Читать книгу The Majesty of the Horse: An Illustrated History - Tamsin Pickeral - Страница 19

HEIGHT

12–14.2 h.h.

APPEARANCE

A large but fine head set to a muscular neck and good, well-conformed shoulders. The ponies are quite narrow in build but very athletic, with an exceptional long, low, and smooth stride. Those that are privately bred (as opposed to feral) make fine riding ponies.

COLOR

Any color except cremello, spotted, skewbald, or piebald.

APTITUDE

Riding, showing, dressage, light draft, jumping

THE NEW FOREST PONY has had one of the rockiest histories of Britain’s native pony breeds, and also one of the most unusual based on the location of the breed’s origin. They hail from the New Forest, a huge area of unenclosed land made up of moorlands, heath, forest, and open pasture that stretches across part of the counties of Hampshire and Wiltshire and also incorporates some of England’s southern coastline.

Despite the apparent wilderness of this enormous landscape, it was in fact comparatively busy early in history because of its proximity to the city of Winchester, the capital of the ancient kingdom of Wessex from around 686 C.E. and then of England until shortly after the Norman conquests (1066–c. 1088). Because of the city’s importance, there was a continual passage of people and livestock across the surrounding countryside and into the center of commerce. Unlike the other native British pony breeds, which developed in isolated environments, the New Forest pony was in an area subject to a great deal of passing equestrian traffic. As a result, the New Forest pony has been influenced by an extensive range of other pony and horse breeds throughout its development, whereas other indigenous breeds remained largely genetically pure.

The first written accounts of ponies in the New Forest date to 1016 to the Forest Law of Canute, implemented by the Viking king Canute who took the throne of England in the same year. Around 1079, William I of England designated the area a royal hunting ground and granted the rights to common pasture for those individuals who lived in the forest. At some point the wild little ponies mixed with this domestic stock and moved into private ownership, though they were still kept within the same area.

The New Forest pony has occasionally suffered genetically from a great and often random dilution of the gene pool. Whether encouraged to or not, early travelers’ horses would have bred with the ponies, and the effects of indiscriminate breeding soon became apparent. In 1208, the first recorded attempt to systematically improve the breed was made when eighteen Welsh mares were introduced to the herds, and since then Welsh blood has been used with some frequency on the New Forest pony.

One of the more unusual contributors to the New Forest was the Thoroughbred stallion Marske (f. 1750), sire of the famous racehorse Eclipse. Marske was moved to the New Forest in 1765 and helped improve the overall quality of the New Forest pony; although today his influence is not hugely evident, many New Forest ponies do still exhibit high-quality, elegant heads. In the nineteenth century, Queen Victoria instigated a renewed effort to improve the hardy ponies by lending her Arabian stallion Zorah to the forest in 1852, followed by her Arabian Abeyan and her Barb Yirrassan in 1889.

Early in the twentieth century, other native British breeds, including Highlanders, Dales, Fells, Welsh, Dartmoors, and Exmoors, were introduced to the forest with great success. Lord Lucas (1876–1916), who lived in the forest and was a dedicated breeder of the New Forest pony, also used Welsh stock descended from the great Welsh stallion Dyoll Starlight, along with Dartmoors and Exmoors.

A number of New Forest ponies continue to live in semi-feral conditions in the New Forest, and they can exhibit a wide range of characteristics, though they are fairly universally sure-footed and agile. New Forest ponies that are bred in studs and private residences tend to display a far greater quality of conformation and make excellent ponies for children.