Soundness

When a prospective Fell Pony owner asked about the soundness of a pony I had for sale, I sighed heavily. While the pony in question was sound, I have found the topic to be complicated. When I think of soundness in these hardy ponies, I think primarily of stifle issues. I have been on the buying side, the selling side, and the breeding side of the topic. A breeder in the UK told me it’s an unspoken-about problem in the breed.

I once imported a pony that was sound when it left England, sound when it arrived here, and lame within a year. I eventually sold that pony, fully disclosing the issues to the buyer. Fortunately for that pony, it has landed in a home where it is being brought to soundness through a lot of dedication of the owner.

I once bought a three-year-old with the intention of breeding it. It was sound its entire time with its breeder, but it was lame within three months here. It came from flat ground and here is anything but. I had it evaluated by numerous veterinarians, and they all assured me it would grow out of the problem. I found a home for that pony, again fully disclosing the issues and the evaluations to the buyer. As far as I know, it has remained sound as it has aged.

I once sold a weanling that was sound when it left. A year later it began to have issues. In that situation, I wondered about proper mineral supplementation as well as whether it had had enough room to move about as it was growing up. This pony has grown out of the issue. Not all do. I was contacted by someone with a pony of very different breeding that was mature and still had stifle issues. Fortunately, it is well-loved by its owner.

I share these stories because they illustrate that soundness in the form of stifle issues are present in the breed, as they are in many pony breeds. There are conformation aspects and management aspects that can make the issue better or worse. I also share these stories because while a pony may be sound at one point in its life, it may have problems later. Or it may have problems and then have them completely go away. Pre-purchase exams when available are a good idea.

As a steward of this breed, it frustrates me that we have these problems and that they are so hard to predict either for the buyer or seller. From my research, the best prevention is 1) avoid straight hind legs and steeply sloping croups; 2) make sure a pony has adequate and appropriate vitamins and minerals at all stages of its life; 3) keep the pony from becoming overweight and staying that way; and 4) give the pony plenty of room to move on a regular basis, just as it would if it still lived on the terrain from which it takes its name. I have had good luck with modified track systems when on small acreages.

There is a chapter from one of my books about the conformation of the hind end and a discussion of stifle issues. If you would like to read that chapter, click here and I will send it to you.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2023

The Forgotten Hind End

This article originally appeared in the April 2017 edition of Fell Pony News from Willowtrail Farm.

Highlights:

• One of the criticisms my husband has of many modern day Fell Ponies is that they lack power in the hind end.  A mountain pony, to his way of thinking, should have a sufficiently muscular hind end to enable them to carry themselves (and a rider or load) strongly up steep inclines and hold back those same loads on the way back down.  Many modern day Fell Ponies, in his estimation, have hind ends inadequate to that task.
• There is an important question to answer of course.  Is the strong, round, well-muscled hindquarter that I like consistent with the breed standard?
• After considering the breed standard from various perspectives, I conclude that the hind end I liked on my first Fell mare falls within the breed standard and may even have been a good representation of it.
• It turns out that light hind quarters and straighter-than-desirable hind legs like I’m seeing in my search for males isn’t just a Fell Pony problem.
• I received a phone call from a Fell Pony owner, and after asking me several other questions, they asked if sticky stifles were common in the breed.
• Stifle issues may be as much or more a management issue than a conformation one; a good colt in one person’s hands/management situation may develop stifle issues and in another person’s hands/management situation be just fine.
• It doesn’t take much reflection to realize that if work on hills is a first-line of defense against sticky stifles, then Fell Ponies who are raised on their native fells are getting the movement-on-hills work in the course of their daily life that they need to have to avoid the problem. 
• Because of the presence – and perhaps prevalence - of straight hind legs and less-muscled hindquarters, we modern day Fell Pony enthusiasts have an opportunity to make a contribution to the breed.  We can and must make strengthening the hind quarters of our ponies a priority – through managing them for movement and selecting better breeding stock - especially since more and more ponies are living away from the fells where their bodies evolved.

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