Morning Laughter

Mayflower tucked between two friends!

Early in the day, I had seen the mares come into the barn from the hill. Normally they wait there for me to arrive, but by the time I got there this time they weren’t there anymore. I spread their hay, and they still didn’t arrive, so apparently they weren’t close. Before taking a walk to find them, I walked to the stallion pen and fed Asi. On the walk back to the mare paddock I noticed that the mares had decided to come in. The four oldest mares came first and entered the paddock and started working on the hay I had spread. Then I saw yearling Aimee and mare Calista and her foal Mayflower running in. Rather than come into the paddock, though, they went to the waterer on the outside of the paddock.

I completed a short chore, and I saw Aimee come in, but I didn’t see Calista and Mayflower come in. I went to close the gate, pondering a walk to go look for Calista and Mayflower, then Calista appeared and passed me and went in. But where was her baby Mayflower? I started calling as I pulled the gate shut, my anxiety rising as I considered what might have happened to my young foal. As I turned around for one last look at the mares in the paddock before going out to search, I saw Mayflower looking at me from the lineup of mares, as if to say ‘here I am!’ I started laughing really hard. After I acknowledged Mayflower, she turned around and went back to eating hay and I laughed even harder.

© 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.

Pony Moments Summer 2021

I am so lucky to spend so much time with my ponies. They bring so many smiles to my face. Here are a few short examples from the past few months.

We had a moister summer than last, so my stallion’s grazing paddock lasted him most of the season. He stood at the gate in the morning waiting for me to open it and enjoyed his run down and into the ravine and up the other side before settling into grazing. Each day, though, when he heard me call, he willingly reversed the process, running down into the ravine and then back up into his paddock to meet me. I was so thankful!

I had two mares foal late in the summer. I appreciated their cooperation with my housing choices for them. Prior to foaling I was bringing Rose into a shed during the day to accustom her to the arrangement, then returning her to the herd for the night. Many mornings before she foaled, she would be at the shed when I came out, waiting for me to put her in. After Madie and Rose foaled, I put them out to graze during the day then in at night. These mares and their foals have a very large and varied pasture to graze, yet they reliably show up at dusk to be put in. I sleep better knowing they are in when the coyotes begin to howl nearby.

My two mares that did not have foals this year have also made me smile daily. Matty and Honey are out all night to graze, but every morning they are at the barn awaiting me when I arrive to close them in for the day. I keep them in so the foals can get used to the terrain of the pasture before dealing with the larger herd dynamics. Matty and Honey could make other choices, and they don’t. I’m so thankful.

One night I got home after dark. All of my ponies were in need of attention. Some needed to be fed where they were housed for the night and others needed to be let out to graze until morning. The adults were most interested in getting their feeding needs met, but the foals showed a different priority. Each of them - Mayflower, King, and Lettie – made a point of approaching and acknowledging me before following their mothers. They warmed my heart.

During fly season, I was regularly spraying the ponies who were in paddocks with an all-natural repellent. I have learned over the years that fly spray has at least three sensory associations that need to be established in my ponies for them to accept being sprayed: smell, feel, and sound (click here to read a story about those discoveries!) This time I was surprised, though, by how those sensory associations had already been learned by my foals. Both King at a few weeks old and Mayflower at a few months old stepped between their mothers and me to be sprayed. They had apparently already learned the relief associated with the spray and wanted to be first in line!

Another night, I also returned home after dark. As I stepped out of the car, I heard a call from the foaling shed nearby. Madie’s voice had a different quality to it, so I wondered what she was concerned about. Then I heard the pasture gate rattle. Ha! I had set a tub of hay outside the gate to give to Madie before I went to bed. She was letting me know that herd mates Matty and Honey had found the tub despite having an entire pasture to graze on and were reaching through the fence eating her evening meal. Since then I’ve put Madie’s tub farther from the gate!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2021

Of Course They Did!

Lettie greets my visitor

When my visitor arrived, just three of my ten Fell Ponies were in the corrals. Fortunately, my visitor was interested in helping with chores, so we busied ourselves with them. All the while, though, I kept my eyes peeled for the rest of the herd because I wanted my visitor to meet all of them. Soon, Madie and her foal King came into view on the hill, and my visitor exclaimed appreciation as King posed appropriately regally on a steep slope. Then I saw a three-some high on the hill watching us and listening as we talked while preparing vitamin buckets. I was not looking forward to climbing up to bring them in, and my visitor wasn’t able to climb anyway, so I just shrugged off my desire to introduce those three.

We gave buckets to my stallion and the two mares that were in. When we were done, I looked up on the hill, where I saw that the three-some was starting to move. I pointed them out to my visitor then over the next two minutes we were treated to a display of Fell Pony beauty. These three navigated the steep terrain with manes and tails flowing, trotting then galloping toward the barn as they reached flatter ground. I opened the gate and let them into the corrals, thinking about a comment that has been made more than once about my ponies and me. It seemed to apply to my wondering if these three would come in on their own: ‘Of course they did!’

My visitor had now met all my ponies except for the newest foal and her mother. I told my visitor that I didn’t know where they were, so it looked like we wouldn’t get to see them. And then, here they came, up out of the ravine towards the barn, where Rose and Lettie cordially greeted my visitor.. ‘Of course they did!’

I introduced the three hill ponies to my visitor as we gave them their vitamin buckets. One of the three was yearling Aimee. It didn’t take long before my visitor was petting Aimee and scratching her in her favorite places. Almost sheepishly, my visitor turned to me and said, “I like Aimee best.” I don’t what Aimee does to elicit such admiration from visitors, but this visitor joined most of the others I’ve had this year in placing Aimee at the top of the list. ‘Of course they did!’

Visitors are a relatively rare happening here. So I always learn a lot watching how my ponies react to visitors and my visitors react to them. Often my ponies humble me, and this time was no different. ‘Of course they did!’

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2021

Madie, Where's Your Baby?!!!

I laughed when I saw this - King in the wrong pen with his mother on the outside!

I had company for dinner and had to excuse myself right at dark to go bring in my mares and their foals. I was thankful when I stepped out the door and one of the mares called out a greeting. She was usually close at that time of night, so I was glad the pattern had repeated itself on a night when I was later doing this chore than I should have been.

I grabbed a halter and let myself through the pasture gate, and Madie came to greet me. After exchanging hellos, she followed me into her pen where I had put out hay for her. Then I looked around and realized her foal King was nowhere in sight. I said quickly, more than once, “Madie, where’s your baby?!!!”

I hurriedly put a halter on her, and we went back out into the pasture in the direction from which I had seen her come. Failing light is far from ideal when looking for black ponies, especially against a treed background. Eventually, though, I saw the second mare Rose appearing from the ravine, and my relief was abundant when I saw her with two foals, one of which was King.

I put Madie back in her pen, thinking King would follow her in, but I had more work to do. He was more interested in following Rose and her foal Lettie. I haltered Rose and led her into her pen, and eventually Lettie followed; she too seemed interested in hanging out with her brother. I shut the gate of that pen quickly because I knew from the previous day that King would follow Rose and Lettie into their pen if I let him, as the photo here shows. When King realized he was alone, he finally decided to join his mother in their pen, and I shut the gate for the night. But I had quite a story to tell my dinner guests when I returned to them!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2021

There are more stories about my life with Fell Ponies in What an Honor, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

Unexpected Glue

The younger herd!

My seven Fell Pony mares all were running together, spending nights on the hill and days in the paddocks where I can check them over and manage their caloric intake. They have delighted me by coming into the paddocks each morning, awaiting my arrival and morning greeting. Then the herd split in two, with half coming in and the other half staying out so that I had to go out searching for them. I was surprised by the glue that had kept them together and that I had removed.

The herd that has continued to come into the paddocks is the older three mares. The herd that has been expressing their independence is the three youngest: four-year-old Calista, her foal Mayflower, and yearling Aimee.

Herd dynamics always fascinate me. So when the mare herd split in two, I was curious what had changed. I knew I had made a change in the herd, separating Madie for part days in preparation for foaling. When she foaled, I removed her from the mare herd entirely to give she and her foal a chance to bond and then get used to life on the hill without pressure from more dominant ponies.

Madie ended up being the unexpected glue in the herd. Madie likes to be in the company of the older mares who are close in age to her. Aimee likes to be in the company of her mother. With Madie in the herd, these preferences kept the herd together because Calista didn’t want to be alone. With Madie removed, Aimee no longer had incentive to stay with the older mares, and Calista didn’t either with Aimee joining her band. So interesting! Recombining the herd is going to be fascinating when the time comes!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2021

If you enjoyed this story, you can find more like it in my book What an Honor, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

Snakes in the Morning

Rose in her foaling pen before I put boards around the base to keep her foal in and canines (and maybe snakes?) out

The first snake encounter of the day was when I was walking my pregnant Fell Pony mare Willowtrail Wild Rose from the barn to her foaling pen for the day. We walked down into a ravine, and as we descended, I was watching for snakes, when I saw one just in front of me. Before I could stop, Rose had stepped on it. But because I stopped, she did too, on the snake. Well-mannered pony except in this case! I quickly asked her to move ahead then I turned around to see what we had just passed over. It was a baby snake, and it was hissing at us and appeared to be injured, so I went off in search of a rock to put it out of its misery. When we returned, the foot-long youngster was slithering off, and I confirmed that it was a harmless bull snake, so I tossed my rock aside and willed my heart to quit beating so quickly.

A few minutes later, as I was settling Rose into her pen, I heard my young dog Ace barking insistently. This is the same dog that was bit by a rattlesnake a few weeks before. When I stepped around the shed to see where he was, I saw he was barking at a spot on the ground, with my other dog doing an approach-and-retreat dance I’d seen her use at other times this summer around snakes. For herding dogs, these two do amazing imitations of pointers! I quickly grabbed a pitchfork and yelled at the dogs to keep their distance and approached them quickly but cautiously. I scanned the ground where they were pointing, and I couldn’t see anything. Then I drug the pitchfork across the area the dogs were pointing at, and something silver moved and both dogs jumped. It was a snake skin! Once again I willed my heart to quit beating so quickly while smiling at the harmless outcome of our collective excitement.

The previous day I was emerging from a bad case of heat exhaustion, my second of the summer after not having any cases for years. In addition, I had been pondering the news reports from earlier in the week of the just-released report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The summary seems to be that the climate will be getting hotter and more unpredictable quickly. The two summers I have been here in South Dakota have been hotter than normal, but I can’t take solace from that statistical perspective because these hot days may be our new normal. So I’ve been asking myself how my stewardship of my ponies needs to be adjusted.

At first I was thinking about it from the ponies’ perspective. What do they need that they don’t already have? The good news is that they seem to be doing pretty well so far, making use of sheds and barns to stay out of the sun during the day, availing themselves of cooling breezes, and doing most of their grazing at night. After my heat exhaustion, I then had to ask, what do I need to do differently? Immediately what came to mind is the timing of my breeding and foaling season and the workload they require. In Colorado I hadn’t ever been constrained by weather with regard to breeding and foaling, but I know one breeder elsewhere that has timed foaling for the dead of winter because of their climate. In the face of the hot days I’ve experienced this summer and last, and maybe hotter ones in the future, I will probably have to move my breeding and foaling to early spring and late fall so I don’t have a workload during weather I can’t handle.

Warmer summers may mean a longer snake season, too. I lived without snakes for seventeen years when I was in Colorado at 9,000 feet above sea level, so I haven’t been used to constraining my life because of them. And the long cool season here when they aren’t out lulls me to complacency for many months. Having Ace bit each year of his life so far by rattlesnakes, though, has established a pattern that I can’t ignore. I know the snakes aren’t necessarily aggressive; I remember watching one of my ducks once step on a rattlesnake with no adverse consequences (except for the snake getting quickly relocated out of the barnyard!) Nonetheless, I will be evaluating how my management of my ponies may need to change to keep us all safe from snake bites and, more importantly, how to minimize my anxiety about them. I wonder what other aspects of our new climate normal will require me to rethink my stewardship of my ponies.

A few days before my snakes-in-the-morning, a friend let me know about a rattlesnake awareness class she was taking her dog to. My neighbor Bruce laughed when I told him about it, saying I was getting my awareness through on-the-job training! I am just thankful that my dogs are being cautious and letting me know when they have found something serpent-like, even if it’s just a skin!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2021

Fortune and Misfortune

Two bloody spots on my dogs nose confirmed his misfortune and a pony’s good fortune.

This story is about the good fortune of a pony and the misfortune of a dog. I didn’t realize the pony’s luck at the time, so I only have a photo of the dog’s end of things.

I was doing my evening chores, including readying the foaling shed for a pregnant mare. I had finished that chore when I saw the mare appear nearby, walking toward me along the fence toward the foaling shed. I was thankful when she put herself in for the night without me fetching a halter and walking to find her and leading her in. I chuckled because her mother had been the same way.

A few minutes later my dogs and I began our trek to the barn to let the mare herd out. My young dog was frisky with the cooler temperatures and kept me laughing with his antics, including running circles around the foaling pen and doing sprints back and forth between my legs. As we headed back along the same path along the fence that the mare had just come in on, he grabbed a bone and trotted along in front of me. Then he dropped it to go investigate something. When he came back to fetch his bone in front of me on the path, he suddenly yelped and sprung four feet into the air and landed behind me. Then I heard a rattle. Two bloody dots on my dog’s nose confirmed he’d just been bitten by a rattlesnake.

Where I lived in Colorado for seventeen years we didn’t have snakes, let alone poisonous ones, so I’m still getting used to living with them here in South Dakota. My education about treating rattlesnake bites in dogs came fifteen months before when the same dog was bit on the face. This spring I had him vaccinated against rattlesnake venom, trusting he wouldn’t need the protection because he had learned from experience that he shouldn’t mess with them. His misfortune was that he had surprised the snake in deep grass and likely hadn’t even seen it while looking for his bone.

The pony’s good fortune was that the snake hadn’t bit her as she came along the same path a few minutes before. Maybe the snake had just arrived there, or maybe the snake felt her coming from the clomp-clomp of her hooves. Whatever the reason, I was extremely grateful for how things turned out, especially since the mare foaled four hours later. I knew the ropes for getting my dog on the road to recovery and didn’t have to learn the routine for an equine. Or for a human for that matter since I was right there, too. After anti-venom and other supporting medications, two days later my dog is acting normally and has just a little remaining swelling.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2021

Midnight Moonlight Greeting

Willowtrail Spring Maiden at dusk a few days before this story took place. I didn’t even try to take a photo at midnight under moonlight!

I had been away for three days on a last-minute trip, attending the Celebration of Life of a deceased friend. I returned home just before midnight, and my immediate priority was to take my dogs for a walk. When I stepped outside with them after changing my clothes, I saw that the waning gibbous moon had risen high enough in the sky to light the valley where I live. With hope in my heart, I scanned the hill nearby, and I was elated by what I saw.

As I walked toward the gate and my eyesight became adjusted to the light, I kept scanning the area. Soon I saw that there was not one but a number of ponies nearby, and that they had begun walking toward the gate too. Before long I had exchanged greetings with all but one of my mares and both my youngsters. The missing mare has a habit of being aloof, so when I couldn’t easily find her in the moonlight, I spoke my greeting, knowing I would see her the following morning. I didn’t even think to try to take a picture, so the one here is of an evening pony encounter a few days before.

My trip had been to an urban area that had required an airplane flight. I can count on one hand the number of such trips I’ve taken in the last ten years, so you can imagine how out of my element I felt, not just because I was away from my four-footed friends. Having my feet back on the ground here was a wonderful feeling. Then, that my mares would make themselves visible nearby for my homecoming was like icing on the cake. This life with ponies is amazing!

© 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.

These Two!

It had been a long day. As I drove the lane on the way to check a newborn calf, I scanned the pony pasture looking for Calista and Mayflower. I was preparing for bringing them in for the night when I got back. When I spied them, they were about a half mile from my house, so I knew a walk was in front of me as light was quickly fading from the day. Imagine my elation, then, when I returned to my house and found that they had run to the waterer at the barn during my absence. This was the fourth evening in a row that these two had made my life so much easier.

The previous night, I had misjudged the weather forecast. Thunder and lightning had begun earlier than I expected, and when I went out to do my last pony chores of the day, occasional rain drops began to fall. The sky was an amazing red color, and with the flashes of lightning, it almost looked like it was on fire. Unfortunately the lightning drew nearer as my chores drug on, so when it was time to fetch Calista and Mayflower, I took a route that avoided ridgetops, hoping I wouldn’t have to walk into the open pasture in search of my girls. What a relief it was, then, when I saw them approaching the barn with their own bodies, like mine, bent against the rain that was beginning to fall in earnest. By the time I got them tucked into the foaling shed for the night, we were all soaked, but we were safe and able to appreciate the brilliant, if electric, show in the sky. The next morning the water in my rain gauge had a reddish tinge to it. I later learned we had had smoke in the atmosphere from a distant wildfire.

The night before that, I had gone out just before dark and didn’t see the girls anywhere. I began calling their names as I walked. After several minutes, I heard thundering hooves and here they came from the far end of the pasture at full speed. As they got closer, I saw that it was Mayflower, the foal, that was in the lead by forty yards. She almost came all the way to me but then veered to follow her mother to the barn. I had been wondering who was responsible for coming when I called, and I think I got my answer that night! Warmed my heart!

The first night in this helpful series, it had been another long, tiring day and I was late getting out to do chores. It was nearly dark when it was time to go find Calista and Mayflower. Imagine my appreciation then when, after fetching a halter, I looked up to see Calista and Mayflower not fifty feet from me heading my way. These two made my day again!

None of the four nights when Calista and Mayflower were so helpful were conducive to picture-taking. I was just intent on getting the girls where they were supposed to be before dark. So the photo here was taken one morning during the string of days when I was feeling so appreciative of these two.

© 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.

Mountain Ponies 2

When the farrier was out the other day, as usual we had wide ranging conversations as we passed the time while he worked. In addition to updates on his family’s farm and animals, he shared with me his family’s ‘odd hobby’ (his words) of doing historic train holdup reenactments. They dress in period clothes, carry period firearms, have a script that they follow, and shoot blanks to entertain tourists.

I shared with him the current state of my similarly ‘odd hobby’ of breeding Fell Ponies. At the moment, I am quite consumed by the actual work of breeding – putting mares with carefully chosen stallions and making sure they are successfully bred – and he was complimentary about my newest filly who was born a few hours after his last visit here. (He was also impressed with her foot-handling skills at such a young age!) But I also shared with him my current research projects about the Fell Pony breed that help inform my breeding work. One of my current research projects is about the packhorse history of the Lake District in the Fell Pony’s home terrain. We then touched a little on the conformation that I think makes an ideal Fell Pony, one that could do that packing work but also the other work the breed has been asked to perform over its history, including ridden, driving, and draft.

There was a lull in our conversation, and then he said, seemingly out of the blue, “When we were ranching in the mountains, this is just the sort of horse,” pointing at the pony he was trimming, “that we were always wanting.” He then elaborated that it was shorter in stature, stoutly built, sure-footed, hardy, with nice large hooves, and able to pick its feet up to go over rough terrain. I immediately thought back to a similar statement that my late husband had made about the sorts of mounts an old cowboy he knew always rode in the mountains. That cowboy ranched only a handful of miles from where my farrier once ranched, so the similarities were even more apparent to me.

I don’t often run across people who understand the characteristics of a mountain pony and why they are important for the work they do. So it was a thrill during the long tedious chore of attending my farrier to hear his appreciation for my mountain ponies!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2021

Lake District National Park Partnership Management Plan Consultation

Linnel Doublet (“Rusty”) as a pack pony on the bridleway over Burnmoor in the Lake District

The Lake District National Park and its partners including Friends of the Lake District are crafting a new plan to address many changes in the context in which the park is managed, including Brexit and climate change. Until June 23, they are soliciting feedback on their plan via a survey (click here).

As you know if you have followed my work in the past few years, I believe we in the Fell Pony community have opportunities to increase the visibility of our breed and its historic role in the Lake District, thanks especially to the ‘cultural landscape’ category that was used to obtain World Heritage Site designation in 2017. The cultural landscape categorization calls out the role of agriculture and industry in shaping the Lake District we know today. Packhorses (ancestors of our Fell Ponies) were integral for hundreds of years in moving goods around the Lake District before roads and railways. Trackways and packhorse bridges are some of the historic marks on the landscape left by this form of transport. Unfortunately, packhorse history and Fell Ponies were not well integrated into the World Heritage Site plan, so the current revision of the park’s management plan provides us with a new opportunity.

I had three main concerns that were not necessarily easy to express in the survey:

• The agropastoral and industrial past on which the World Heritage Site is partially based emphasizes farming and mining and woodland industries but rarely mentions how materials were moved about (packhorses in their day) and the routes packhorses used, including trackways and bridges. Also rarely mentioned are the presence of mills (fulling, bobbin, corn) which were serviced by packhorses in their day. I think we in the Fell Pony community need to herald the historic role of packhorses for transport, possibly not only in the ‘Farming, Forestry, and Nature’ section but perhaps also in the Transport section.

• One of the themes of the new plan is ‘more sustainable transportation,’ and I think if you are interested in bridleways, it would be important to comment, since in the past, foot traffic has seemed to preempt equine traffic in planning circles. The picture here shows Linnel Doublet (“Rusty”) as a pack pony on the bridleway over Burnmoor.

• While farming is acknowledged as a part of the Lake District, it seems like farming will be important in the future for its ‘nature recovery’ role more than its ability to produce food. I think it’s not only possible but important to emphasize that both are possible at the same time and necessary. It seems to me, though, that ‘nature recovery’ gets top billing by a long way.

There are places in the survey where you are asked if you can help. Please consider what you might be able to do. I let them know about my work to document the packhorse history of the Lake District.

Thank you for your interest in this topic.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2021

Calling to Each Other

Drybarrows Calista and Willowtrail Mayflower keeping me company in the pasture

My bedroom is about 100 feet from the foaling shed. I sleep with my window cracked open for fresh air, but of course it also allows for easier entry of sound. At four o’clock in the morning, my Fell Pony mare Calista called to me, which woke me from a sound sleep. It’s very unusual for her to call, so I of course wondered why. A few minutes later I found out why when a coyote howled, and it was closer to my house than Calista is.

I immediately got up and put the dogs out, and they immediately went nuts running about barking and then eventually adding their harmonies to the distant ones of coyotes. The close-by song never returned. After a few more minutes, it was all quiet, so the dogs and I returned to the house.

Later that morning I had put Calista and her foal Mayflower out to pasture. But I realized I needed to check them more closely than I had, so I went looking for them. I knew which direction they had gone, but they weren’t visible anywhere. So I started softly calling. My calling was soft because I wanted Calista to know my intentions were different than my evening calls which communicate ‘Time to come in!’ Having just put her out, I knew she wouldn’t be thrilled with the idea of coming in so soon, so I also starting softly saying I just wanted to check on her.

After less than a minute of walking and softly calling, I was astounded by what happened. She called to me to let me know where she was. She had been hidden from view, and she and Mayflower ran to where I could see them. And it wasn’t just Calista that surprised me. Mayflower actually came running to me, down into a ravine and back up the other side where I was, with her mother in hot pursuit. I checked them both over and told them to have a good day.

I had walked a few dozen yards when I realized I again had company. They had trotted up to me again. I am quite humbled right now by these two. I had no idea that Calista would ever offer me the sort of relationship she has offered since Mayflower was born. It’s not that Calista was ever unfriendly; quite the opposite. Her breeder was right when he said she’d be hard to get rid of, so interested in attention was she as a youngster. What she is offering is something deeper, something that allows us to call to each other, with the high likelihood that the other will respond.

© 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.

One of Those Moments

It was one of those moments that confirmed that the effort I put into my ponies has rewards. Day after day I do little things, as anyone does in a relationship, to let them know they are heard, their needs are met, and they are cared about. Then they do something to let me know the same.

Just after sundown, I had walked a hundred yards towards where I could see Drybarrows Calista and her foal Willowtrail Mayflower grazing. I was still about one hundred feet from them when I saw my neighbor pull into my driveway. I made a quick calculation as to which of the two parties were most likely to stay put until I reached them, and I turned around and headed towards my house. Not a minute later, as I was looking toward where Bruce was parked, willing him to not drive off before I got to him, I felt and then saw beside me Calista and Mayflower.

I was so incredibly touched that they knew our routine so well. They helped me out by coming to me rather than either staying where they had been or moving off farther away. I continued towards their paddock, which was on the way to my house, with a huge grin on my face. I did eventually put a halter on Calista, so that I could more effectively lead them into their pen.

I have a new appreciation for the depth of our relationship. I feel blessed now each time I am with them. And I look forward to the next of those moments.

© 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.

Temperament, Handlers, and Breeders

A Fell Pony stallion entertaining visitors

I had been watching a video of a horsemanship clinic. As the clinic participants were leading their horses into the ring, one horse stood out for his behavior. He had very busy feet, dancing around his handler, occasionally shying, occasionally pushing into the handler’s space. Often the handler had to stop and turn the horse around them to continue walking where they were supposed to go. A few minutes into the video, the clinician took the lead rope of this horse, and there was an immediate change. The horse’s feet quieted, and over the course of the next half hour, the horse was completely different. Same horse, same place, different person, different behavior.

Later that day, I read a post on Facebook about breeding Fell Ponies, and the author listed their priorities: temperament, soundness, type. I immediately shook my head in disappointment. This wasn’t the first time I had heard a Fell Pony enthusiast put emphasis on temperament like this. Of course, there is no question that we want our ponies to be good-minded. As a user of ponies, we also obviously want soundness. But for the Fell Pony breed, we must have type. It was distressing to see type third in the list.

Then what about that video? When do we judge the temperament of an equine? When the clinician holds the lead rope? Or when the handler does? How a pony’s temperament shows up very much depends on the human they are interacting with. It also depends on the training the pony has had, their age, how they’re being fed, how they’re being housed, the environment they find themselves in and other factors.

Then I looked at that list of priorities from my perspective as a breeder. I have found that rarely do we as breeders get to make such cut-and-dried prioritized decisions. We’re always working with the ponies before us, mixing and matching breeding stock to produce ponies that not only have good temperaments but are also sound and have good type as well as other characteristics that matter to us. It’s not one then the other but all of them together in different combinations in every foal we put on the ground.

Now, after mulling over the video and the Facebook comment, I am grateful for the prioritized list of characteristics. It’s helped me realize that there’s no way anyone can have a prioritized list when one is practicing the art of breeding. Yes, we can choose a temperament we like when we breed, but we also must realize that that same temperament may be a mismatch for a different Fell Pony enthusiast. Matching ponies to people is as much an art as breeding is!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2021

You can find more ponderings about Fell Pony temperaments in my book Fell Ponies: Observations on the Breed, the Breed Standard, and Breeding, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

Eyes in the Back of My Head

My first horsemanship mentor had three stallions at their facility when I was visiting and helping out there. They also kept my first Fell Pony stallion after I bought him until I felt my horsemanship was up to having a stallion at my place. One of the first rules they shared with me was, “Never turn your back on a stallion.”

I now have my fifth Fell Pony stallion. The relatively mellow nature of our breed means it can be easy to be complacent around stallions, so I try to keep my mentor’s advice in mind. For me, it is often about turning on ‘the eyes in the back of my head’ when I turn my back to a stallion. I raise my awareness of where the pony is and how far from me before I turn my back to them, keeping my senses tuned so that I return my gaze to them if they approach me so I can manage our interaction.

Now that it is spring, there is green grass in my stallion grazing paddock. The gate is at the bottom of the incline that is the stallion paddock, so I walk with my stallion from the top to the bottom. I have taught him to walk calmly beside me with no tack, stopping and starting when I do. Nonetheless, his energy can be high in anticipation of green grass, and because it’s breeding season, mares and mating are on his mind. So I am extra mindful about watching using either the eyes in the front or the back of my head.

At the bottom of the hill, I ask him to stop ten feet from the gate and stand still. If he moves, I ask him to return to where I left him. Then I move to the gate to open it. The eyes in the back of my head get a workout since I turn my back to my stallion to get the gate unlatched. Once I have the gate ready to open, I make sure my stallion is still listening to my direction, only moving toward the grazing paddock when I invite him.

I am always mindful of how quick our ponies can be. A colleague told me a story of entering a paddock where there was a three-year-old colt (‘colt’ because he hadn’t bred any mares yet.) My colleague, like me, headed across the paddock to open another gate and in an instant the colt had jumped on them from behind, knocking them to the ground. My colleague is an excellent horseman and took full responsibility for the accident, knowing that they had turned their back on a stallion without fully activating the eyes in the back of their head.

It was very easy to imagine how this sort of accident could have happened. There’s a reason my first mentor gave her rule about never turning your back on a stallion. My stallion has days where he is especially rambunctious and he finds it challenging to contain himself on our walk down the hill towards the gate to the grazing paddock. On those days he will shoulder into me to try to initiate some sort of game, sometimes trotting in place and then trotting off if he gets the reaction from me he is seeking.

I am thankful that my colleague shared their story about their young stallion jumping them. It has helped me to be more mindful to open the eyes in the back of my head when I am with my stallion.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2021

An Admirable Herd Dynamic?

The first two ponies come into view

My mare herd extensively grazes on a sizeable pasture on a north-facing side-hill. Despite their free-ranging life, they reliably come into the barn in the morning where I meet them for morning chores. So one morning when they didn’t arrive when I had been at the barn for a half hour, I began to wonder what was keeping them away. Yes, green grass is starting to emerge, and the weather wasn’t snowy as it had been for a few days. Nonetheless, they usually are at least visible from the barn, watching me prepare for their arrival, but they were nowhere to be seen.

Still only two ponies in view, but what a sight!

In the eighteen months that we have been here, I have learned where there are places on the hill that the ponies are not visible from the barn. So after the girls didn’t come in, I drove the farm lane to look at the nooks and crannies of the hill that I could see from there. Still no sign of them, so then I walked to one of the herd’s favorite hiding places. When I didn’t find them there, either, I texted my neighbor Bruce to ask if he had seen the ponies during his chores that morning. He had seen them early at the other end of the pasture from where I was, so he came and got me in a vehicle that could handle some mud and we checked a few more hiding places. When we still didn’t find them, we were very puzzled. Then I looked up. Finally, high on the hill against the cloudy sky, I saw the outline of a pony. At least now I knew where I might find the herd.

Another pony comes into view, with Parker Peak, the highest point in our county, behind her.

Bruce dropped me at the barn and I started walking south and up. A hundred feet or more of elevation gain later, I came upon two ponies. I was still missing four, so I kept climbing, and then I made a discovery. There was a grassy shelf that created yet another place on the hill where the ponies aren’t visible from the lower reaches. I found three more ponies there, but I was still missing a pony. Then the puzzle of the missing ponies began to make more sense. The final pony was on the wrong side of the fence, and the herd had apparently stayed close to her rather than come into the barn. I like that! Especially since that mare is about to foal. Of course I don’t know for sure, but if indeed the herd did choose to stay with her, I find that an admirable herd dynamic, and I can easily forgive them for worrying me by their absenteeism.

The stray pony finally on the right side of the fence, seeming to ponder her completed predicament

I got the stray pony onto the proper side of the fence, then haltered the lead mare and started toward the barn. She and I had completely descended the hill before the rest of the herd could be heard making their way down the steep slope and heading to the barn ahead of us.

The view from the barn: beyond the middle bump is where I found the ponies.

When I arrived at the barn, the stray mare greeted me. I could imagine her thanking me for righting the previous odd circumstances. Bruce told me that he had seen the same mare on the wrong side of a fence a few days before, but before he could let me know, she had found her way back to where she was supposed to be with the rest of the herd. It is likely the same would have happened this time if I hadn’t intervened. Just the same, I’m glad for the many discoveries I made while searching for the herd. Elk tracks made it clear that fence repair up on the hill is an addition to my to-do list for the summer.

© 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.

Finding a Bit of Hope

The Bybeck herd and its stewards and friends in 2005.

I am one of those Fell Pony stewards who believes that the breed’s characteristics have been shaped in part by living on the hills from which they take their name. So the upcoming dispersal of the Bybeck and a portion of the Greenholme Fell Pony herds came as disappointing news. These dispersals mean two more herds that have run on the fells of the breed’s native ground are leaving those fells. Tom Lloyd in a recent Fell Pony Podcast said that the sale of these herds represents a loss of 20% of the fell-running mares of our breed.

I learned several years ago about the precarious nature of Fell Ponies continuing to run on the fells. There are numerous reasons for this precariousness, but the most threatening is tremendous pressure from the conservation community to manage the fells differently than they have been managed in the past, which usually means the removal of domesticated animals for all or part of the year.

When I began to become aware of the precarious nature of Fell Ponies continuing to run on the fells, I queried a number of people in our community whose opinions I respect. Many of them seemed to think it is inevitable that there will come a day when Fell Ponies no longer will be seen on the uplands of Cumbria where they have run for centuries.

So when I heard the news about the Bybeck and Greenholme ponies, I was left with a feeling of sad inevitability. Then I heard a couple of interviews with members of The Fell Pony Society Council, and that feeling of sad inevitability grew. Even those people who voluntarily work on behalf of our breed and its society gave me no reason for hope that there is a future for Fell Ponies on their native fells. The reasons are complex and seemingly intractable and at least from my perspective are relatively local.

Since Libby Robinson’s return from France a few years ago, though, she has been working tirelessly for a brighter future for our breed on the fells. Her vision for a Fell Pony Heritage Centre in Cumbria and her advocacy for fell-running Fell Ponies have so far resulted in numerous newspaper articles and video appearances. To my eye at least, the Fell Pony’s visibility in its home region has grown thanks to Libby’s efforts and efforts that she has inspired in others. The Margaret Mead quote came to mind: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

My hopefulness for our breed’s future on its home ground has been kept alive by Libby’s efforts and similar ones from others. Then I ran across a story from Cumbria that sparked even a little more hope because, while not about Fell Ponies, it has many similar themes, including a national bureaucracy forcing decisions on local landscapes and citizens who had a different vision for their home terrain.

The story is in Robert Gambles’ book The Story of the Lakeland Dales in the chapter about the Duddon Valley. “Sixty years ago the quiet farmsteads of Black Hall and Cockley Beck were at the centre of a bitter controversy, with the Government on the one hand and the National Trust, the Friends of the Lake District and an influential section of public opinion on the other. In 1935 the Forestry Commission, already unpopular following the insensitive plantations in Thornthwaite and Ennerdale, acquired over seven thousand acres of the Muncaster Estate in the upper valleys of the Duddon and the Esk and proposed to establish there the Hardknott Forest Park. This nefarious plan to submerge these wild uplands under a sea of conifers led to a public outcry notable for its energy, eloquence and polemic and for its total condemnation of the scheme…. An Agreement in 1936 ended all further proposals for afforestation… The Lakeland landscape is no longer under threat from massive regiments of conifers but enriched by a diversity of tree species and a more sensitive approach to forest plantations.” (p. 75)

Victory did not come in a single decision, but the people of this place in Cumbria were successful in sustaining their landscape despite powerful outside forces. Perhaps the same will be true for Fell Ponies and their people, and I am thankful for the local efforts of Libby and other advocates on behalf of our ponies.

Libby has a fundraising campaign underway. If you are interested in supporting her work, click here.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2021

Aimee Wows Me!

It was the day after a heavy spring snowstorm.  The sun was shining brightly, and the thirteen inches of snow we’d received was starting to slide off of the roofs of buildings, as you can see in the photo here.  After I finished preparing the ponies’ feed buckets, I realized that I was going to have to tie the ponies to fences differently than usual because one fence was under overhanging snow, which I didn’t want to calve and hit the pony tied underneath.

I carefully tied and moved the mares, always mindful that the snow could calve off the roof at any minute, causing them to react.  I distributed feed buckets, though, and the snow that looked ready to calve didn’t.  I untied all the mares, still mindful of where I was relative to the imminently calving snow, and still it stayed up high.

The largest ready-to-calve chunk of snow was right over where I slide hay under a fence before spreading it out.  Eleven-month-old Fell Pony Willowtrail Aimee was standing there when the snow finally came down.  She wowed me with her reaction.  The water-laden snow clunked to the ground not twelve inches from where she was standing, and all she did was hop sideways a foot, then put her head down again to see if she could find any leftover bits of hay.  Talk about unflappable!  She’s going to be one fun pony to explore unknown territory with!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2021

Packhorse History and the Lickle Valley

The ancestors of today’s Fell Ponies are thought to have been used for centuries as pack ponies in the north of England. For instance, there is the oft-quoted story that more than 300 left Kendal weekly taking a wide range of loads to various destinations. The terrain was rugged, and prior to the construction of roads, in addition to leaving market towns like Kendal for other destinations, pack ponies were also the most practical means of getting goods from villages, farms, and quarries to the market towns and industrial centres.

View across the Lickle Valley. Photo copyright Maggie B. Dickinson

Nonetheless, pack ponies in history have often been invisible. Take for instance All Together Archaelogy’s North Pennines Archaelogical Research Framework (NPARF) document, produced in 2019. In the “General Overview” chapter describing the period from 1550 to 1900, pack ponies (also called horses) aren’t mentioned until the eighth paragraph and only then because they were displaced by the railways! Here is an excerpt from the NPARF that mentions the role of pack ponies/horses almost tangentially:

The development of the transport network throughout the North Pennines is closely linked to the lead industry. Prior to the nineteenth century, transporting lead ore from the mine to the smelt mill, and from there to the sea ports on the Tyne or the Tees (from which it was taken by sea to markets, most notably London) was largely done by teams of pack horses. Some of the routes taken over the hills are still followed by rights of way today, and some survive as extensive systems of holloways…. (1)

Titus Thornber, in his book Seen on the Packhorse Tracks, describes holloways as occurring where the surface of a track was not protected so it eroded. “Holloways are possibly the best indication of the use of a route as a packhorse track, and the depth of the holloway is a measure of the importance and age of that route… Holloways are most significantly found today where the laden teams had to surmount hillsides.” (2) Imagine a trail descending a hill with the surface of the trail being below, or hollowed out of, the surrounding ground. (Way back in the day, I had an elementary school teacher named Miss Holloway. At the time I didn’t know the provenance of her name!)

Fortunately for enthusiasts of the working history of our ponies, there are clues in the landscape, such as holloways, that make more visible the early industrial age’s horse power. I am fortunate to have made the acquaintance of Maggie B. Dickinson who has, since the 1970s, been exploring landscapes in northern England for evidence of the old trackways, using clues such as packhorse bridges, packhorse inns, remains of lime kilns, mills, and quarries, and place names calling attention to holloways, gates, and other terms associated with the pack horse trade. (Maggie says that ’gate’ is the Scandinavian term for ‘way’ as in Crossgates, Reddyshore Scout Gate, Limers’ Gate etc.)

Most recently Maggie has shared with me her many discoveries about the Lickle Valley in the southwest part of the Lake District. “This sylvan corner, in the southwestern corner of Lakeland, was formerly categorised as ‘Lancashire north of the Sands’ and has escaped attention by the masses through its hidden location. … The quiet uncluttered leafy roads and lonely footpaths take in historical reminders of another age. They reach back through the mists of time to Monastic Britain in the 12th century, connecting the local holdings of Furness Abbey, some 15 miles to the south.”

Lind End Bridge over the River Lickle. Copyright Maggie B Dickinson

One of Maggie’s favorite finds in the Lickle Valley is the Blacksmith’s Arms, a local pub in Broughton Mills whose history stretches back to 1577. “It would be difficult to find many hostelries in Cumbria, or indeed elsewhere, with such charm. The original features are wonderfully preserved and include flagged floors, fashioned from local quarries, old oak paneling and beams, and a major attraction is a seriously intriguing geological feature – a huge rock within the walls which is part of a limestone seam that stretches across the Lake District from Millom.” Across the lane from the Blacksmith’s Arms is a water trough, a feature supporting the connection of this place to packhorse history.

What was once Walk Mill is near the Blacksmith’s Arms. Maggie writes, “The title of Walk Mill, which is not far below the inn, gives a clue to this having been a fulling operation originally, in the days before water was harnessed to drive equipment. The early method of fulling involved the raw wool being soaked in a mixture of water and urine and then trodden after the fashion of grapes being trod. ‘Walking’ was done to cleanse and rid the wool of impurities. Consequently, there is no water supply adjacent, but later fulling mills were operated by waterwheels…”

Underneath Shop Bridge showing seam with original structure to the right. Copyright Maggie B. Dickinson

Maggie has learned that there are four packhorse bridges within two miles of Broughton Mills. These bridges would have accommodated the pack trade to and from around seven mills in the area, including saw, corn, and bobbin mills in addition to fulling. Access to some of those mills would have been across Shop Bridge which is ‘extended,’ meaning it was increased in width from the packhorse days to allow crossing by wheeled transport.

Above Broughton Mills and beyond Hobkin Ground, a road doubles back to Broughton-in-Furness and passes the former Height House Farm, “a former drovers’ inn and cattle stance,” harkening back to the days when cattle were driven to market.

Crossing the river on a right-of-way is Lind End Bridge. Maggie says, “One commodity of importance in this area, and transported by packhorse, was charcoal needed for smelting iron and lead ores. There is evidence of pitsteads to the north west of Lind End Bridge, which leaps gracefully over the River Lickle in a woodland gorge.” There is also a holloway nearby.

Above Lind End Bridge, Appletree Worth Beck joins the River Lickle. On that beck is Hawk Bridge. In Ernest Hinchliffe’s book A Guide to the Packhorse Bridges of England, the author suggests that this bridge was primarily for local farm use, not commercial packhorse traffic. (3)

Maggie makes the observation that “Several farms in the area of Broughton Mills have a second name – Ground - such as Hobkin, Hartley, Stainton, Carter, Jackson and Stephenson. The latter four are north of the bridges, and Hinchliffe suggests that Hawk Bridge probably only served the ‘Ground’ farms. The term ‘Ground’ shows they belonged originally to the estate of Furness Abbey. For example, Stephenson Ground is in an area originally described as wasteland, being granted by Furness to the Stephenson family in 1509.”

The Lake District National Park World Heritage Site documentation also calls attention to these ‘Grounds.’ “In the south western part of the English Lake District, north of Broughton-in-Furness, is a very distinctive group of farmsteads in the Lickle Valley. Following a formal agreement between the Abbot of Furness and squatters in 1509, a series of permanent steadings was established by carving out small, irregular fields from the monastic commons, and building a basic, humble farmstead or ‘Ground’. Each ground is named after the original family….” (4)

Water Yeat Bridge is below Stephenson Ground and spans the River Lickle. It too has been extended, and Maggie says, “Far from serving only the immediate locality, as Hinchliffe reasoned, the pack teams were likely to have picked up and followed a route that was established in monastic times – from Ravenglass on the coast to Hawkshead village and its surviving courthouse, which were owned by Furness Abbey”.

Maggie continues, “Climbing a very short distance up from the bridge to Stephenson Ground, there is an odd structure that was once a potash kiln, and there is another nearer the farm. It was here that bracken and birch would be burnt to produce potash. This was eventually processed into a soft soap with which sheep wool was cleaned.”

Maggie closes with, “It is important that the historic role of the pack ponies, these intelligent and loyal beasts of burden, becomes more visible in this corner of the Lake District.” Whether carrying bracken and birch, potash, charcoal, wool, or some other commodity, there is plenty of evidence that pack horses/ponies were in use in the Lickle Valley during their era. I greatly appreciate Maggie’s documentation of her findings and her sharing it with me.

Maggie wishes to especially call out the Cumbria Industrial Historical Society for their helpful resources. Their website is: https://www.cumbria-industries.org.uk/cumbria-industrial-history-society/

1. Frodsham, Paul. North Pennines Archaeological Research Framework Part 1: Resource Assessment, All Together Archaelogy, January 2019, p. 128

2. Thornber, Titus. Seen on the Packhorse Tracks. South Pennine Packhorse Trails Trust, 2002, p. 33

3. Hinchliffe, Ernest. A Guide to the Packhorse Bridges of England. Milnthorpe, Cumbria: Cicerone Press, 1994, p. 44

4. Lake District National Park Partnership, “Description of the English Lake District, Section 2.a,” Nomination of the English Lake District for Inscription on the World Heritage List, p. 104

Fell Ponies in the Pits

“If someone tells you that Fell Ponies weren’t used in the pits, tell them to talk to me,” Joe Langcake once told me . By ‘pits’, Joe of course meant the coal mines of England. Many accounts of Fell Pony history state that Fells didn’t work below ground. Joe knew otherwise.

Joe Langcake and Lunesdale Dylan. Photo copyright and courtesy Craig Humble

I knew Joe Langcake of the Restar Fell Pony Stud from 2005 until his death in 2020. In 2006 I spent five days with him studying conformation and movement. But it was only in 2011 that I learned how he’d become involved with Fell Ponies. I’m sure I’d asked the question before, and I’m sure he’d answered, but never in the way he did this particular time. Suddenly a lot of things made more sense. His deep love for and understanding of the breed just didn’t match the time since the first Restar pony was registered in 1992. His remembered conversations with recent legends of the breed like Sarge Noble, Eddie Wilson, Jim Bell, Johnny Little, Harry and Frank Wales, and HRH the Duke of Edinburgh just didn’t match someone who’d only known the breed eight years longer than me.

Between the ages of 8 and 18, Joe spent each summer preparing young ponies for work in the coal mines. Beginning around 1934, Joe and his brother joined other boys at a nearby farm when around 200 Fell Ponies straight from the sales arrived in the yard. “They were nearly all Fells and nearly all geldings; only occasionally were there crosses.” At the time, Fell Ponies were smaller than they are now, from 12 to 12.2hh. “Small ponies made the most money when the pits were buying,” says Joe. “Tebay Campbellton Victor [the well known stallion used by the Heltondale stud] would have made a great pit pony” because of his small but powerful build. Joe remembers seeing ponies from the Heltondale herd at the sales and also seeing Eddie Wilson’s father (Townend) and Johnny Little (Guards) at the sales.

Ponies at Willington station on the way to the pits. Photo from the book Pit Ponies by John Bright and used with permission

Before ‘the back end’ (fall), the boys were responsible for teaching the previously untouched ponies about halters, lead ropes, riding and ultimately the gear they would wear in the tunnels where they pulled tubs of coal. Not all 200 ponies went to the mines; many were sorted out because they were too tall or were not temperamentally fit for the work ahead. “The lads in the pit had little horse experience, so the ponies had to be right,” said Joe. Old Mr. Benson, the manager of the yard, told the boys, “Just treat them with respect.” Instead of giving specific guidance, Mr. Benson told them, “Make a job of it, lads.” No grown-ups were involved in the gentling of the ponies. Sometimes the work with the ponies took precedence over school. And after the boys had to start working on their home farms, they would come in the evenings for three to four hours to work with the ponies. “Even the wildest ponies would come around with time and patience,” said Joe, “We had a lot of time, so patience was possible.”

The yard was equipped with a facsimile of the tub and rail lines that were in the mines. The rail line went down one side of the yard and then into pseudo tunnels. The ponies soon learned not to step over the rails. Then there was also a place where rails crossed, so the boys could teach the ponies to stay on the line they were on. Other obstacles also helped to mimic what the ponies would face underground. When the ponies were well accustomed to pulling the tubs, the boys would ride in the tubs. With some of the ponies, the boys were able to ride bareback without a halter and lead. The boys also accustomed the ponies to wearing the steel hats that protected their heads from low hanging objects or things they couldn’t see in the dark.

When it was time for the ponies to go to the mine – one of two owned by the St. Helens company such as the one at Flimby which was two miles away - five or so ponies were tied head to tail, with a lad riding the first to make the journey. Joe says that once the ponies began working in the pits, they were very quiet and well looked after; “when they came up they looked well. Their coats were shiny. I always expected to see a dirty pony but never did.” The ponies worked eight hours on, eight hours off. The shafts went a mile out under the sea. Three to four men were dedicated to preparing the ponies’ feed; it was made on the surface then taken down the shaft to the ponies. Joe and the other boys would sometimes go down into the pit to see the ponies working; it was amazing to see a full stable underground, much like you would see on the surface.

The ponies would return to the surface at the end of each summer. The boys would sort through the herd to cull out the ones that weren’t doing well in the mines. “Some ponies can’t stand the darkness; they need natural light. They would have rubbed out portions of their coats. Others really took to the work,” said Joe. Sometimes the ponies that didn’t do well underground would go to work in nearby drift mines (accessible by walking in from the surface). They often did well there because they were accustomed to the work but able to spend nights outside and, in the summer, nights on pasture.

Joe and his comrades did the work for fun without any adult supervision. In return, the yard owner would occasionally gift the boys with five shillings or take them to an auction. “I never had one I couldn’t do with,” says Joe. “I came to love Fell Ponies through that work.”

Now I understand where Joe developed his keen ability to assess the temperament of a pony and how he came to have such an easy and natural way with a pony. What an amazing amount of responsibility he and his comrades had at such an early age.

I am grateful to Eddie McDonough and John Bright for their assistance with this story.