This morning my friends Jo and I went off for a walk with a little mission in mind. We wanted to find Mulibwangi, the colt that I helped to remove a headcollar from last year. Because it was drizzling, there were no ponies to be found but in the valley we came across a few.
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| Close but no er...coconuts. A nice filly. |
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| Second time lucky, here he is... |
A few days ago I went to visit Prince with Ruth, and we were joined by Hilary, Benji's owner. Prince instantly recognised an aligned soul and allowed Hilary to do activities with him. His social circle of trusted people is slowly expanding.
In the year that Ruth and I have been working with Prince, he has learned to be caught, to lead, and to follow at liberty. He can be groomed all over and have a little spray put on him. He picks his hooves up and has them picked out. He will wear a numnah. Slowly but surely he has begun to trust his environment, hanging around in the yard and also going into the school to go around the obstacles and look at himself in the mirror.
I felt as if I were watching him graduate, especially when he took to going into a narrow stable so easily - such good practise for loading and winter nights when he might have to spend the night in.
I have to confess that my three books haven't sold as well as they perhaps ought to have done and so the price was lowered a little while ago. Whilst the pandemic was the ideal time for writing, it was also a time when nothing much happened, I had given up working with horses, and people were generally not interested in reading. I understand that - it happened to me too; something about the immediacy but permancy of danger made me only one to read Facebook and two line sentences. By the end of the pandemic, no one knew me anymore, especially as I had practically turned into a recluse.
I hope that people's appetitie for reading has improved a little. If you would like a copy of my book, they are available on: Sarah Weston
As you can imagine, they are truthful recollections of the safari I have taken through a life with horses - they're a friendly, easy read, with a underlying message about the way that we treat our horses, and the way that they can redeem us when life has gone wrong. Someone described them as, 'pony books for adults'. They include the way I found myself involved with more natural horsemanship and the dilemmas that I faced; individual cases where I had to find a new of looking at things; the glorious characters of all the horses that I met including my own New Forest Ponies and their friends.
I feel that I have another book in me but I can't afford to write it until I have sold more of the other three, and emptied what has literally become a box room.
Another week goes by and the good news is that after a week on Bute, Theoden is completely sound. I feel like I can breathe again. With three sets of ponies needing to be in three sections of the field due to their various nutritional needs, I was a bit stuck for shelters for them. The Nissen hut and the big barn are off the same patch of grazing. David got busy with the round pen panels and created a corridor through the little paddock so that the smalls could get to the Nissen hut safely whilst Theoden, Dave and Henry shared the barn.
Feeling inspired by my ponies' family tree, I pulled a copy of 'New Forest Ponies' by Dionis Macnair off my bookshelf. I remember standing up to give my 'A,B,C,D horses' talk at the Burley Womens' W.I. meeting and realising that Ms. Macnair was in the audience. Fortunately my talk was not about the history of New Forest ponies but the different aspects of my work as a horse trainer. I knew that what Ms. Macnair didn't know about New Forest ponies would fit on a very small, traditional postage stamp. Although she had a very friendly face, she could be very straight about what she thought and I remember saying how lovely a particular grey pony was at the New Forest Show for her to explain just how restrictive it's jaw was. Oh well.
I found a good account of the post-World War II stallion Goodenough who was foaled in 1946. He was bred by Mr H.F. Sparks and then owner by Mr F.C. Bennett both from the Sway area of the Forest. Appaently he won the five year old cup at the stallion show and reserve champion. He went on to be champion in 1953, 1954 and 1955. He won the Forest class at the Britain stallion show and one one of the three special premiums and in 1957 he won the Ponies of Britain special award for the Mountain and Moorland ponies whose progeny had won the most points at the spring and summer shows. Not just a prlific forest-run stallion then.
For anyone with the slightest bit of interest in the New Forest Pony or the breeding of their own Forester, they are bound to find a reference to a pony they know or one of its relatives.
The best, cheapest - and most supportive - place to buy a copy is on the New Forest Pony and Cattle Breeding Society's page New Forest Ponies book (Hilary and Ruth - don't buy one, I've bought you one each).
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| Prince and Benji |
In my mind I was convinced that Prince and Benji ought to be related and that got me digging through their pedigrees. It was all rather fanciful, but the histories of both of them made me think it would be another amazing coincidence if they were. In fact there were no direct connections between the two of them, but they were both connected to my ponies - and my ponies to each other - in some distant way.
Fritham Nell (Nelly's) sire, Knightway Billy Boy is Hawkhill Safari (Benji's) grandfather. Benji's Great, Great Grandfather, Bright Spark of Wootton is the same as Mockbeggar Yellow Hammer II (Patsy's) Great Grandfather whilst Wellow Aretex (Jack) and Brockenhurst Romany Prince (Prince) share the same Great, Great, Great grandfather, Cedar Sunrise. Knightwood Spitfire is the Great Great Great Grandfather of all of my Forest mares, Marchwood Perky (Blue), Nelly and Patsy, as well as being Prince's Great Great Grandfather twice over. Patsy and Prince also share Penny Farthing as her great, great, great grandfather and his great, great grandfather.
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| Goodenough |
The most distant link of all is that Jack, Nelly, and Patsy, Fritham Nell are all the great, great, great, grandchildren or in Jack's case the great, great,great, great grandchild of Goodenough who is also the great, great, great grandfather of Prince three times over (3/32). Goodenough was one of the few stallions left after World War II and perhaps it should be no surprise that he appears in so many pony passports including Lucky Lane Rollo who has been a Forest-run stallion at Woodgreen for the last three seasons.
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| Lucky Lane Rollo |
Of course the higher up you go through a pony's lineage the more likely they are to have something in common with one another, or indeed to have the same stallion appears in their pedigree a few times. Slipper is Jack's great, great, great grandfather as well as his great, great, great, great grandfather.
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| Fritham Nell |
Knightsway Billy Boy was a very solid and stolid stallion, known for being kind with his mares who all queued up for him the moment he arrived - and followed the trailer when he was taken away again. Apart from his calm temperament he passed on his strength and big ears.
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| Peveril Peterborough |
Blue is related to the stallion Peveril Peterborough (Grandsire), considered to be New Forest royalty, who was a regular winner at all of the top shows.
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| Warren Play-A-Way |
Jack's sire is perhaps the one that looks most like Prince - Warren Play-A-Way.
Breeders of New Forest Ponies usually know the entire histories of the ponies that they breed and many more. They would ask that anyone who owns one of the ponies that they have bred mention the pony's registered name whenever the pony is successful at something. I watch out for Nelly's only surviving son, Sherekhan Cello, who is the son of Bakeburn Jethro whose own great, great, great grandfather was also Knightwood Spitfire.
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| Bakeburn Jethro |
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| Knightswood Spitfire |
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| Sherekhan Cello |
Dave seems to have fully recovered from any suspicion of laminitis and was happily galloping up and down the fenceline to find Nelly and Blue who had only changed fields.
Theoden too seems to have improved but is now properly lame on his right fore. David removed a decent sized stone from close to his frog a couple of days, so it could be bruising but I am worried that it might be signs of his navicular disease rearing it's ugly head. He is now on Bute and if he hasn't recovered by the end of next weekend we will have the vet out.
Just over a year ago I donated a plaiting set made by Heavy Horse Crafts to the Ellingham Show which takes place at Somerley each year. I asked for it to be created in the colours of the Ukraine as the war was well underway by then. The set was won by a friend of mine, John Kerswell, although I can swear that it was not a fix.
This year he took his new Percheron Mare, Kelly, back to the Ellingham show wearing the same set of ribbons and won the same class. She looked beautiful.
For a long time now I have been hoping that I could arrange a meeting between Hilary and Ruth as their ponies' stories are so similar. Bought originally in the hope that they would be good riding school ponies but both completely wild and determined to stay that way. In each case the ponies were befriended by kind women who happened to be there because they had another pony at the school. Each lady made some progress with taming the ponies before the inevitable happened and they fell in love with them, and eventually asked if they could take ownership of them.
Unlike Hilary, Ruth had little experience of horses, whilst Hilary had no experience of wild ponies. In each case I helped as much as I could by showing how to make the first moves towards touching them and catching them and building a bond like no other; the ponies' progress depended on complete and utter trust.
Benji was much younger when he started his journey and now seems like a normal domesticated pony but occasionally he will still show that his trust is dependent on Hilary being trustworthy - a critical link in their relationship. Hilary has to respect what he was and what, underneath, he will always be.
Ruth went to see Benji with me yesterday and it was great to see Hilary too. We hope that Hilary will come and meet Prince towards the end of this month.
Back at his yard, Prince is making great progress in being led back and forth to his field.
He also stands to have his hooves picked up, front and back.
These eight hooves have given us a nasty scare. After a seven week gap during which David was concentrating on looking after me and getting the priorities done, he gave Dave and Theoden a thorough trim. Although their hooves looked marvellous, both of them became very footsore on the gravel as they went into the barn. After fifty-three years of horse keeping, and over twenty at this farm, it looked like we had our first two cases of underlying laminitis, exarcerbated by the recent trim. David has been trimming our horses for almost five years without a problem and has been complimented by the Vet (married to a farrier) and our qualified barefoot trimmer.
Unbelievably, we are keeping ten equines on only five acres but therein lies the problem. If we put them in the other four acres of grassy, harrowed fields they will get very fat, whereas in the present fields they short grass is more sugary even though it is Forest quality. The seventy-five Fallow bucks that frequent our fields have ensured that we have no really long grass which would be better for them and I can't walk them over to the fields at Brune's Purlieu. There were five equines in the top paddock - Nathalie's two (also on laminitis watch but doing absolutely fine), Theoden, Dave and Henrietta.
There were no other signs - no bruising, no event lines, no indentation above the coronet band, no stretched out or indeed elephant-on-a-drum stances - but a real reluctance to go on the stonier part of the access to the barn.
Fortunately, it has worn off very quickly as I was being tormented by the radically different advice given by vets, and by barefoot gurus; mention the word 'laminitis' and forceful suggestions flood through the stable door. I have had to hold my nerve.
Whilst box rest was an option with heavily soaked hay, Bute and shoes, I didn't want them to have to be restricted their movement for what could be rest of their lives - eventually substituting the barn with ever decreasing plots of bare land. Nor can I create any sort of Paddock Paradise on land that I only rent. I may have 'got away with it' until now, but I have always put a lot of thought into testing my horses' metabolism so that they live more naturally. I have always been highly suspicious of foods that claim to be suitable for 'laminitics' because often it is not, and I have always supplemented horses with good quality hay. At the moment mine are on a little bit of last years' which I am only giving them to top up their fibre; I don't want my horses to get ulcers next.
