I’m usually sceptical about “horses stolen for meat” stories (unless they come from Florida), but this one rings true. A Romanian has been arrested in connection with the theft of several draft horses in eastern France, allegedly for the slaughter trade. Some of the horses were already being raised for meat. (The Horse) The English …
Category Archives: Welsh Ponies and Cobs
If Wishes Were Horses: Saving Beauty
Ann Lindo’s Horse Trust, Tettenhall Horse Sanctuary, the Horse Rescue Fund and World Horse Welfare are just some of Britain’s great horse rescues. I have to put in a special shout out for the Horse Rescue Fund. Established in the 1960s by a family who wanted to make a difference, they are part of the …
If Wishes Were Horses: Housework
Cringleford Riding School was opened by Paula Sykes just outside Norwich in 1963, and closed in 1997 after being crippled by a rates rise. It was the first horsey home for generations of Norfolk children, and I was tremendously sad to hear that it had closed. Here’s a brief slideshow of some of the ponies …
“Fly Grazing” – the New Name for Crappy Horseownership Practices
The BBC reports on a herd of forty cobs dumped on a conservation area in the Vale of Glamorgan and left to decimate the grazing and starve to death. The police cannot get involved as this is a “civil matter” and the villagers have explored every legal avenue, so the horses will probably be destroyed. …
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Shetland Ponies out of Fashion?
A long piece in The Shetland Times reports that the economic crisis is putting the pinch on the traditional Shetland pony, and how changing fashions in colour and size of pony are affecting the stalwarts in the isles: Looking around the marts, my first impression is of a sea of red-and-white backs. You’d think Shetland …
The Price of Cuteness
I’d like to say straight off that I’m not a vet, also that to read this post properly you will have to click on a lot of links and read the material sourced at other sites in order to make up your own mind about this story. Anyone who is a vet is welcome to …
The Further Adventures of the Littlest White Pony
Wales Online has snagged an exclusive interview with Joe Purcell and his white Welshie Ruby, aka the Train Pony. And the 68-year-old said pregnant section A pony Ruby would have been as “good as gold” on the Wrexham to Holyhead train from which they were both turned away last Saturday. He said: “Ruby’s bomb proof. …
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Keeping Tradition “Alive”
Another depressing piece on ponies kept on common land, this time on the Gower peninsula. It’s from This is South Wales: It costs as little as £2 to buy some foals — less than a pint of beer — but around £200 to put them down and dispose of them, according to the Gower …
“And a Grisly New Year…”
mutilated pony found in Hampshire ditch, police say “it would appear that its body has been mutilated to prevent it from being identified or its owners traced.” filly with broken neck found in Buckinghamshire. “It was emaciated, had a broken neck and both hind legs were bound together and the rope tied to a gatepost. …
The Pony Cull
UPDATE: I’ve added a second post here with a historical perspective on ponies on the moor. A tip off about the mass culling of Dartmoor Hill ponies appeared on Horse and Hound On-Line yesterday, and appears to have been taken up by “Daily Mail Reporter”: Over 700 Dartmoor hill ponies have been killed in the …