Fell Ponies and Water

CHRISTINE ROBINSON'S PONIES IN THE SOLWAY FIRTH AT HIGH TIDE. COURTESY CHRISTINE ROBINSON

On an exceptionally high tide in the Solway Firth in the north of England (and south of Scotland), Christine Robinson released her Fell Ponies into the tidelands to see what they would do. Each of them behaved differently, but they all ventured into the water. “The reaction of Fitz View Henrietta, Harthouse Honey and Townend Jasmine to today's high tide was a combination of not bothered and let's play in the water! Henri went in first, but not too deep, then Honey just waded past and started pawing and sloshing the water round. They are crackers! It was heaving it down and blowing a gale, and they had dry ground to stand on but chose to play instead!”

I loved a comment from a fellow Fell Pony enthusiast in reaction to Christine’s photos. “Who needs Koniks?!” Koniks are an imported breed being used for conservation grazing in marshy areas in the homeland of Fell Ponies. While Fells aren’t historically associated with marshland grazing, it’s clear they are amenable to it! And certainly they should be considered whenever conservation grazers in marshland in their homeland are needed.

I personally have never seen a Fell unwilling to cross water. One summer when we lived in Colorado, I saw mine standing in the river running through the pasture much more than in the past. I don’t know if it was the particular herd of ponies I had at the time or something else. Two of the four mares were born there and had been crossing that river their entire lives.

In the 1996 Fell Pony Society Spring Newsletter, there is a photograph of six mounted Fell Ponies belly-deep in water. Liz Whitely wrote, “Swimming has been the highlight of the last two years’ [annual trek to the Breed Show.] Makeshift bridles are made and swimming costumes donned (by the riders!) and in we go. The water last year was wonderfully warm and the ponies really loved it – and it makes their coats so soft. When they’re not swimming they often stand and paw the water making a fantastic splash.” (1)

The most dramatic story I’ve heard about a Fell Pony and water was told about Jonty Wilson and his pony Edenview Moonstroller. “One day in March 1976, Jonty was out driving Edenview Moonstroller hitched to a four wheeled flat cart. When he came to a place called ‘Beck Foot,’ …the old road was blocked, but Jonty surmised that if he crossed the river to the field beyond he could then cut back onto the lane, and thereby join his original route. Stroller went so far into the water and then stopped. Jonty asked him to go on, as he thought that he just did not want to go any further. Stroller stepped forward, as he had been told to do, and in doing so stepped off a ledge into some 16 feet of water… Out of his depth, Stroller swam to the opposite side of the river, and despite plunging at the riverbank, it was far too steep for him to be able to climb out. So Stroller turned and swam back to where he had first entered the river, pulling himself, the cart and Jonty to safety. Even if he had been able to swim, which he couldn’t, Jonty feels that if he had not kept hold of the reins he would have been swept away and besides he had on his thick topcoat and his wool lined wellingtons which were enough to drag him under when wet. Jonty emerged soaked to the skin, and although his whip and the coat he was sitting on were both gone, he still had his cigarette in his mouth!” (2) Stroller was born on the day astronauts first walked on the moon, so perhaps he had good water karma from that momentous moon-day!

1. Whitley, Liz. Fell Pony Magazine, Spring 1996, p. 23.

2. Wilson, Jonty. “Stroller Saves Jonty Wilson’s Life,” Fell Pony Society Spring Newsletter 2001, Volume 3, p. 48.

Packpony History and Furness

The Furness region of Cumbria has always been connected in my mind with the working history of Fell Ponies. Furness Abbey was founded around 1127 AD and dominated the region until the dissolution of the monastic system in the 1540s. The monks there used pack ponies to move raw materials and products. For instance, cloth was moved to fulling mills and iron ore was moved to processing facilities called bloomeries. Fleece and other goods were moved from place to place. Maggie B. Dickinson says in an article about the monasteries that, “Along with the other Cistercian houses of Holm Cultram and Calder, the monks became experts in wool production, and pack teams headed for southern ports to export wool to Europe, including thirty sacks bound for Italy each year.” (1)

The ruins of Furness Abbey in Cumbria.  Copyright and courtesy Maggie B. Dickinson

Yet pack pony history in this region did not end with dissolution. It wasn’t until the turnpike roads in 1763 and railways one hundred years later that natural horsepower became obsolete except in the most remote areas. So I’ve learned there’s more to pack pony history in Furness than the monastic period!

Evidence of the pack pony history of this region is like that in other places in Cumbria: scarce. Or perhaps more accurately: one is required to look knowledgeably to see the evidence. My friend Maggie B. Dickinson helped me understand that by looking not only at packhorse bridges and indications of historic tracks/trails but also at establishments of industry in the period, that much remains today to tell the story of the crucial role pack ponies played in their time, if we cast our gaze carefully.

The Furness region is often broken up into the areas Low Furness, High Furness, and the Furness Fells. The region encompassed a significant swath of northwest England, reflecting the dominance of the monasteries in their time. Most of Furness is considered to be outside the Lake District proper, but Low and High Furness had historic and extensive connections with Coniston Water and Windermere and the Furness Fells in between, as well as other places in what is now Lake District National Park. The connection to the Lake District is important from a Fell Pony perspective since the National Park and its World Heritage Site play such a significant role in the landscape of today’s Cumbria. With the World Heritage Site’s focus on the cultural landscape, including the farming and industrial history of Lakeland, documenting our ponies’ role in that history in as many ways as we can benefits our breed. In the context of Furness, pack ponies moved loads between various locations within the region, including into and out of the Lake District, as well as further away. 

Map of the Furness region of Cumbria, showing approximate locations of iron mining pits, fulling mills, and bloomeries.

Thank goodness for the popularity of packhorse bridges. Today they are sought out and documented in numerous books and articles, providing an entry point for seeing how pack ponies were integral to the movement of goods and thus to economic life during the packhorse era. Packhorse bridges nearly always can be found on what were important routes between important economic locations at the time.

Bow Bridge at Furness Abbey, a packhorse bridge dating from 1490 AD. 
Copyright and courtesy Maggie B. Dickinson

There are two documented pack horse bridges in the Furness region: Bow and Horrace. Horrace is also known as Devil’s Bridge, a name that has additionally been given to packhorse bridges in other parts of England. More packhorse bridges may exist in the Furness region that have not yet been thoroughly documented.

Bow Bridge is located near Furness Abbey in Low Furness. According to Ernest Hinchliffe in his book A Guide to the Packhorse Bridges of England, “The builders used the same red sandstone as for the Abbey…. The bridge crosses Mill Beck which flows through and under the Abbey ruins, and once provided it with both water supply and drainage channel…. That Bow Bridge is contemporary with the Abbey is confirmed by both its location and its appearance.” (2)

Paul Hindle in his book Roads & Tracks of the Lake District, wrote about Furness Abbey, “In a petition from the abbot to Henry IV, the abbey was described as ‘assis en une isle’ (situated on an island), and indeed the usual route to Furness and the rest of England was across the sands of Morecambe Bay.” (3) The abbey had warehouses on the shores of Morecambe Bay to store its wool prior to movement across the treacherous sands (4). (For more about the sands routes, click here.) Slag and iron ore were shipped by water to Lancashire and farther afield (5). Pack ponies, of course, were involved in bringing these materials to the shore’s edge.

Hades Hill Geronimo, a modern day grey Fell Pony stallion (he will turn white with age).  Copyright and courtesy Tom Lloyd

Cistercian monks, including those at Furness Abbey, were said to prefer white animals, and this preference is often linked to the gray color in the Fell Pony breed. Clive Richardson in his book The Fell Pony cites evidence that prior to the dissolution of the monasteries, only bay, brown, and black Fell Ponies were known. Then after dissolution, grey ponies were also known. Sue Millard, on the Fell Pony Museum website points out that grey equines were not exclusive to the Cistercian community at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries. So while the grey color may have entered the breed around the time of dissolution, there is no definitive evidence that grey Fells came from Cistercian stock.

Thomas West in his 1805 treatise Antiquities of Furness distinguishes between Low and High Furness. (Note that the term villain is used in the following quote in its historic meaning of peasant, farmer, or commoner.) West wrote, “While the villains of Low Furness were thus distributed over the land, and employed in agriculture; those of High Furness were charged with the care of flocks and herds, to protect them from the wolves which lurked in the thickets, and in winter to browze (sic) them with the tender sprouts of hollies and ash.” (6) West equates Low Furness with crops and High Furness with livestock activities. In some sources High Furness and the Furness Fells are equated, but in others they are considered separate. The Lake District National Park and World Heritage Site include the Furness Fells within their boundary but not Low and High Furness.

The Lake District is often described as a pastoral landscape, and certainly West’s description fits this vision of the area, with pastoral referring to the presence of shepherds, pasture, or ‘the simplicity, charm, serenity, or other characteristics generally attributed to rural areas.’ But W.R. Mitchell reminds us in his book Farm Life in the Lakeland Dales that, “The pastoral qualities were off-set by traces of industry. In the woods, smoke rose from bloomeries, where iron ore was being smelted using charcoal as a fuel. Slag heaps testified to the places where copper, lead and silver were being mined.” (7)

One source suggests that it was the clearing of woodlands to produce fuel such as charcoal that opened up so much grazing land for pastoral activities. Windermere Reflections says, “The Furness Fells were primarily utilised in the medieval period for their woodland and iron ore. Substantial areas were cleared of trees to make charcoal, and associated with the woodlands were charcoal burning pits and platforms, as well as bloomeries for smelting the iron. These cleared areas became known as Parks…. These Parks were then used for the grazing of cattle and sheep whilst the wood was re-growing.” (8) Pack ponies were integral to the early industrial activities centered around the bloomeries.

Tom Lloyd's Hades Hill Fell Ponies are recreating our ponies’ historically important role of packing via his business Fell Pony Adventures.  Courtesy and copyright Tom Lloyd

Low Furness was well known for its hematite (iron) deposits, shown as purple dots on the map. High Furness and the Furness Fells were important for their woodlands which were harvested to make charcoal to fuel the bloomeries, shown as orange dots on the map. Because charcoal is light and fragile and therefore difficult to transport in any volume, bloomeries were located near the woods where the charcoal was made, and pack pones were used to move the ore - a denser, easier-to-haul cargo - to the bloomeries.

The Furness Fells were home to many monastic and post-monastic flocks of sheep whose fleeces were important to the wool trade of the region. During the monastic period, the fleeces were packed south to the Abbey. Windermere Reflections says, “By the end of the twelfth century, Furness Abbey held as many as 60,000 sheep, with most of the raw wool exported outside the region. Wool production was in such large quantities that it necessitated the building of warehouses for storing wool and for the improvement of packhorse routes.“ (9)

Then in the post-monastic period, the center of the wool industry shifted. A Lake District National Park World Heritage Site document says, “Hawkshead especially, following the granting of a market charter in 1608, became the main wool market for the Furness Fells, acting as a gathering point before transferring goods onto the larger trading centre at Kendal.” (10) The gathering would of course have been done on the backs of pack ponies. A 2016 article in The Mail expanded on this, saying, “Much of the cloth produced in Furness went to Kendal to be finished and was then taken to the south coast port of Southampton by packhorses and sold under the brand name of "Kendal Greens.’” (11)

Horrace or Devil's Bridge is on a packhorse route between Martin near the iron ore mines and Lowick where there was a bloomery.  This photo was taken in the late 1980s or early 1990s, and the bridge has had some restoration work done since then.  Copyright and courtesy Maggie B Dickinson

The second packhorse bridge in the Furness region is Horrace or Devil’s Bridge over Rathmoss Beck in High Furness. It is described as a post-monastic bridge on a route likely previously used for monastic trade. It is between Martin near the hematite mines and Lowick where there was a bloomery. Pack ponies, then, carried ore over this bridge in the days when their horsepower was needed.

While wool and iron ore were the primary commodities of the Furness region, a 2018 article in The Mail about Furness Abbey illustrates that there were many other commodities being moved around by pack ponies. The article says, “The monks at Furness Abbey were skilled at making use of water power for a range of industrial processes…. This included corn mills, fulling mills, iron mines, salt pans and a tannery. In the 15th century there were three corn mills on the Furness stream through the abbey site.” (12) Maggie B. Dickinson, in her article about the packhorse bridges of Cumbria, says, “[Bow Bridge] catered for pack teams and small local carts serving the abbey and its water-driven mill, transporting malt, salt, corn and other vital commodities along this busy trade route.” (13)

In Robert Gambles article “Cumbria’s Forgotten Bridges,” he says about pack ponies, “The wealth of a whole region was carried in their panniers.” (14) That was certainly true for Furness, both before and after monastic times.

1. Dickinson, Maggie B. “Drunk in Charge of a Packhorse,” Cumbria, November 2016, p. 13-17.

2. Hinchliffe, Ernest. A Guide to the Packhorse Bridges of England. Milnthorpe, Cumbria: Cicerone Press, 1994, p. 42

3. Hindle, Paul. Roads & Tracks of the Lake District, Cicerone Press, Milnthorpe, Cumbria, 1998, p. 46

4. Mitchell, W.R. Farm Life in the Lakeland Dales, Dales Country, Settle, North Yorkshire, 2005, p. 19-20

5. Furness Iron: The Physical Remains of the Iron Industry and Related Woodland Industries of Furness and Southern Lakeland, 2013, p. 38

6. West, Thomas. Antiquities of Furness. George Ashburner, Ulverston, 1805

7. Mitchell, p. 20

8. Windermere Reflections: Fulling Mills in Easedale, Grasmere, Elterwater, Great Langdale, and Graythwaite. Community Archaelogy Survey Report. Oxford Archaelogy North, September 2012, p. 35.

9. Windermere Reflections, p. 13.

10. Lake District National Park Partnership, “History and Development, Section 2.b,” Nomination of the English Lake District for Inscription on the World Heritage List, p. 175

11. “Export trade in medieval woolen cloth,” The Mail, 1/21/2016, www.nwemail.co.uk

12. “How medieval Furness monks turned the wheels of industry,” The Mail, 4/5/2018, www.nwemail.co.uk

13. Dickinson, Maggie B. “Bridges of Cumbria County,” Cumbria, September 2010, p. 15-19

14. Gambles, Robert. “Cumbria’s Forgotten Bridges,” Conserving Lakeland, Winter/Spring 2005, p. 12

The Sands

Living as I do in the middle of the North American continent, over a thousand miles from an ocean shore, it is unlikely I’ll ever ride any of my Fell Ponies on a beach. As a child growing up in Oregon, though, I was fortunate to spend many formative years at the coast where I became intimately aware of tides and waves and sand. When my sister visited me one summer recently, we talked of a beach ride we’d taken at the Oregon Coast many years before when my parents gave into repeated requests for an equine experience. That we both have strong memories of that ride is perhaps evidence that there is something potent about being on equines on sands.

My stewardship of Fell Ponies has led me to a curiosity about packhorse bridges in Cumbria. It is thought that Fell Ponies were used during the time of the packhorse trade to carry goods throughout England, mostly from the Lake District outward. From a study of packhorse bridges I became curious about packhorse routes and subsequently learned about the Sands routes. My childhood experiences at the Oregon Coast caused me to be fascinated and needing to learn more.

Major towns, highways, and sands areas in MoreCambe Bay at the southern tip of Cumbria.  One route across the sands went from either Hest Bank or SilverDale to Kents Bank.  Others crossed the Cartmel and Duddon Sands.

Fortunately for me, the long-time Queen’s Guide to the Sands, Cedric Robinson, has written a number of books about his experience on the Sands of Morecambe Bay. His stories of this estuary took me back to my time on the Nestucca estuary in Oregon, digging for clams, avoiding quicksand, timing outings relative to the tides, and marveling at phosphorescence.

Estuaries are the tidal area of a river where it meets the sea. The Nestucca estuary of my childhood received both the Little Nestucca and mainstem rivers. Morecambe Bay at the southern edge of Cumbria is fascinating because it receives seven rivers: Kent, Keer, Leven, Crake, Bela, Winster, and Lune. Robinson’s experiences have primarily been in the portion of the Bay where the Kent and Keer enter: first as a fisherman and then as a Guide most often leading walks from Silverdale or Hest Bank to Kents Bank. The map here shows two other Sands areas to the west of the Kent: the Cartmel (also in Morecambe Bay) and the Duddon.

J.D. Marshall in his book Old Lakeland, says about the Cartmel route, “The first recorded crossing was in 1322, but this route was without doubt used in earlier times than that, and continued as the usual route to the area as late as the mid 19th century. It was certainly the shortest route, and usually also the most comfortable, with guides appointed to lead travelers over the safe routes which constantly varied according to the tides and the weather.” (1)

Sign post in Cartmel noting distances over sands routes.
Courtesy and copyright Maggie B. Dickinson

Sands routes were important before the era of railways because transport was accomplished with natural horsepower. At low tide when the Sands are exposed, traversing the Sands could save many miles when traveling from places in the Lake District to markets in Lancashire and points south. The Sands routes were also valued because they were less dusty than heavily traveled roads in the summer time. Guides were necessary who knew the Sands intimately so that travelers wouldn’t become mired in quicksand, would know where to best cross the rivers and would know when was the proper time to set off so as to arrive safely before the tide came back in. Because Morecambe Bay is shallow, the tide recedes nearly nine miles but comes back in quickly when it returns, “with the speed of a good horse.” (2)

A tangential connection of the Sands to Fell Ponies came in 1985. HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, is known to Fell Pony enthusiasts for his driving of HM the Queen’s Fells. In 1985 he drove his Cleveland Bay horses across the Kent sands, guided by Robinson, and accompanied by other carriage drivers. The day before the Royal crossing, the Kent channel moved two miles, revealing why the Queen’s Guide to the Sands is necessary and is an official post.

When Robinson started his fisherman’s career on the Sands, he relied on natural horsepower to carry cockles and shrimp and flukes from the Sands back to shore. Here are some of my favorite stories that he shared in his books:

• “Many a horse that spent years pulling cabs along Morecambe promenade had a new lease of life on the Sands. A few horses were bought at the old fairs at Brough and Appleby, but you needed to have made every mistake in buying and selling horses to have the confidence to deal in places such as those….” (3)

• “When cockling, a fisherman did not need his horse for an hour or two. Jack Manning relates that to avoid having a chilled horse, the fisherman would remove it from the shafts, tip up the cart, having regard to the wind direction and stand the horse where it derived shelter from the weather. The animal was provided with a nose bag containing hay. There might be half a ton of cockles on the cart when it was drawn off the Sands.” (4)

• “The Sand horses truly amazed me on how good they were to work with in the dark. A horse new to the Sands would take a little time to get used to following wheel marks made on the outward journey, but an experienced animal was able to follow them even in the dark. You could even sit in the front of the cart with your back to the horse and he would bring you home.” (5)

The stories I could most relate to were about phosphorescence. My siblings and I experienced this on a few occasions on the beach as children, scuffling our feet in the wet sand of low tide after dark and watching sparks fly. Later I experienced phosphorescence when paddling a sea kayak at night in Puget Sound in Washington. Sparks would spread from where the oar entered the water each time I took a stroke. I marveled at phosphorescence at these times, but how an equine might react seems a different matter. Robinson calls phosphorescence ‘foxfire’ and relates these stories:

• “Every movement of the horses’ hooves in the water sent up a shower of sparkling drops into the dark night. As the cart in front of me moved out, its wheels threw up a cascade of shining water right in my horse’s path and frightened him so much that I could not control him. He just wanted to get anywhere out of the foxfire and this for me was really frightening. Dad decided to take Banner and I took Daisy, who was a quiet, experienced animal.”

• “The foxfire had to be seen to be believed. Even when you had hauled in your net and emptied your catch of shrimps into a box, and were running your fingers through them to sort out the seaweed, you didn’t need a torch because they were all aglow.”

• “These sparks flickered around the spokes of the wheels, the hubs and the nets. We could see the whole shape of the nets glowing with phosphorescence…. I have seen it very few times in my life in spite of all my time on the Sands. Shrimping with a horse and cart, and thus activating the water, showed to the full the true brilliance of the foxfire.” (6)

There is one other modern-day connection between the Sands and Fell Ponies. To supplement his meager income as a fisherman and guide to the Sands, Robinson started a pony-ride business. One of the ponies was a Fell. “Bluey was a very nice Fell Pony, which we bought from a dealer at Shap. Horses were being sold abroad at this time for the meat trade, so we actually saved Bluey’s life and he turned out to be a belter!” (7)

Raisburn Lettie and Anna Bigelow on the coast of Maine.  Courtesy Katie Liscovitz

Perhaps someday I’ll get to ride a Fell Pony on an ocean beach. And perhaps someday I’ll even get to walk the Sands route with the Queens Guide to the Sands. Even better would be to ride it on a Fell Pony! In the meantime, I’ll view photos of Fell Ponies on beaches - like the one here of Raisburn Lettie with Anna Bigelow - with much deeper appreciation for equines on sands and especially the connection between Fell Ponies and the Sands routes of Cumbria.

1. Marshall. J. D. Old Lakeland. David & Charles, 1971, per Maggie B. Dickinson email dated 9/23/16.

2. Robinson, Cedric, and Mitchell, W.R. Life around Morecambe Bay. Clapham via Lancaster, England: Dalesman Books, 1986, p. 7

3. Robinson and Mitchell, p. 43

4. Same as #2

5. Robinson, Cedric. Sandman: The Autobiography of Cedric Robinson, the Queens Guide to the Sands. Great Northern Books, Ltd. Ilkley, England, 2009, p. 48.

6. Robinson, p. 36

7. Robinson, p. 130

With thanks to Maggie B. Dickinson for generously sharing her research on packhorse bridges and routes.

Still Too Hot

It was twenty-five years ago when I first learned of the effect of a particular vitamin supplement pellet. I was raising my first flock of ducklings, and I top-dressed vitamin pellets on their feed. The ducklings soon became hyper active, which is saying something because ducklings are such busy little things normally. I quickly changed to a different vitamin supplement for them and watched them return to their normal level of busyness.

Occasionally I would try the same vitamin pellets on my ponies. The pellets seemed to change their temperaments, too, so I settled on a different product. I recently conducted an experiment with my ponies, returning to the vitamin pellets I had set aside, and I found that despite many changes in the intervening years, they still are too hot for my animals.

The move that my ponies and I made from the high country of Colorado to the Black Hills of South Dakota has been humbling. Generally, we have been exceedingly fortunate to have landed in a wonderful place for all of us. Nonetheless, there have been changes, and since this is the first time that I have moved my pones between quite different locations, I didn’t anticipate them. We have been in our new location for seventeen months, and I wonder how long it will take before I feel like I have their management here as well in hand as I did in Colorado. I am humbled by my frequent discoveries about what I took for granted.

During our first summer here, I was surprised to see my black ponies turning brown. When we were in Colorado, I had learned to supplement them with copper to keep black coats from fading. There, fading coats was a winter phenomenon. In summer, the pasture grasses the ponies consumed seemed to keep their coats shiny and black (on the black ones) without anything special. In the winter, I learned to supplement copper. After a few trials, I found a product that worked ideally for our situation. I was always happy with the shine and color of my ponies’ coats, any month of the year.

We moved to South Dakota in the fall, so the ponies left mature grazing in Colorado and came to mature grazing in South Dakota. Here, we have been fortunate that I can have my mares on pasture most of the year, compared to just a few months when we were in Colorado. All that first winter here, then, they grazed extensively in a large pasture. When summer arrived, it never occurred to me that I would need to change my supplement regime relative to black coats. Summer had always been a time for the ponies to get the nutrients they needed for healthy coats from the pasture grasses. But then my ponies’ black coats started turning brown. I was humbled when someone needed to remind me that I needed to supplement copper. Of course I did! Despite the evidence before my eyes, it hadn’t occurred to me that our minerals here, in the pasture soils and hence the grasses and in the well water the ponies were drinking, were different than in Colorado and could leave my ponies lacking in the copper department. (I had done the research on selenium and didn’t need to make any changes there.)

As I pondered how to get the ponies the copper they so obviously needed, I was told that the vitamin supplement I had set aside so many years before was great at keeping black coats black. Desperate for a solution that made sense in our new place, I decided to give it a try again. Now that I realized the magnitude of the changes the ponies were experiencing nutritionally, I was willing to give the supplement that had been too hot previously another chance. Perhaps it would have a different effect here than where we were before.

Within a few weeks, the ponies’ coats began darkening, and I was elated. Copper is necessary not only for keeping coats black but for the strength of the immune system. While I don’t like to see black coats that fade, my primary concern is overall health, not just color. Seeing the coats blacken, then, meant that my ponies’ immune systems were being better supported, too.

Several weeks passed, and the faded coats of my ponies were a distant and almost forgotten memory. What a relief it was to have my ponies on a good plain of nutrition in our new place. Or so I thought. Several months in, over a week to ten-day period of careful observation, where I ruled out weather and other possible causes, I finally concluded that I was seeing new behavior in my ponies. A few had become mouthier, one had become more aggressive towards other ponies, and another never seemed to be calm like I’ve come to expect Fell Ponies to be when they don’t have reason to be otherwise. Slowly it dawned on me that perhaps the supplement that had once before been too hot might still be. When I replaced it with the vitamin pellet I had used in Colorado, indeed the unwelcome behavior changes began to recede. I was humbled again.

When I mentioned to a Fell Pony colleague recently that I was making changes to my ponies’ vitamins because of behavior changes, they told me they had read that soy can lead to behavior changes. They knew I fed a soy-based energy feed and so wondered if that might be the cause of the behavior changes I was seeing. I don’t think so. I have used that soy-based energy feed for years, including with ducklings, and I didn’t see the hyper-activity that I have now seen so many times with the particular vitamin supplement.

For now, I have reverted to the vitamin and copper supplementation I was using in Colorado to see if it will show me via the ponies’ coats that they are getting the copper they need in our new environment. And I will go forward with the knowledge that we have all made a much bigger change in our lives than I previously realized. Stewarding my ponies is a blessed and humbling experience.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2021

Found Them!

Late in the afternoon one day, I ran an errand. While on the ranch lane, I looked out at the pony pasture. My Fell Pony mares were at the base of the hill and starting to ascend, so I noted their location. Then an hour or so later, I went out just before sunset to wish them good night like I usually do.

I walked to where I had seen them, but they weren’t visible. The weather had begun to change, so I figured they had climbed the hill to get in the trees and out of the wind. I did the same, eventually gaining a flat spot about two thirds of the way up where they sometimes hang out but aren’t visible from below. But they weren’t there, and I couldn’t tell if they had been; there wasn’t enough snow to capture their tracks.

I walked to the western edge of the flat spot, and the little snow that I found was undisturbed. Since the ponies didn’t usually go that way and the light was starting to fail, I decided to take my chances heading east which was toward home anyway. After walking for five minutes and not seeing them or any sign of them, I decided to start descending toward home, concluding that greeting my friends wasn’t meant to be that evening.

Part way down the hill, though, my luck changed. I came upon fresh tracks in snow crossing the hill to the east. I followed the trail, and after a few minutes I emerged around a bulge in the hill and saw them back in a protected nook. Apparently when the weather had begun to change, they had moved to this sheltered place. I felt triumphant having found them using my tracking skills, and I admired their choice of location. Such smart ponies!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2021

You can find more stories like this one in my book What an Honor, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

Burn Moor

Burn Moor lies between the villages of Wasdale Head and Boot in the Lake District National Park in Cumbria. The 5 mile route over Burn Moor has two historic pack horse associations. The first was for trade: moving goods from farm to market and from town to town. The second was as a corpse road. Until the early twentieth century, Wasdale Head didn’t have consecrated ground for burials, so bodies had to be transported to Boot to be interred.

The route is considered lonely, and there is a sad tale that after the death of someone in Wasdale Head, the body was loaded on a packhorse and taken on its final journey to Boot in Eskdale for burial. The horse and corpse were lost on Burn Moor, never to be found, with the location of the disappearance noted in the guidebook we used on our walk over Burn Moor. The location was approximately where we encountered bogs and watched our Fell Ponies extricate themselves, so I easily came to the conclusion that the horse and corpse in the story were sucked down into a bog, never to emerge again.

Christine Robinson expanded on the tale. She said that a young man had died in Wasdale Head, and the horse carrying his corpse over Burn Moor was lost en route. When the news was relayed to the young man’s mother, she became so upset that she died. When her body was en route over Burn Moor, that horse and corpse were also lost. The horse with the body of the young man was eventually found, but the lost grieving mother haunts the moor still.

Perhaps the most famous modern traveler over the ancient packhorse routes of the Lake District was Bob Orrell who took two Fell Ponies on his Saddle Tramp in the Lake District in the 1970s. He recounts the following corpse road story in his book:

“In the days before Wasdale Head had its own consecrated ground, those unfortunate enough to expire in this remote corner of Cumberland were denied their final rest until the mortal remains had been carried, on horseback, for burial to St. Catherine’s in Eskdale. There are numerous tales told of horses bolting and disappearing into the mist, still carrying the coffin, never to be seen again, but the one I like best concerns a farmer in Wasdale who was plagued by a nagging wife. Blessed relief came one day, when the wife took ill and died. She was quickly put in a coffin and the funeral party set off for Eskdale. Crossing Burnmoor the pony slipped and the coffin bumped against a rowan tree and revived the old wife. There was nothing they could do but troop back to Wasdale, where she made the poor man’s life even more miserable. After a few years she finally passed away, and once more the funeral party set off for Eskdale. The farmer was very careful not to jolt the coffin and, as they neared the rowan tree, he shouted to his son, who was leading the pony, ‘Be careful as thou passes yon tree, Jack. We don’t want any more accidents.’”

There is a pack horse bridge in Boot at the end of today’s walking route.

Christine Robinson and the author in 2015 on Boot Pack Horse Bridge with Linnel Doublet and Hynholme Amber.

Fell Ponies and Life of a Mountain

For someone like me who loves to live and work outdoors, Life of a Mountain: Helvellyn was a stirring film. But for someone like me who has been intimate with Fell Ponies for more than two decades, the movie was even more impactful. If you haven’t seen it already, there’s a reason this film is recommended by the Fell Pony Society. If you are fascinated by the stewardship of this breed, it is an important piece. You can watch the trailer (click here), though no Fell Ponies are featured. If you’re in the UK, you can watch the movie on-line. It’s also available for purchase by clicking here. I am grateful to a Fell Pony colleague who loaned me her copy until I can purchase a copy myself.

The film about the peak Helvellyn in the Lake District of Cumbria does an exemplary job illustrating the many, many ways that the mountain is loved and admired. From bicyclists to skiers, from lichen experts to wildwater swimmers, from school children to disabled hikers, from paragliders to the Royal Air Force and more, each group’s appreciation of what the mountain means to them is vividly portrayed with live and timelapse video and interviews. So where does the Fell Pony fit?

Globetrotter Fell Pony broodmares sheltering in the lee of a wall on a fell in Cumbria. Courtesy Libby Robinson

Libby Robinson of the Fell Pony Heritage Trust is one of the earliest to be interviewed in the film, and images of the ponies are frequently shown through the first hour or so (Libby kindly lent me the photo here of her ponies sheltering behind a wall on the fell where they live nearby). Libby tells me that the opportunity to participate in the film was a spinoff of the Trust’s Heritage of the Hill Bred Fell Pony Exhibition in 2019. The following quote from a 2021 newspaper article about the film best sums Libby’s message, “Fell Ponies are just as important to Cumbria’s heritage as the lakes, rivers, fell farms and stone walls, the natural landscape formed by nature then shaped and moulded by mankind. Nowadays millions visit each year (apart from 2020) and they need to know alongside all this spendour of the landscape that for centuries the culture of the ponies – a proud and noble working animal – has been a part of all its history.” (1)

When we view Cumbria and the Lake District from a Fell Pony perspective, it is easy to lose sight of the myriad other ways in which the region is viewed. For me, seeing so many different perspectives alongside that of our ponies was incredibly educational. It’s no longer a surprise to me that our ponies are often invisible in the National Park, and it’s a wonder at all that they appear in this film. Libby’s efforts to bring more attention to our breed continue to bear tremendous fruit.

Claire Beaumont of Gowbarrow Hall Farm was another of the interviewees in the early part of the film. Fell Pony people will know Claire for her use of some of Libby’s Fell Ponies for conservation grazing at Gowbarrow Hall Farm. Claire has also added to my understanding of the long history of Fell Ponies in the vicinity of her farm northeast of Helvellyn (click here to read more).

When the Lake District National Park received World Heritage Site status in 2017, Fell Ponies were completely absent from the voluminous documentation supporting the designation. I was startled that that was the case since Fell Ponies are native to the landscape that is now in the national park. Then began my education about how the World Heritage Site designation came to be and how Fell Ponies might still be incorporated in it. I have since been documenting how Fell Ponies fit within the three major themes of the park’s plan for implementing the designation (click here to read more). Those themes were each addressed in the film.

The first of the themes to be addressed in the film was Identity (click here to read more about the three themes). The Identity theme encompasses the agro-pastoral landscape and the early industry of the region and how these two human influences shaped the landscape that is known and loved today. From a Fell Pony perspective, I thought it was tremendous that this theme took top billing since it is the one that most allows Fell Ponies to become more visible in the National Park and the World Heritage Site. The second theme – Conservation – was also discussed in a way that allows Fell Ponies to claim their rightful place in the region’s story, both from a conservation grazing standpoint and from an acknowledgement that a rewilding of the landscape, which is causing trouble for many native breeds, isn’t an over-arching goal in the Lake District. The Inspiration theme, ably illustrated by an opera singer and a poet among others, appears to have the least relevance for Fell Pony enthusiasts due to its narrow definition so far.

At one hundred fifty minutes in length, the film drags after the first hour when our ponies no longer show up in any images or stories. The middle third of the film is heavy with recreational use of the mountain, but I had to re-read a Fell Pony Society newsletter to find a story about a Fell Pony on Helvellyn. In 2017, Vyv Wood-Gee attempted to ride one of her ponies to the summit to honor the late Mary Longsdon, MBE, whose ambition to climb Helvellyn went unfulfilled before her death that year. Vyv’s trip report is aptly titled “Hell on a Fell,” full of double entendres. “Forget blue skies and perfect pretty pictures. Yesterday was Hell on a Fell: about simply trying to keep putting one foot in front of the other, standing firm whatever life, or the weather, chucks at you, and about contemplating life and death, rather than proving anything to anyone, or gloating over achievements…. When the weather turned against us, I swithered repeatedly whether to turn back, but with Micky snorting at lost souls emerging from the mist, eventually we made it to the top. An inadequate tribute to a truly remarkable person. RIP Mary. You were up there with us in the swirling mist and driving rain.” (2) To see the entire piece including pictures illustrating the adverse weather Vyv and Micky dealt with, click here and navigate to page 80.

Despite the film dragging in the second half, the entire piece is worth watching for anyone interested in the present and future stewardship of our breed in its homeland. The context it illustrates is important for all of us to contemplate.

1. “Fell Ponies’ starring role in Lake District Film, Cumberland and Westmorland Herald, 9 January 2021.

2. Wood-Gee, Vyv. “Hell on a Fell,” The Fell Pony Society Magazine, Autumn 2017, Volume 35, p. 80.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2021

Gone in a Single Gust!

At another time when wind took his hay, Asi gave me a look asking for help. Not quite as astonished as the first time!

I went to feed my Fell Pony stallion Asi midday as usual. The weather had turned windy, enough to warrant a weather advisory. I had a second neck gaiter on for the occasion, and I flipped my hood up for extra protection. At Asi’s paddock, I filled a tub with hay and let myself through the gate. I then began spreading hay along the sixty-foot-or-so path that I usually follow, a large handful every pony length or two so that Asi moves as he’s eating as he would while grazing.

He had begun eating at the first pile I dropped, and I continued along the path. As I reached the end, I felt a stronger-than-average wind gust hit my back and watched hay blow past me and out of the paddock under the fence. I looked back where I’d come from, and every bit of hay that I had put out for Asi was completely gone. While that was surprising, what was priceless was the look of utter shock on Asi’s face. His lunch had disappeared before he’d even had a chance to taste it! Of course I didn’t react fast enough to capture his expression. The photo here is a poor approximation at a similar moment when the wind had once again scoured all the hay from his pen. For the duration of the high wind event, I gave him intact wafers in one place that the wind couldn’t easily relocate!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2021

There are more stories like this one in my book What an Honor, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

Ponies Frequently Found Behind Rare Lines

Waverhead Rob is a pony frequently seen in pedigrees of rare bloodlines. Photo by Miss Jane Glass of the Wolds Stud where he stood

I noted in a previous article on my 2019 rare bloodlines study that the Dene and Greenfield studs were rare and contributed their rareness to many ponies on my 2019 rare lines list. The Gibside stud is now in the same category. Some Linnel, Sleddale, Guards, Waverhead, and Lownthwaite ponies are rare and contribute their rarity to ponies on the list. Most of these studs are or were of long standing, so it isn’t really surprising that they have some lines that are rare.

Shown here as a senior citizen, Townend Samuel is also found behind many ponies with rare bloodlines, especially in North America. Courtesy Claire Simpson

As I was reviewing the pedigrees of the ponies on the rare bloodlines list, several specific ponies kept appearing as ancestors behind the rare lines. They are shown in Table 1 below. In addition to listing these ancestors of today’s rare bloodlines, Table 1 shows the frequency with which these ancestors appear in the 2006 and 2018 foal crops. It is notable that only four of the seventeen ponies in Table 1 show up less frequently in 2018 than they did in 2006. Breeders are always searching for outcrosses, and these ponies, with the four exceptions, have served that purpose, with more foals in 2018 being born with these ancestors behind them than were born in 2006.

Several of these ponies were highly thought of at the time of their contributions to our breed’s genetics. I discussed Linnel Romany Boy and Border Black Prince in a previous article. Waverhead Rob was Appleby Show champion as a yearling and later was the winner of the Supreme Champion progeny group at the National Pony Society Show in 1973.

Lownthwaite Drake, a pony sometimes found behind rare bloodlines. Photo courtesy Ruth Eastwood.

According to the History page of the Lownthwaite Stud website, Lownthwaite Star Trek was “…described by the late Mr Joseph Dargue, president of the Fell Pony Society, as the best Fell Pony he had ever seen.” Star Trek was Supreme Champion at the FPS Breed Show in 1973, but her showing career was cut short by a freak accident resulting in a broken shoulder. She was able, though, to raise ten foals.

Lownthwaite Starbright II is a daughter of Lownthwaite Star Trek, a pony often found behind rare bloodlines.

Lownthwaite Drake was sired by Townend Samuel and out of the Lownthwaite Startrek line. Michael Rawlinson wrote in the Spring 2002 FPS Newsletter: “I bought him at Wigton Horse Sales, in 1988 for £165 where he was champion foal. I took him to the Stallion Show in 1989 and he stood 2nd in the Yearling class out of fifteen. At the summer Breed Show that same year he won the Yearling Colt or Gelding Class and at Keighley Show he won the Yearling to Three-Year-Old Class. In 1990 at the Stallion Show he won the 2 Year Old Class, was the Junior Champion and also the Overall Reserve Champion of the day. I sold him to Gordon Sutcliffe in the spring as I moved to Scotland and could not take him with me. Gordon kept him for two years using him at stud… (Bishopdale prefix) and then sold him to Walter Lloyd (Hades Hill prefix) who kept him until he died of tetanus in 2001.” (1)

Tarnmoor Prince. Courtesy Ruth Eastwood

Tarnmoor Prince was twice champion at the Fell Pony Society Stallion Show. He also received at-home premiums in 1988 and 1992 for covering a high number of registered Fell mares.

Frizington Duke and Christine Robinson at the FPS Stallion Show in 1987. Courtesy Christine Robinson

Twislehhope Druid was on display at the Open Day at Twislehope in the early 1970s. “The stallion T. Druid was brought out for us to see and very well he looked, too. We saw him ridden and then jumped over some little fences which he did beautifully.” (2) In the Autumn 1995 newsletter, Druid was pictured “with his mares and foals in the Scottish Border hills. Druid lived to 28 years old – still covering mares and being ridden. He had spent a working life hunting with the Liddesdale Foxhounds. In his last spring he proved he was still a working horse and cleared a five-barred gate at a trot!” (3)

Twislehope Druid sired Twislehope Rupert who stood at the Drybarrows stud and other places. David Thompson of the Drybarrows stud remembers, “When I was maybe eleven or twelve years old, I remember going with Dad and Sarge Noble to see a pony. We went to Molly Laing’s yard to look at a two or three year old colt. Sarge said ‘Don’t leave the yard without that pony,’ and we didn’t. Twislehope Rupert was the only pony Dad ever showed. He stood second at the stallion show. He was a good horse and bred well for Dad.” (4)

Christine Robinson stood Frizington Duke at her Kerbeck stud. “I rode Duke in the middle of a housing estate, and he wasn’t bothered, so I bought him. He was four years old. He became my favorite pony of all time. We did so much together. We literally did everything. Once I drove him to a show then we competed that day under saddle, working hunter, and driven. I rode and drove him at home for pleasure, took hay to the mares on him, took him hunting once or twice a week in season, and did pony club games. It was easy to compete him driving because he didn’t need a groom; he was that well behaved. I qualified him for NPS national driving champion one year. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do. I retained lots of his fillies, and I still have two mares by him; they’re in their twenties now.” (5)

Whenever we are pondering rare bloodlines, it is important to keep two caveats in mind:

1. The older stud books of the Fell Pony Society (prior to DNA testing) occasionally do not have accurate parentage/pedigree information. Therefore we cannot necessarily draw accurate conclusions about ancestors of today’s ponies.

2. Sometimes bloodlines become rare for a reason. Breeders may have chosen not to propagate the lines, possibly because they did not represent proper Fell Pony type. Unless we have seen a particular pony in person, it is hard to make that judgment ourselves.

One of the great benefits of this rare bloodlines research has been corresponding with people who knew many of these ponies and shared photographs and/or stories of their relations. I am grateful to Alison Bell, Claire Simpson, Liz Whitely, Ruth Eastwood, Michael Goddard, David Thompson, and Libby Robinson and perhaps others to whom I apologize for having forgotten them.

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1. Rawlinson, Michael. “Lownthwaite Drake,” Fell Pony Society Newsletter Spring 2002, p. 58.

2. Brook, Joan. “Open Day at Twislehope,” Fell Pony News Volume III, p. 23

3. Photo caption of Twislehope Druid in Fell Pony Society Newsletter Autumn 1995, p. 26.

4. Morrissey, Jenifer. “Another Chapter: The Drybarrows Fell Ponies,” Fell Pony Express, June 2017, Fell Pony Society of North America, p. 20.

5. Morrissey, Jenifer. “Christine Robinson and the Kerbeck Fell Ponies,” Spring/Summer 2015, Fell Pony Express, Fell Pony Society of North America, p. 29.

Rare Bloodlines Revisited – North American and Dutch Divergence?

In my 2019 analysis of rare bloodlines in the Fell Pony, nearly 40% of the ponies on the list were born outside the United Kingdom. Most of these were North America-born and the rest were born in The Netherlands. (To read the overview of my 2019 analysis, click here. )

Kimberlake Lady Belle is one of the North American ponies that shows up on the worldwide rare bloodlines list. With both of her parents being North American-born, the question must be asked if our North American herd is diverging from the worldwide population.

My similar study completed a decade ago didn’t have this large non-UK population on the rare bloodlines list, so the obvious question is: are we beginning to see a divergence in bloodlines between the UK and the two other largest populations of Fell Ponies? This question comes to mind because several of the North American ponies on the worldwide rare bloodlines list are not from particularly rare lines within the context of the North American population. For instance, Laurelhighland Jack of Diamonds and his sire Laurelhighland Union Jack appear near the top of the worldwide rare bloodlines list but are near the bottom of the list for North America. Since they were bred at the most prolific of our North American studs, they are related to many of the other ponies on this continent.

Table 1 shows the non-UK sires and dams that show up at the top of the rare bloodlines list based on 2017 and 2018 foal crops. In addition to considering the relative ranking on the local versus worldwide lists, there are two other ways to consider whether the ponies in Table 1 are evidence of diverging bloodlines:

• How many of the non-UK ponies’ ancestors were non-UK born? If a particular North American pony, for instance, has one or more North American-born ancestors, then that pony would have fewer ancestors in common with UK ponies and would therefore be computed as being less related to the worldwide population. To determine the number of non-UK ancestors, I looked at the pedigree of each pony and counted the ponies with non-UK names/prefixes. This tally is shown in the column in Table 1 titled “# non-UK ponies behind.” The greatest depth that non-UK ponies reach in a pedigree is 2 (a grandparent.) Wiranda van Nuova, a Dutch-born mare, has a value of 4 in this column, with both her parents being Dutch-born and both her granddams being Dutch-born.

• How have the grandparents of these rare bloodline non-UK-born ponies contributed to the modern foal crop? By looking back two generations and seeing if those ponies are common or not in pedigrees of modern day ponies, we can get a better indication of whether the non-UK-ponies truly represent rare bloodlines. This analysis can be completed by looking at what percentage of the 2018 foal crop trace back to the grandsires and granddams of the ponies on the rare bloodline list. By averaging the percentages, it is then possible to compare the rarity of these non-UK ponies to each other. This analysis is shown in the column in Table 1 titled “Sum of Grandparent %.” A lower number indicates less contribution by the four grandparents to the worldwide population, and a higher number indicates more contribution. For instance, Laurelhighland Lyric, with the highest value in that column at more than 10%, has behind her grandsires that are relatively popular: Waverhead Prince II (represented in 20% of the 2018 foal crop) and Townend Samuel (represented in 15% of the 2018 foal crop). By comparison, Angelmeadow Crown Jules has a relatively low value of 1.18% because his grandparents are all resident in North America and have not had broad use.

The results of these two analyses support the hypothesis that UK and non-UK bloodlines are diverging. For a given pony on the list, as more of its ancestors are non-UK born, the less its grandparents are contributing to the worldwide population. For example, the mare Wildhoeve Romy has four foreign-born ancestors, and her grandparents on average are represented in only 1.66% of the 2018 foal crop. By comparison, Olimpia de Knip, who has no foreign-born ancestors, has relatively more relatives in the worldwide population with her grandparents on average being represented in 5.47% of the 2018 foal crop. Nonetheless Olimpia has numerous rare lines, qualifying her for the rare bloodline list.

Here are other key findings:

The late Waverhead Robbie, shown in 2004,  is behind the majority of the North American ponies on the rare bloodlines list; his offspring are the only descendants of his dam.

• The late Waverhead Robbie, imported to North America in 1994, is behind many of the North American ponies in Table 1. While his sire is somewhat common, Robbie represents the only continuation of his dam’s line in the current worldwide Fell Pony population, resulting in many of his descendants appearing in Table 1.

• When a pony is linebred, especially more than twice, the number of its ancestors is reduced so it has fewer opportunities to be related to the rest of the population. If the pony on which it is linebred is relatively common, then while the numbers may say that the pony represents a rare bloodline, in fact it has plenty of relatives in the population. Kimberlake Lady Belle and Maxiem van de Koekoekshof are examples; they are both heavily linebred on the oft-used stallion Heltondale Heather Lad. Because they also have rare outcrosses, they still qualify to be on the rare bloodlines list.

• The Dutch ponies in Table 1 have more generations of non-UK ponies (values of 4 and 3) than the North American ponies (values of 2 and 1), reflecting the fact that the Dutch began their Fell Pony program in earnest before North America did.

The divergence between bloodlines in the UK and the two largest foreign populations in North America and The Netherlands isn’t surprising. In fact, this sort of divergence is to be expected over time as relatively fewer ponies are imported and more ponies are born locally. It is important, however, that we know that the divergence is taking place so that worldwide breed management decisions can take it into account. For instance, in time, North American-born ponies may be interesting outcrosses for populations elsewhere, as the Dutch population has been in recent years for UK breeders. Finally, this sort of divergence is not a problem for the breed as long as the ponies born outside the UK are still displaying proper type.

(c) Jenifer Morrissey, 2019

Rare Bloodlines Revisited – ‘05/’06 Study Reconsidered

Introduction

Globetrotter Nimrod is one of the ponies on the ‘06/’07 rare bloodlines list. Courtesy Libby Robinson

I did my first identification of rare bloodlines in Fell Ponies in 2008 based on the sires and dams of the 2006 and 2007 foal crops. At that time, there were a number of Dutch Fell Ponies for whom I had incomplete pedigrees. Thanks to detailed research done for me by Joke Postma of the Westerkwartier stud in The Netherlands, all pedigrees are now complete in my database. As a result, I have an updated list of rare bloodlines from the 2006/2007 time period. I used the same methodology as for the current timeframe analysis, as described in my previous article. To read the previous article, click here.

My key findings from my updated analysis of ‘06/’07 are:

• The complete Dutch pedigrees resulted in changes to the list.

• A decade on from the first analysis, it’s now possible to look at whether the bloodlines that were rare in ‘06/’07 are still in our population or if they’ve been lost.

• As before, a number of ponies show up repeatedly behind the ponies on the new list, indicating that they are a source of rarity.

Changes to the List

Having complete Dutch pedigrees resulted in nine ponies previously on the list to drop off. Apparently their ancestors were also behind some of the Dutch ponies for whom I previously had incomplete pedigrees, so they were more related to the rest of the breeding population than previously indicated. Nine ponies were then added to the list. The new list is shown in Table 1.

(c) Jenifer Morrissey, 2019

Lost Bloodlines?

Fifty seven percent of the ponies representing rare bloodlines in Table 1 have no progeny in 2017 or 2018. They are indicated by a ‘no’ in the second column of Table 1 titled “in 2017-18?” These bloodlines are therefore at risk of being lost to the breed.

Sources of Rarity

Linnel Rapier II is behind a few ponies on the rare bloodlines list for ’06-’07. Rapier qualified for Olympia with Debbie Boylan in 2001 only months after having been broken in for the first time. Courtesy Fell Pony Society

As I found previously, the Dene and Greenfield studs were rare and contributed their rareness to many ponies on the list. The Gibside stud is now in the same category. Some Linnel, Sleddale, Guards, Waverhead, and Lownthwaite ponies are rare and contribute their rarity to ponies on the list. Other ponies that show up frequently behind rare ponies are Frizington Duke and Twislehope Druid and Rupert.

Two of the rare Linnel ponies are the stallions Romany Boy and Rapier II. In a 1980 Fell Pony Society newsletter, there was a story about Romany Boy. “The Ponies of Britain run a very successful stallion award scheme for the stallion whose progeny win the most at the Ponies of Britain shows held at Ascot, Kelso and Peterborough. Mr. R. B. Charlton, whose famous Linnel ponies have done so much to publicise the breed, knew nothing of the scheme until his stallion, Linnel Romany Boy, was reserve of all the native stallions in 1975 and a letter notified him of his success. Linnel Romany Boy went on to win the award outright in 1976, 1977 and 1978 - probably a record for any native breed in the country, and a great honour for the Fell breed.” (1)

Likewise, in a 2000 newsletter there was mention of Linnel Rapier II. “It was a fine, cold morning as we met at [Lownthwaite Fell Pony stud] lying under Cross Fell. Our first glimpse was of the stallion, Linnel Rapier II, in his paddock. He was a handsome animal who looked thoroughly pleased with himself and delighted to have admiring visitors to parade in front of, as only a stallion could. He exuded kindness and generosity as well as power and strength. Christine [Morton] told us he had never had his back feet picked up or his teeth rasped but the evidence seemed to be that here in his natural environment both feet and teeth were in fine fettle.” (2) The next year, Rapier II was sold on and backed and in just a few months qualified for the prestigious holiday show Olympia with Debbie Boylan. “He was just so incredibly easy according to Debbie, had the most wonderful temperament, and just loved people!” (3)

Caveat About Rare Lines

Whenever considering rare bloodlines, it is important to remember that some ponies may have become rare for a reason. They may have had some congenital defect, a temperament fault or not be true-to-type for the breed. I personally know of examples of some of these conditions in the list here. The perspective of time for this list from ‘06/’07 lets us see what breeders have decided so far. On the other hand, some of the ponies on this list, such as Globetrotter Nimrod, do not have current descendants in the breeding population, but Nimrod has a full sibling who continues to contribute to our breed’s population. So just because Nimrod is not represented now, the lines behind him are represented through his sister Polikarpov. Nimrod’s case reminds us that making judgments about rare lines requires great care.

Still to come are reflections on the divergence of North American and Dutch lines and more consideration of ponies often found behind rare lines.

1. “Notes from Here and There,” Fell Pony Society Newsletter, 1980, Volume 5.

2. “Mid-East England,” Fell Pony Society Newsletter, Autumn 2000, p. 31.

3. “Olympia Qualifiers,” Fell Pony Society Newsletter, Autumn 2001, p. 32-3.

Rare Bloodlines Revisited 2019 - Overview

Introduction

Border Black Prince, foaled 1987, is behind many of the ponies on the rare bloodlines list. Photo courtesy Michael Goddard

I did my first identification of rare bloodlines in Fell Ponies in 2007 based on the sires and dams of the 2005 and 2006 foal crops. I have now completed a second analysis of rare bloodlines. It updates the 2007 study and then analyzes the sires and dams of the 2017 and 2018 foal crops. This article provides an overview of the research. Subsequent articles will go into more depth about the various findings.

Methodology

How does one identify a rare bloodline? One tool is the Mean Kinship analysis. Mean Kinship (MK) is a calculation that measures the relatedness of a particular pony to the rest of the ponies in a given population. I have a database of Fell Pony pedigrees and the ability to run the MK analysis on sires and dams of foals born in a particular year. This sort of MK analysis gives insight into our breeding population.

My database only includes ponies appearing in the stud books of the Fell Pony Society. In addition to UK ponies, FPS registers ponies from The Netherlands as well as from the United States, Canada, Germany, France, Poland, the Czech Republic, Sweden, and Denmark. I know there are purebred ponies being born in Australia, and I suspect there are also purebred ponies born in Germany that are not registered with FPS. Ponies from those populations are not currently in my database.

For an MK analysis, I can specify how many generations are considered in the computations. I chose to include five generations. Almost ten percent of the ponies in the 2018 sire/dam analysis did not have full five generation pedigrees. In 2006, that number was 14.5%, so with time, as would be expected with a closed stud book, pedigrees are becoming more complete. Incomplete pedigrees exist due to: 1) the inspection scheme and grading up program instituted in the 1960s, and 2) prior to the inspection scheme, some ponies were registered without complete pedigrees.

For the purposes of my current study, a rare bloodline is defined as one having low relatedness to the rest of the population. When using Mean Kinship to identify rare lines, a low mean kinship value means low relatedness to the rest of the population. There are occasions, however, when a low MK may not mean a rare bloodline. For instance, if a pedigree only goes back two or three generations, that pony may have a low MK value because it has fewer ancestors to compare with those of other ponies. But since we don’t know what other ponies might be behind the pony with the short pedigree, I’ve opted to keep ponies with low MKs and short pedigrees in my analysis.

A second case where a low MK may not be a rare bloodline is if a particular pony is itself inbred, meaning it has the same pony in its pedigree multiple times. In that case, the pony may have a low MK value, but the low MK value may at least be in part due to the fact that the pony has fewer relatives (because of replication of some ancestors) to compare to the rest of the population. Therefore, its low MK value may not accurately reflect how it should be ranked as a conservation priority.

Globetrotter Polikarpov has a low mean kinship value from being linebred on the Dene stud and having the rare Linnel Rapier behind her.

courtesy Libby Robinson

For example, Darrenvale Dior, a dam of a 2017 foal, has a low MK value but her pedigree shows repeats of the popular stallion Lunesdale Jerry four times. Yet she also has numerous rare ancestors. On the other hand, the mare Globetrotter Polikarpov who also had a foal in 2017 also has a very low MK value. This mare has numerous ponies from the Dene stud behind her, a rare line, with repeats of the stallion Linnel Rapier from another rare line. Polikarpov might therefore be considered a higher conservation priority than Dior.

After pondering the problem of low MK values by high inbreeding, I’ve come up with an analysis that will identify the rarest of the rare, taking into account replication within a pedigree. Because it will be quite time consuming, I have opted to present the current state of my research and will return to that more detailed analysis at a later time. 

For my current analysis, I took the 20 ponies with the lowest mean kinships from each of the two years under consideration, ‘06/’07 and ‘17/’18. By taking two years at a time, mares who are not bred every year are more likely to be considered in the analysis. I combined the ’06 and ’07 top 20 into a single list and the same for the ’17 and ’18 top 20. For each of those two top 40 lists, I removed ponies that were duplicated and combined full siblings into a single entry. Finally, I annotated the list with the source of rarity of each pony. Table 1 shows the ‘17/’18 list.

(c) Jenifer Morrissey, 2019

Incomplete Dutch Pedigrees Resolved

I did my first analysis of rare bloodlines in 2007 based on the sires and dams of the 2005 and 2006 foal crops. At that time, there were a number of Dutch Fell Ponies for whom I had incomplete pedigrees, meaning the analysis was not as accurate as it could be. Thanks to detailed research done for me by Joke Postma of the Westerkwartier stud in The Netherlands, all pedigrees are now complete in my database. As a result, I have an updated list of rare bloodlines from the 2005/2006 time period.

North American and Dutch Divergence?

One result of the more recent analysis that jumped out was the number of North American ponies that showed up on the list. With over a quarter of the ponies on the list being born in North America, one has to wonder if our bloodlines on this side of the pond are diverging from the worldwide population. With the growing popularity of the breed here, this is a natural progression and only becomes a concern if our ponies start diverging in type as well. As long as we maintain good type in our ponies, as our stock genetically diverges, our ponies become more valuable as outcrosses for the worldwide population. In addition to the presence of North American ponies on the rare bloodlines list, two Dutch ponies and one German pony also showed up.

The Netherlands has been importing and breeding Fell Ponies as long or longer than North America has, yet there are fewer Dutch ponies on the recent rare bloodlines list than North America. There are several possible explanations for this difference. In the US, one breeder is responsible for a significant percentage of our homebred ponies, while in the Netherlands there are many smaller breeders contributing to the homebred population. There is less concentration, then, of stallion lines in The Netherlands versus in the US. Also, Dutch breeders tend to export ponies back to the UK for breeding at a higher rate than North America does, making the Dutch and UK populations somewhat more similar in terms of bloodlines. I’ve removed the German, Dutch and North American ponies from the rare bloodlines list for this first version of Table 1. I will revisit the North American and Dutch ponies in a future article.

Mare Lines

Three of the ponies in Table 1 are stallions, so more than 80% of the rare lines listed are mares. This is not surprising, since stallions are used more often than mares so will be more often repeated in pedigrees than mares. And sometimes mares are the only living progeny of a stallion line, for instance the stallion Swineside Lad is only represented today through the progeny of Bowthorne June and Lucky Jewel.

Pony Type

I was concerned by one anecdotal finding of my research. When I reached out to fellow breeders for pictures to illustrate this article, a few of them remarked what a good pony type the pony in the photograph was. For me a Fell Pony is indeed a pony, yet to my eye we have many horsey looking purebred Fell Ponies. For pony types to be represented in the rare bloodlines list is therefore very disappointing. I understand that there may have been other reasons those ponies have been selected out of the gene pool, but I also know that proper ponies can sometimes be hard to find in our breed.

More to Come

In future stories, we’ll be looking more closely at the North American and Dutch ponies in the rare bloodlines list. The ‘06/’07 list also needs to be revisited since the Dutch pedigrees are now all complete. In addition, a few ponies show up frequently on the list and need to be identified. So, more to come!

Fell Ponies and the Identity Theme of the LDNP World Heritage Site

The Lake District National Park (LDNP) in Cumbria, England was named a World Heritage Site in 2017. Fell Ponies have roamed the Lake District and adjacent areas for centuries, so the World Heritage Site designation provides an opportunity to bring attention to our breed.

Ennerdale Water and surrounding fells in the Lake District

In the press coverage at the time of the designation, the World Heritage Site was said to have three themes that “…underpinned the bid for World Heritage Site status, recognising the Lake District National Park as a cultural landscape of international significance. These include world ranking examples of identity - the dramatic farmed landscape; inspiration - art, literature and love of the place. This in turn sparked the birth of conservation - people fought and invested to look after this special corner of England.” (1) I have previously written about the inspiration theme as they relate to Fell Ponies (click here for more information on the Inspiration theme..).

The Identity theme is summarized above as being about ‘the dramatic farmed landscape.’ However, in another part of the same blog post, the theme has a broader definition: “The acknowledged beauty of the Lake District is the result of thousands of years of industry and agricultural development of the spectacular natural landscape of mountains, valleys, lakes and woodland.” (2) The inclusion of the industrial history of the region is especially important for Fell Ponies.

The Nomination Dossier is a set of documents on the LDNP website that made the case for World Heritage Site status. A group of 25 organizations called The Partnership compiled the dossier, including The Partnership Plan, which is the management plan both for the park and the World Heritage Site through 2020. The dossier has four volumes and hundreds of pages. So far, I have only found the Fell Pony mentioned once, in an appendix. By contrast, the Herdwick Sheep breed is mentioned hundreds of times, no doubt because the breed organization was involved in the Partnership.

Nonetheless, the LDNP has told the Fell Pony Society that they are open to working to integrate our breed into the management of the park and its World Heritage Site status. The Identity theme is an important entry point for that integration. Throughout the Partnership Plan the identity theme is referenced via the interplay between the landscape, farming, and industry. For instance, “Farming, past industry and how communities have adapted to live and work in the Lake District have helped to shape this cultural landscape.” (3)

Stanegarth Clapper Bridge with High Street in the distance.

The Fell Pony and its ancestors played multiple roles in farming’s history in the Lake District. As David Anthony Murray summarized in his first report on the Fell Pony, “Recognised since Roman times as a pony type indigenous to Britain, we owe the Fell pony much. It pulled Saxon ploughs, shepherded Norman flocks and helped drove cattle across the Lake District.” (4) Fell Ponies more recently were used in the region as milk cart ponies (click here for more information) and to take farm goods to market. But ponies also grazed the uplands like the sheep and cattle of the region, so they have also contributed directly to the landscape known today, despite being left out of this description: “This landscape is an unrivalled example of a northern European upland agro-pastoral system based on the rearing of cattle and native breeds of sheep, shaped and adapted for over 1,000 years to its spectacular mountain environment. This land use continues today in the face of social, economic and environmental pressures.” (5)

Belted Galloway cattle near Haweswater

Because farming persists to the present, its place in the Lake District is well known. The presence of industry, however, especially mining, isn’t as well recognized. The Appendix summarizes, “Significant mining of metal ores in the Lake District took place from at least as early as 1000 AD and was developed on a truly industrial scale from the Elizabethan period following the establishment of the Mines Royal. Mining continued to develop from the 18th century and reached a peak in the later 19th and early 20th centuries followed by a decline which saw the last mineral mine close in 1990. Slate quarrying also took place on a small scale from the medieval period and developed as a major local industry from the 18th century. Although it too has declined, several slate quarries are still active in the Lake District.” (6) More specifically, “industrial scale mining for ores of iron, copper, lead and for graphite began during the medieval period.” (7)

Of course, prior to the introduction of engines, the local native ponies provided the ‘horsepower’ for the region’s economy, especially before roads were improved and pack horse routes were how goods of the region got to larger markets in other parts of the country. Pack pony loads included not only slate and metal ore but also fleece, fish, and more. (8) It is unlikely that any facet of the Lake District’s economy or history were untouched by the Fell Pony and its ancestors. David Anthony Murray continues, “[The Fell Pony] was, until 1900, Britain’s pack animal. More recently it pulled recreational traps, worked Cumbria’s farms and the Pennine lead mines and hauled coal and milk. Even 50 years ago, it delivered the Lake District’s post.” (9) (While pit mining using ponies may not have occurred in the Lake District proper, ponies reared on the Lake District fells certainly were ‘exported’ to other counties for use below ground (click here for more information).)

The Partnership’s Plan briefly acknowledges pack horse routes and bridges: “Many of the early packhorse routes survive in the English Lake District fells. In many cases they cross rivers and becks on carefully constructed, single span stone bridges known as packhorse bridges, which add greatly to the picturesque qualities of the landscape. These are largely undated but are likely to have been constructed in the 17th and 18th centuries, replacing earlier, medieval structures.” (10)

Walna Scar Packhorse Bridge (with added modern (ugly!) railings) courtesy Louise Thompson

In 2011, Louise Thompson of Lakeland Pack Ponies shared a very succinct summary of the place Fell Ponies and their ancestors occupied in the cultural landscape of the Lake District: “I have attached a photo of a wonderful pack pony bridge on the ancient route over Walna Scar. The route starts in the Lake District village of Coniston passing the old copper mines, continues up the steep pack pony route, crossing this bridge. The route descends down to the beautiful Seathwaite valley on the other side. Ponies would have carried loads of copper and slate over this pass…. Hardnott Pass is an old Roman road, used by pack ponies carrying goods such as wool and grains from the market town of Kendal [through the Lake District] to the little Roman port of Ravenglass. It is also said that the pack ponies were used by smugglers to collect illegal goods brought to the port, and, quietly in the dark of night, they would disappear into the fells carrying their loads.” (11)

If you are interested in a more detailed article about the use of ponies for packing historically, click here.

Looking towards Heltondale

I am sure that more and better examples exist of how the Fell Pony and its ancestors have contributed to the cultural landscape of the Lake District and its Identity theme of the World Heritage Site. And I am hopeful that those examples are integrated into the National Park and the World Heritage Site. Perhaps the international status of our breed could be an asset in that regard. The Partnership’s Plan states, “World Heritage Site status would require further attention to how the Lake District’s values are interpreted and transmitted, particularly by international audiences.” (12) I look forward to seeing the Fell Pony take its rightful place alongside the Herdwick Sheep as an iconic breed of the region.

1. “Euphoria as Lake District becomes a World Heritage Site,” July 9, 2017, at http://lakesworldheritage.co.uk/blog/2017/july/euphoria-as-lake-district-becomes-a-world-heritage-site/ as accessed 2/28/20.

2. Same as #1.

3. “Section 2.0: Outstanding Universal Value, Special Qualities, Risks and Vision,” p. 29, Volume 4: Partnership Plan, Nomination Dossier at https://www.lakedistrict.gov.uk/caringfor/policies/whs/lake-district-nomination as accessed 2/28/20.

4. Murray, David Anthony. The Fell pony: grazing characteristics and breed profile – a preliminary assessment, P.O. Box 550, Leicester, England, p. 378

5. “Section 1.0: Executive Summary,” p. 31, Volume 4: Partnership Plan, Nomination Dossier at https://www.lakedistrict.gov.uk/caringfor/policies/whs/lake-district-nomination as accessed 2/28/20.

6. “Appendix 1: Lake District Special Qualities,” p. 274, Volume 4: Partnership Plan, Nomination Dossier at https://www.lakedistrict.gov.uk/caringfor/policies/whs/lake-district-nomination as accessed 2/28/20.

7. Same as #6, p. 272-3.

8. “Early History,” on “About Fell Ponies” page at www.fellponysociety.org.uk as accessed 20 November 2018.

9. Same as #4.

10. “Section 2.a. Description of the English Lake District,” p. 107, Volume 4: Partnership Plan, Nomination Dossier at https://www.lakedistrict.gov.uk/caringfor/policies/whs/lake-district-nomination as accessed 2/28/20.

11. Email from Louise Thompson to author, 11/1/11.

12. Same as #3, p. 81.

North American Fell Pony Population Status - 2019

As we have all been taught to do this past year, I will blame Covid for my tardiness in generating an update on the North American Fell Pony population. Each year I review the stud book of the Fell Pony Society to learn about changes to the North American Fell Pony population. This review is based on the 2019 stud book, and the review will quickly be out of date when the 2020 stud book is published in the spring of 2021. Nonetheless, there are important points to be made by the 2019 analysis.

The chart below shows how the population has changed since 2000 through 2019. The blue bar is the resident population. Red shows foals born in the year, and green is imports in the year. At the bottom of the bars is purple, showing deaths in the year.

Here are the highlights of my review of the 2019 stud book.

• There are just under 700 registered Fell Ponies in North America.

• As our population ages, the number of deaths annually is understandably increasing, with nine in 2019.

• The number of foals was slightly less than the previous year.

• In 2019, we had seventeen breeders, the most ever. Just as I found last year, half of the breeders in 2009 weren’t still breeding in 2019.

• There were three new breeders in 2019, which is about the same increase we see each year.

• There were about thirty new owners of registered Fell Ponies in 2019.

For me, it seems like there are lots of Fell Ponies in North America now. Compared to when I got started, there’s more than 20 times as many! Yet there really aren’t that many, and there are lots more people who need to learn about this breed because they will fall in love! Thank you for the role you play in the stewardship of this breed in North America.

(c) Jenifer Morrissey, 2021

There are many more observations about the Fell Pony breed in my book Fell Ponies: Observations on the Breed, the Breed Standard, and Breeding, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

Crossing the ‘Stream’ and Other Small Lessons

One of the challenges of being a Fell Pony breeder is figuring out how to fit riding and driving training into the reproductive schedules of my mares and my related workload. Sometimes, of course, mares have years when they are open, so there’s plenty of opportunity then. But when they are bred or have foals at foot, my answer is often to do things in small, frequent doses. For instance, recently when the days have been incredibly short in December and the weather has been unusually pleasant and warm, I have been looking for excuses to be outdoors. So, I’ve been taking a few minutes with each mare to do something each morning when I have them in the paddocks at the barn.

In my experience, there’s always something small to be worked on, even if I don’t know what it is in advance. Just preparing to mount and mounting often gives me an idea, such as reminding one of my girls about the importance of standing still during mounting. Or once underway, I need to remind a mare to maintain the particular gait I’ve asked for. In one mare, turning as we approached the paddock fence revealed a braced neck, so we’re working on that. Improving responses to leg aids is another one that has come up since one mare is very good in that department and the others not so much by comparison.

One morning we’d had a light snow, which is all we are getting right now in our drought. Runoff from the barn roof after the sun warmed things up created a very small ‘stream’ through the paddock. I didn’t think anything of it until I was riding one of my mares, and she stopped at the edge. I realized I had never ridden her through water before; our ridden work had not progressed that far back when we had regular access to live water for such lessons in Colorado. So my work with her that morning became learning to carry me across the ‘stream,’ though it wasn’t really much more than wet soft ground. Nonetheless, she refused just like equines will sometimes do when asked to cross water, so it was a good opportunity to carry out an important lesson.

One short lesson is nice, but stringing small lessons together over multiple days is even better. And with six fillies/mares, the total time is a good match for my schedule. As is always the case when working with ponies, consistent, purposeful attention makes for rewarding progress.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

More stories like this one can be found in my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

Rose is Missing

I arrived at the barn after breakfast. As usual my beloved Fell Pony mares were there awaiting my arrival after their night out on the hill. Except Rose was not there. My heart pony was missing.

Rose has a bit of an independent streak, as shown here away from the herd back left. That independent streak of course makes her a great trail pony.

I threw some hay and closed the gate so the other five ponies would stay put, and I opened a gate to the barnyard so that Rose could enter if she showed up. Then I started calling. Usually Rose comes when she hears me, but then usually she is not far from the rest of the mares and this time she was missing, so I was a little concerned. I continued calling as I walked a little way west to get a good view, but then I headed east toward where I had last seen the herd on the hill. And I kept looking back toward the barn hoping Rose would be there, but she wasn’t.

As I kept looking, I alternated between hoping for the best and fearing the worst. I had heard an odd sound while I was eating breakfast, but I hadn’t investigated. Now I feared maybe it had been Rose crying for help, so I looked down steep hillsides and into ravines wondering if she had fallen. Rose is my only pony in my most important conservation line, so I also started the calculus of what I would do if I had lost her. Trying to think positive, I reflected on her independent spirit, illustrated by the photo here of her away from the herd. I willed her to be out there somewhere, safe.

I walked and called for nearly an hour before ending up back at my house ready to request help. Then I saw a black object about a quarter mile to the west on the pony side of the calving pasture fence. Was it a calf loose or was it Rose? I started walking in that direction and indeed it was a pony trotting toward the barn. Relief! And a few choice words about all the worry she caused me! I headed to the barn and greeted her warmly before putting her in with the other mares. I then tried to get past the anxiety that was still running through my body so I could get on with chores. But the story of Rose being missing wasn’t over.

The herd of elk that Rose was near. The pony pasture is over the ridge to the left.

I heard Bruce drive up to the cake bin on the other side of the barn to fill his caker before feeding bulls. I walked over to share about my long, searching walk. He somewhat chastised me for not calling him for help. Then he asked if the missing pony had a star. Yes, I said, thinking it a strange reaction to my story. Then more of Rose’s story came out. Bruce had been feeding the calves to the southwest of the barn when he saw a large herd of elk in the adjacent pasture. His first thought was to wonder how much fence they had ripped out, since that had been a recent regular occurrence. Then he saw a black animal and thought, ‘that bull looks odd.’ Then he realized it wasn’t the resident bull in that pasture, it was an equine. As he drove closer, he saw that it was actually a pony. Rose approached him and willingly went through the gate he opened to return her to the pony pasture. He said she then departed at a very purposeful pace toward the barn.

We may not ever know the rest of Rose’s story from that morning. Why did she stray from the other mares? How did she end up in that other pasture? Did the elk take out fence up higher and she followed them down? She and I had ridden in that other pasture about six months before, so she knew the territory. I had thought Rose’s vigorous trot toward the barn when I had seen her after searching was odd. Now I knew she actually couldn’t come when I called but she did come as soon as she was back in the right pasture and was able. I will of course go investigate if the elk did indeed take out fence. Each time I have checked the herd morning and night since then, Rose has been with them. Clearly something unusual happened that morning. With Bruce’s chastisement in mind, now I will also be sure to check with him before I commence any search for a missing pony!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

More stories like this one can be found in my book What an Honor, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

I Don’t Think it’s Coincidence

Red arrow points to the notifier, the sole visible pony, in this case Matty.

It has happened often enough now that I don’t think it’s a coincidence.  I go out just before dark to see my Fell Pony mare herd.  The mares run on a very large pasture, and I usually don’t know where they are on it when I begin my walk.  Often, though, one pony will make themselves visible, alerting me to where the rest of the herd likely is.  Then, just as often, that pony disappears, and it’s up to me to remember the location and navigate to it.

Not all members of the mare herd play the role of notifier.  Usually it is the lowest pony in the herd, Calista; sometimes it is the lead mare Matty.  Tonight it was Honey, briefly, before she disappeared.  I assume they hear my voice, or they hear the stallion Asi’s call and his gate open when I feed him first.  They know I am out and about.  It is up to me to scan the hill and the lowlands, or as tonight, to note the behavior of the calves in their feed pasture since they find the ponies a curiosity when they are near the fence.  Then the notifier makes themselves briefly visible, and I begin my walk in their direction.

While I don’t think it’s coincidence that there is a notifier pony, I also don’t want to believe it’s coincidence.  That the notifier makes themselves visible briefly is heart-warming.  To think they want me to know where they are and to come visit is a thrill.  I find observing these ponies in as close to as natural a setting as I can provide them to be fascinating.  Once again I realize one lifetime with them will not be enough.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

You can find more stories like this one in my book What an Honor, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

A Dominance Move?

Bowthorne Matty’s tail head is just showing at the bottom of this picture that I took mounted of the herd following us.

I had prepared all the feed buckets and was beginning to halter and tie my Fell Pony mares prior to feeding them.  As always, I haltered and tied the lead mare first, intending to work my way down/through the herd.  As I walked to the next pony, I heard a scuffle behind me and thought I saw a lower ranking mare threaten the tied mare.  It’s of course my job to protect any pony that is tied because they can’t protect themselves, so even though I wasn’t certain that I’d seen the lower ranking mare make a dominance move, I haltered and tied her next just in case.

The next morning it was gloriously beautiful.  The mares hadn’t come in on their own, so I went out in search of them.  I knew the day was going to be good when I found a piece of petrified wood near the herd, my first such find since moving to the Black Hills of South Dakota the year before.  The day then continued in that uplifting vein when I rode the lead mare into the barn with the rest of the herd following.  I get such a thrill out of riding with the herd like that!

Not long after the ride commenced, when we entered an open area, I noticed the same lower ranking mare pick up speed and head straight toward us in a somewhat threatening way.  Before I could decide on a plan to protect my mount and me, one of the other mares ran between us, pushing the threatening mare away.  My savior stayed between us and the threatening mare the rest of the way into the barn. 

The next day, the farrier was here to trim hooves, and he was working on the lower ranking mare.  That mare’s foal was separated from her while the farrier was working.  The foal had decided she’d been separated from her mother long enough and approached the fence dividing her from her mother.  She apparently got too close to another mare because that mare pinned her ears, snaked her neck out, and chased the filly a short distance off.  Immediately the lead mare used the same behavior to chase off the filly’s pursuer.  I was fascinated by this seeming disciplinary behavior by the lead mare of the pursuing mare.

I always find how my ponies interact to be fascinating.  Mostly the herd is peaceful, so I don’t very often get to see the sorts of behavior I did on these days.  The display by the lead mare doesn’t require anything on my part.  But now that I have two observations that a change in leadership in the herd may be underway, I will be more observant of herd interactions.  I need to protect not only myself but also any tied pony until the ramifications of the dominance moves by the lower ranking mare work themselves out.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

More stories like this one can be found in my book What an Honor, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

Where the Rising Sun Hits First

Living in a steep-sided valley, I am very conscious of how the sun rises differently with the seasons.  In the summer, my house gets very early morning light because the sun rises in line with the valley.  In the winter, the opposite is true.  The lower sun must make its way over a high southern ridge, slowing the arrival of first light.  My neighbor gets winter sun nearly a half hour before I do because his house sits higher and where the valley is broader. 

Several people have shared with me that their ponies come when they’re called.  These comments have been made to me in response to seeing photos of me with my ponies high on the hill of the pasture and hearing stories about bringing them down to the barn.  There have been suggestions that I need to train my ponies to come when they’re called so I don’t need to walk and climb after them.  These suggestions have caused me to think about why I don’t do that.

One reason is that I don’t need to train my ponies to come when they’re called; they already do that (usually!)  I just don’t call them in very often, so I had to ask myself why that is.  The answer is that I like to see what they choose to do without direction.  To some extent it is feedback on my leadership and the patterns I’ve established for what I expect of them.  And to some extent it is information about how they live the many hours of the day when I’m not with them.  I then use that information to enrich the time we do spend together.

One of the things I notice this time of year is that they are usually at the barn when I get there in the morning.  Then there are the occasional times when they are not.  What I have noticed is that they are at the barn of their own volition when the night has been cold and the sun has risen and warmed the barnyard before anywhere else.  And they are not at the barn when the sun isn’t out and the weather is inclement or if the night was warm and they don’t need a morning sunbath.  They have shown me that the rising sun hits the barn first this time of year.

I have used this information when working with my young filly.  I’ve been continuing to build her foot handling skills and doing preliminary farrier work.  We are working at liberty (she stands untied,) and some mornings she is more cooperative than others.  What I have learned is that those mornings when the herd has come to the barn on their own are when she is most compliant.  If I introduce a new variant of our foot handling routine, then, I do it on those sorts of mornings.  I wouldn’t have necessarily known to do that if I had made a habit of calling the herd in rather than let them show me what they prefer about sunbathing on cold mornings.

So while it is very possible that I could save myself some walking by calling my Fell Ponies in each morning, I choose not to call them because there is so much I can learn about them if I let them naturally join me or not.  At this point in my stewardship of my ponies, I prefer that sort of dialogue about behavior.  I like that they get to teach me, not just the other way around.  I like that they showed me where the rising sun hits first.  When I learn something like that, it enriches my life and, I hope, theirs. 

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

You can find more stories like this one in my book What an Honor, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

Maybe It Was Aimee?!

When my Fell Ponies first started climbing high on the hill here, I asked, “I wonder who’s leading that adventure?”  (Click here to read the story.)  I figured that that leading pony would be a great trail pony.  I had several possibilities in mind.  There was Matty, the herd leader, of course.  And there was Rose, my trail and heart pony, and there was Calista, my young mare born on the fells of Cumbria.  None of them, though, had seemed particularly interested in exploring the hill.  A few days later I got a possible answer about who that adventurous lead pony might be. 

After the ponies’ initial adventure, when I got to the barn one morning to start chores, five of the seven members of the mare herd greeted me.  Madie and her five-month-old daughter Aimee were the missing ponies, and I figured they were out on the low elevation portion of the pasture somewhere as they often were that time of morning.  I expected they would appear before long as they normally did.

I prepared all the vitamin buckets, a sound that usually brings in any stragglers, but there was still no sign of Madie and Aimee.  I called to them several times, since Aimee often comes running when she sees or hears me.  They still didn’t appear, so I set Madie’s and Aimee’s buckets aside and fed the ponies that had come in, doing my normal inspection of their physical and mental wellbeing.  I then turned them all loose and pondered what to do about Madie’s and Aimee’s unclaimed buckets.  I walked out on the low portion of the hill to the west and didn’t see them, which seemed odd, so I carried the buckets to my house to check around the hill to the east, one of their favorite hangouts.  When they weren’t there either, I became a little concerned.

As I walked back to my house, I pondered what my next move should be.  Should I just assume they were all right and would reunite with the herd during the day?  Should I double check the lowlands to the west to be sure I hadn’t missed them somewhere?  I was tired and didn’t relish the idea of another mile or two of walking.  I stopped to take a deep breath then looked up on the hill.  I was astonished to see two black specs halfway up the hill.  Madie and Aimee!  They were in behind some trees so not visible from the barn.  I saw Aimee raise her head and look toward me when I called to her, but she made no move in my direction.  Okay, I told them, have a good day!  I returned their buckets to the barn to be fed another day.

A friend who met Aimee during the summer suggested that perhaps it was Aimee who had led the herd up on high that first time.  I could see the logic; Aimee certainly has the makings of a lead mare, but at such a young age I wondered if the herd would follow her.  But then I had seen Aimee lead her mother up in elevation a month before.  I will never really know, of course, which pony led the herd on that first adventure on the hill that day, but I’ve now added Aimee to the list of possibilities!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

You can find more stories like this one in my book What an Honor, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.