Olive Tilford Dargan

“ SEARCHLIGHT—PONY MARE
The breeder of Daylight seems particularly able in adding "lights" to a constellation whose first impulse to shine came from Dyoll Starlight, a sire who cannot be accused of any desire to hide his light under a bushel. It gleams not merely from one hill, but a hundred, and the breeder so happy as to own a bit of this strain rarely fails to advertise his good fortune in the name he gives to his prize. ”

“ One need not look there for symptoms of sand-crack, seedy-toe, pumice-foot, or any of the pedal ills that too often beset the lowland horse. The centuries of unshod freedom among his crags have given the hoof a resisting density coupled with the diminutive form that agility demands; and this happy union the smithies of man have not yet been able to sever or vitiate. Even the thoroughbred must sometimes find a downward gaze as fatal to vanity as did the peacock of our venerated spelling-book; but not the Welsh [51] pony. He may look to earth as to Heaven with unchastened pride. ”

“ To know it one must know the pony. A hint of it is found in his warm, quick sympathy. The horse, however faithful, can at times be cold and judicial in friendship. The pony accepts you without reserving his judgment. He must love wholly, by virtue of the romance that is in him—a tinge of imagination that enables him to idealize rather than criticise, and not an inferior mentality as some students of horse psychology would mistakenly have it. ”

“ Through ages on his sequestered peaks he fought for life against an enemy armed with sleet and snows and dearth, [36] and the record of his struggle is writ in his fibre. He knows where he may climb and where he may not, the slopes that will let him live and the steeps where starvation waits. The colt, though he has never been in a bog, will avoid its treachery, and needs no warning where the gully is ugly, the pool deep, or the ice too thin to bear him. And there has been much hiding and flying, for the sheep-dogs of Wales have been merciless to the pony. ”

“ Now let me get back to Wales, taking with me this augmentation of the Arabian strain, pony-diluted, through the Irish port—another infusion most happily chosen by the beneficence [18] that seems to have guided the Welsh pony in his evolution. Not too much of this visiting blood either; for there were always wild herds that kept much to themselves; "companys of beesties" content to come only occasionally to the valleys, when they would lure away some gallant or coquette of the lowlands, glad to sniff the air of a fuller freedom. ”

“ To get the requisite height and weight-bearing power, yet keep the pony qualities, the hardihood, the astuteness, the thought-like instancy of motion—a wit that can almost prophesy—is a problem that is being patiently worked out. ”

“ The Common Lands of Wales are so extensive, and comprise so many tracts, that improvement by selection other than nature's is a farce so long as the pasturage is free to any and all. Nature long ago accomplished her best for the Welsh pony, and while he was practically an isolated type it was easy to maintain her standard. But with multifarious breeds and half-breeds in proximity, the carelessness of man was beginning to undo her work, and Wales might have followed Ireland in the deterioration of her pony stock and the loss of a fixed type, if the Society had not actively intervened. ”

“ They lingered long in North Wales, that little nest of undisturbed peaks, and it was with the descendants of this species that the Romans mated their military animals and produced the packhorse so necessary in rugged West Britain. This packhorse was not the heavy creature that his name suggests, but a sure-footed, light-bodied animal, capable, however burdened, of going nimbly up and down the hills. In East Britain and the midlands there was no incentive to breed him, as the numerous heavier types sprung from the Forest horse were more serviceable there. ”

“ Why [6] is the Welsh pony gifted with a symmetry that subjugates at sight, while his congeners too often show an ensemble whose mild ungainliness must be admitted by their best of friends? Why, with the hardihood of the half-wild forager, and unflagging endurance, does he display the grace and bearing that we associate with carefully tended animals of pedigree? ”

“ I cannot follow the mystical ways which lead to the production of the unparagoned Polo pony; but it is not until the third or fourth generation that the breeder arrives at the nonpareil, the heart's desire of the polo player. In the first generation a thoroughbred cross with the mountain stock is more satisfactory than the Arab, but the advantage is soon lost, as a type with a pedigree covering something over two hundred years cannot compete in persistence with one that has been established for five times that period. ”

“ But while I leave the question of responsibility open in the case of the Asiatic horse, I am glad to think that our pony did not come by way of his blood, whether corrupted by man or tainted with original sin. Certain it is that the Pony Celticus possessed a docility and fair-mindedness that indicated a blameless descent, and there is no evidence that his Welsh offspring were ever handled by man in a way to warp his character. ”

“ Too often the pony that might have lived usefully [41] for thirty or forty years is brought to his death at twenty. He will give man his best for little enough. On half the food that a horse must have, he will do that horse's work; and when not in service, all he asks is a nibbling place, barren as may be—no housing, blanketing, coddling. I know of a pony mare who has spent every winter of her life unsheltered on the hills of Radnorshire, and has not missed foaling a single year since she was four years old. ”

“ And as I cannot claim that all the good blood brought into Wales made its way to the pony on the hills, while all the bad blood staid below, I must admit that he has been affected by these later introductions; but in far less degree, for time has not been left to have its final way, nor is the coarser strain of Eastern potency. We must also remember that two centuries ago, when these adventures in breeding began, the English had commenced those prudent experiments with the Arab cross which has fixed the thoroughbred in his sovereign place. ”

“ He is a dapple-gray, eleven hands high, of perfect shape and brim-full of spirit, not of the self-conscious kind, eager for gratuitous display, but unabashed, careful of the amenities, and avowing with all the grace in him that he will be your friend if you choose to be his. ”

“ The Exmoor and Dartmoor types only in a moderate degree show signs of high descent, and the ponies of the Fells (though I mind me well of the lovable traits of some of my neighbors among them up in the shires of Cumberland and Westmoreland) are indubitably plebian, while the Welsh pony is a patrician on his wildest hill. Even those who hold a brief for other breeds confess his superiority in points that stamp him "of the blood." ”

“ Little feet cannot get far unassisted, but give them such a helper as the pony and their explorations need hardly be limited. The ideal creature for this purpose is the mountain pony of about eleven hands. Sagacious and docile, he is the safest of companions, and is just as happy under saddle as in harness. The Welsh-Pony- and Cob-Society recognizes two classes of the pony, one this smaller animal of the mountains, not exceeding twelve hands in height, and the larger pony, usually lowland bred, which may be as high as thirteen hands. ”

“ And we have another reason for suspecting the pony ancestor of our Welsh variety to be of North African kinship rather than allied to the Asiatic horse, with large ergots and heavy callossities, which came by the northern route into Scandinavia. This horse, by tradition and record, was of an intractable disposition. It was in upper Asia that the bit originated, while the Libyan horse was of so gentle a nature that his descendant is yet ridden on the Arabian plains with no more guidance than can be given by a simple noseband. ”

“ Although, as I have said, there has been some imprudent crossing with heavier breeds, these unsuccessful types are being weeded out, and methods of improving the Welsh pony are now, for the most part, confined to individual selection within his own breed, or to the careful introduction of thoroughbred and Arab blood. Of course the door is not entirely closed to other comers, and I talked with one breeder of thirty years' experience who believed in mating his ponies with any sire of fine type that had the points he was trying for. ”

“ I want you to know that the mountain pony's hocks are a feature not to be passed lightly by. They never fail to bring him commendation from the horseman who knows. The curby hocks sometimes found in the larger type of South Wales are unknown to him. His own are always of the right shape, having plenty of compact bone showing every curve and denture under thin, shining skin, and with clean-cut, powerful back sinews at an unhampered distance from the suspensory tendons. ”

“ Unstimulating, derivative knowledge he has in plenty from his association with man; but the Welsh pony of the hilltops, to this day pressed by the necessity of looking out for himself, has a capable initiative which the horse does not possess. ”

“ At first, aware of my weakness for the equine, I was afraid that I had succumbed to my charmer with regrettable haste, but association only fixed my loyalty and sustained the credentials that he wears on every inch of him. Let me parenthesize here and have done with it, that if I use my genders in hopeless interchange, or am forced to the apologetic "it," you must extricate the sex as best you can, and re-register your old vow to reform the English language. ”

“ I have spoken of the low withers, which are being eliminated, and sometimes there is a badly set-on head—a more serious matter that, if beauty only were involved—but an angular junction is not often seen, and the head in every case is finely formed, with the large, wide brow of the Arab, tapering face-bones, small, sensitive ears, delicate, silken mouth that needs only a touch in guidance, and roomy underchannel between the branches of the lower jaw. ”

“ The formation of a Stud Book was the initial practical business of the Society, and its first volumes derive special value from the fact that Wales has always tended to the patriarchial system, and her traditions, whether of horses or families, can be relied upon. There have always been wise and prudent breeders in the land; men who could, in some degree, counteract indifference and hold to ideal aim. ”

“ If they are high the interlacing fibres attaching the shoulder-bone to the trunk may rise freely, and the shoulder arm be long and sloping—a position which gives easy movement and power to the forearm and the structures below it—the pony moves gracefully, without strain, with good action and sure speed. But low withers limit propulsion from the shoulder, and while there may be good knee action the pony must pay out strength to get it. There is, besides, a strain on the cervical muscles which makes natural grace impossible. ”

“ Dealers can often persuade buyers that the upright shoulder is stronger for harness work, and here in London parks I have seen horses of this type dash strainingly along, expending their strength in fashionable action, and with the unavoidable pull on the neck "corrected" by the bearing-rein; the average owner not guessing the difficulty of his creatures, or the torture that in years too few will bring them to a coster's cart or the dump-heap. ”

“ But as a medium between man and Nature it is a failure. It will never bring them together. The motor is restricted to the highway, and from the highway one can never get more from Nature than a nod of half recognition. ”

“ In this region it has been the custom for the last twenty-five years to have an annual drive and round-up, when all the ponies are brought down, selected, sorted, the undesirables cast out, and the others, excepting those picked for market, or exchanged for ponies of another run, sent back to freedom. The ponies are not eager to leave their heights, and they give the riders that bring them down an anxious as well as exhilarating time. ”

“ Formerly the ponies on the hills had no help from man, however long the snows lay or the winds lashed; but now, if severe weather persists, they are brought down to the valleys, or rough fodder is taken to them. ”

“ Parkinson proclaims him the perfect pony of the kingdom, and Lord Lucas, who for some years has been engaged in improving the New Forest pony, says, after an excursion in search of desirable strains to introduce into the Forest, that he found the best ponies in Wales ”

“ Breton was an open way of the Gallic horse to Ireland, for there was much compliment, combat, and barter, between the Irish and Breton Celts. And the horse of Breton was particularly suitable for union with Irish stock, the Arabian in him being already modified by a hardy breed of the hills. ”

“ The Society's other achievement which I wish to note connects itself with the United States and the mystifying evolution of a new order regulating the certification of those recognized breeds to be accorded exemption from import duty "on and after January 1, 1911." ”