.
Windandrain, how can studs allow their purebred Dartmoor ponies on the moor? The risk of impregnation by a shetland cross whatever must be worrying.
 
I remember reading last year a breeder of bodmin hill ponies was using a welsh d stallion to increase the size and quality of his stock. These surely wouldn't be bhp, but welsh crosses. Most dhp and bhp poor quality meat stock, if they were any good they would be snapped up at the local sales, which few are bought for riding, most go for (lion) meat. They go for coloured ponies to get a few more quid for them when sold for riding. Name a colour, it will be found there, no thought for producing a pure breeding standard as they are all very different, no true type, there I would suggest there is no such breed as a dartmoor or bodmin hill pony.

True dartes are cracking ponies.
 
Spot_the_Risk said:
Why on earth would you hand the management to the DNPA!? They struggle enough with all they have to do at the moment. The commoners should sort this out themselves if they consider there is a problem and regulate their herds accordingly.
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The commoners have not resolved the situation to date if you look at the commoners minutes you will see that 400 unmarked ponies were "removed" this year. There has just been a drift and many others will go the same way. A government body needs to step in and resolve the situation - bring in fines or financial incentives to force breeders to stop breeding.
 
The hill ponies need sorted. There are far too many of them and their conformation is getting worse. Round them up, castrate the males and gradually take them off the moors and into the zoo's as meat. They may as well have a purpose at the end of the day.

My darty was born and bred on the moors. He is from the Shilstone Rocks stud with the very best of bloodlines. I honestly don't know how he survived 3 years on the moor as this pony can't gallop to save himself and he isn't the greatest of jumpers lol!

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But surely these ponies are privately owned and being grazed on private land or land to which the pony owners have grazing rights. It is simply not possible to round them up, geld or cull them without owners' permission, same as the sheep on Dartmoor couldn't just be removed.
 
EKW said:
The hill ponies need sorted. There are far too many of them and their conformation is getting worse. Round them up, castrate the males and gradually take them off the moors and into the zoo's as meat. They may as well have a purpose at the end of the day.

My darty was born and bred on the moors. He is from the Shilstone Rocks stud with the very best of bloodlines. I honestly don't know how he survived 3 years on the moor as this pony can't gallop to save himself and he isn't the greatest of jumpers lol!





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Love the Shilstone Rocks ponies, such a bunch of multi talented ponies :)
 
The Fuzzy Furry said:
OP, I have read a fair bit on it.

IMHO, if the non-pure bred ponies were removed completely, there would be no big problematic issues with over breeding & the subsequent overgrazing.

Not many will like that sentence above, but that is purely my opinion. They are (the Hill pony) to all intents, a mixed breed and one that is not recognised as a pure bred native of the UK because there is such mixed breeding.

The pure bred ponies would then have a better chance to flourish - just like Exmoor ponies do :)

TFF, fully expecting a blasting, but the above is MY opinion :)
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With you on this. Hill Ponies are not Dartmoors. They are part bred, if even that.
 
The Fuzzy Furry said:
OP, I have read a fair bit on it.

IMHO, if the non-pure bred ponies were removed completely, there would be no big problematic issues with over breeding & the subsequent overgrazing.

Not many will like that sentence above, but that is purely my opinion. They are (the Hill pony) to all intents, a mixed breed and one that is not recognised as a pure bred native of the UK because there is such mixed breeding.

The pure bred ponies would then have a better chance to flourish - just like Exmoor ponies do :)

TFF, fully expecting a blasting, but the above is MY opinion :)
Click to expand...

Agree with you there - the need to retain the purity of a lovely breed is so important.

Here in NZ we have a similar problem with the Kaimanawa horses, they are descendents of escaped and/or released horses on the Kaimanawa ranges started over a hundred years ago. They are no particular breed and herds in different areas of the ranges show different characteristics depending on the stallions released there. Our problem is that the ranges are home of many rare native plants and the Kaimanawas either eat them or damage then as they pass through.

Some years ago the musters started, herds are rounded up and brought into yards set up by DOC, the Army - who are based on the ranges and people from the Kaimanawa Societies. These horses have no owners so prior to the roundup people are allowed to apply for a horse and subject to the home being vetted they will be allocated one of the horses. The demand has reduced over the years but the majority are found homes. Sadly many of the older horses - usually stallions are destroyed as they are not suitable for rehoming. Every horse is assessed by the vets in attendance.

The idea behind it is to reduce the herds to manageable numbers so that they can still roam the ranges and the plants remain safe.

I believe they have also tried the contraceptive way to keep numbers down.
 
I don't know anything about Dartmoor ponies; I do know this though - the lack of regulation and pure greed has got the situation out of control.

Non-natives are turned out in Wales, Dartmoor etc and endlessly breed. Huge herds of coloured cobs are just left to their own devices across the Country.

Until the larger charities stand together and tell DEFRA/Government that they simply can't cope with the numbers, nothing will change.
 
The moor bred registered ponies are in selected fenced areas that is why they are not mixed breed the enclosures are in square miles but still on the moor. Shilston Rocks, Moortown and many others have horses that are on their own land on the moor but they are still fending for themselves in the same way as the hill ponies in fact are better at it as they are bred there and for generations have been there. The hill ponies are usually born there but their forefathers are usually so called improvement stallions including arabs tb and coloured cobs the stallions struggle and either die up there or are removed for the winter, their off spring adapt but are usually smaller and less well conformed as they are not grown on in the way these other types need to be. So you end up with scrubby ponies many of whom when removed as foals grow to their genetic height and look wonderful but who if left on the moor past weaning would die or be stunted. It is high time something was done and the only way is to get the right animals doing the right job and in the right way with careful welfare roles supporting them. The laws exist we just don't have a force to implement them Money is as always the issue
 
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Thanks for your reply Windandrain, I had no idea that there were such enclosures. From what I have seen, a lot of Shetland/shetland crosses must have been released.
I do hope that the moors revert to a Dartmoor only locale!
 
I would like to see a law against entire colts/stallions running on common land. Anyone wishing to breed would have to run their mares with the stallion in an enclosure after which the mares could go back on the hills. It would be a start at getting the breeding under control. If the stallions had to be inspected and licensed, even better.
 
Can't really give a strong opinion, due to not really knowing enough about it, but when up on dartmoor last year doing a behaviour study, a friend and I came across three (clearly not dartmoor ponies) the let us touch all over and pick up feet ect! Clearly dumped and were desperately trying to get in with the herd we were monitoring!
 
Dartmoor is covered in snow today. This time of year many of the 'improved' crosses will struggle to survive. Lack of food and if there is a big freeze, water (leading to colic) are perennial issues. I've said before, these ponies are bred as stock. They wont put money into them as they want to make profit later on, and margins are very minimal due to the low prices they fetch. Unfortunately it doesn't stop the breeding, just more get abandoned to fend for themselves, ie starve. Herd owners wont change to pure bred dartes, as they would cost more to buy and meat is sold according to weight not breeding. I'd love to see dhp removed from the moor and replaced by true dartes. If people want to keep breeding hill ponies they can do it on bodmin, which doesn't have a pure bred type of pony.

We should treasure our pure bred natives for the cracking ponies they are. Once the type is gone, it can't be replaced. End of the day, dartes are the pony that evolved on the moor, it is their heritage and they ours.
 
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pip6 said:
I'd love to see dhp removed from the moor and replaced by true dartes. If people want to keep breeding hill ponies they can do it on bodmin, which doesn't have a pure bred type of pony.

We should treasure our pure bred natives for the cracking ponies they are. Once the type is gone, it can't be replaced. End of the day, dartes are the pony that evolved on the moor, it is their heritage and they ours.
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Well said but nobody will listen.
 
The Fuzzy Furry said:
OP, I have read a fair bit on it.

IMHO, if the non-pure bred ponies were removed completely, there would be no big problematic issues with over breeding & the subsequent overgrazing.

Not many will like that sentence above, but that is purely my opinion. They are (the Hill pony) to all intents, a mixed breed and one that is not recognised as a pure bred native of the UK because there is such mixed breeding.

The pure bred ponies would then have a better chance to flourish - just like Exmoor ponies do :)

TFF, fully expecting a blasting, but the above is MY opinion :)
Click to expand...

Yes........ I do agree.

Some of us will still remember Lady Sayer, back in the 1960's, and her attempts to curtail inter-breeding the pure native Dartmoor ponies on the moor, with coloured/feral stock, which has, over the years, only produced poor scrubby little ponies that no-one wants either to buy or keep.

The first thing that needs to be done as an emergency measure is to geld the stallions; FFS that's simple enough isn't it??

Then, there needs to be a cull (sorry - NOT palatable or fluffy bunny) of the poor quality mixed stock on the moor, and then a serious breeding programme put into place so that only what is on the moor is good quality and something that will sell to a market, this for Dartmoor ponies being the children's riding pony firstly, secondly driving ponies, thirdly, as good quality stock for "improving" i.e cross breeding with TB's, larger cobs etc. The main criteria being that they will sell, and that they will then earn their keep and be an asset that the Dartmoor farmers are prepared to put effort into, not have to make the heartbreaking choice of having them shot, which is currently the case.

Dear old Lady Sayer (and others too, it has to be said) must be turning in their graves at the sorry plight of one of our best and most valuable native breeds...........

My grandmother had a little Dartmoor pony which she drove in a trap. She was a farmer's wife and this is what these ponies were used for, among other things. It is a tragedy that the breed has allowed to degenerate like this.
 
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