PEDIGREE DARTMOOR PONIES BRED ON DARTMOOR CELEBRATE HORSE OF THE YEAR SHOW SUCCESS
It’s believed that a record number of Dartmoor ponies enjoyed a wonderful tally of top placings at the UK’s most prestigious horse show, held last week at the NEC in Birmingham.
Particularly special for our local Native pony breed, the Dartmoor, were results that prove that moorland-bred Pedigree Dartmoor ponies can keep up with the best in the world.
Stallion Shilstone Rocks North Westerly, bred by the Newbolt-Young family at Widecombe-in-the-Moor, took Supreme Champion Dartmoor for the third time. Mare Langworthy Swift Ghost, gained ninth place in The Feed Shed Mountain and Moorland First Ridden pony of the year; and was fifth – and top placed mare – in the National Pony Society/Baileys Horse Feeds Mountain and Moorland Ridden Dartmoor/Exmoor/Shetland Pony of the Year, ridden by 9-year-old Imogen Davis from Coombe Fishacre in Devon and a pupil at Ipplepen Primary School. In the NPS class, 6 of the first 7 placed ponies were Dartmoors.
Not to be out-shone, Shilstone Rocks-bred ponies Osborne Refrigerators Dollar and Dime whizzed veteran scurry driving star Jeff Osborne round a very tight course to finish 8th in the Osborne Refrigerators Double Harness Scurry of the Year Championship.
Swift Ghost (affectionately known as Rabbit) was bred by Ken Edwards at Langworthy Stud, Widecombe and is owned by Lizzie Houghton of Bovey Tracey, who finds time to produce her ponies in between working at Mole Valley at Heathfield! Rabbit was bred in the Dartmoor Pony Moorland Scheme which is run by the Dartmoor Pony Society and the Duchy of Cornwall. It enables moorland-bred mares to breed with Pedigree Stallions and the progeny to be ‘upgraded’ through the Dartmoor Pony Society’s Supplementary Register.
On Dartmoor there are a variety of ponies – all owned by pony keepers and many of whom have a mixture of these types – ranging from the smallest Shetlands, to a variety of Hill Ponies, through to Supplementary Registered and full Pedigree Dartmoor ponies, all of which survive the tough climate of Dartmoor.
The DPHT recognises that all ponies on Dartmoor have a value and encourages people to give them serious consideration as wonderful family ponies or conservation grazers.
For further info, please call 01626 833234
