The Shetland pony is almost more conspicuous in the simple farming economy of his own Islands than other horses are in British agriculture. He has been the constant theme of travellers and dwellers in Shetland; and their references show that he has been a dominant interest there throughout the whole known history of his home. The statements which have already been quoted are continued and corroborated up to our own day; and everywhere we find the same description of the ponies—their small size and their courage and endurance.[27]

Typical of many accounts of them is that given by Campbell in 1750. “There are little horses in this Island, which the Inhabitants call Shelties; they are so very small that one may lay his leg over them from the ground; but notwithstanding their Smallness they are both strong and active, and live many years, even till they are blind with Age: I have heard say, some of them live till they are upwards of thirty, and they are never kept within Doors, but are foaled in the Fields, live in the Fields, and die in the Fields. They do little Work, unless it be to carry some Sea Weed, to dung the Ground in the Seed-Time. There is no Horse-hire.”[28]

Throughout the narratives of eye-witnesses we find everywhere the fact that the ponies are reared and kept in conditions of great hardship. A Highland Society’s report in 1801 tells us that “the horses live in the open fields, summer and winter, night and day, and never get a mouthful except what they can gather, not even when the ground is covered with snow. At the season of labour they are, of consequence, miserable, lean, and weak; so late as the middle of June they are little else than skin and bone, covered with long hair like goats, yet, even in that situation, their spirit is astonishingly great.”[29]

“They would be more numerous,” says Gifford, “if in any way cared for; but they lie out in the open fields summer and winter, and get no food but what they can find for themselves; so in bad winters many of them die with hunger and cold. It will, no doubt, be wondered at by strangers that so little care is taken about these sheep and horses which are so useful and beneficial; the reason whereof is, that the poor inhabitants, having used their utmost endeavours, can scarce find food and shelter for their oxen and cows, without which they could not live; and in hard winters many of them die for want of fodder, so they have none to bestow on their sheep and horses, until they find more time to improve the land.”[30]

It should perhaps be kept in mind, as a qualification of these comments, that while dependent on some degree of help in finding food in winter, and especially so in the poorer parts of Shetland, the pony is much less in need of shelter than most other animals, and appears, indeed, to thrive much better even when he is exposed to severe weather conditions than when he is kept indoors. But the lot of the Island pony is still a hard one in the long winters, when the scanty livelihood which he can gather on the mosses, by the dyke-sides, and on the sea-shore is but poorly supplemented by the occasional sheaf of oats which is all that his owner can usually allow him.

The great majority of the ponies in the Islands are in the hands of crofters, either owned by them or held on the system of “halvers,” under which merchants or others supply brood mares in return for a half interest in their progeny.

The mares nursing foals are kept usually about the croft until their foals are old enough to follow them to the “Scathold”; other ponies spend their whole summer in the hills, returning to the nearer fields, after the crops are cleared, when the approach of winter makes some additional food necessary.

It is still too common, though less so than formerly, to leave the foals unweaned, with the result that the mares so treated usually foal but once in two years. This wasteful plan is due to the difficulty of finding food for the weaned foals; but the attempted economy so completely defeats its own object that it cannot fail to die out.

In the beginning of last century we find the Highland Society’s report, already quoted, referring to “an absurd custom among the farmers of preserving for stallions ... the most unpromising of the young of the species”;[31] and very competent observers state in 1845 that “the ponies are now much smaller in size than they were thirty years ago, entirely owing to the fact that all the best and stoutest are exported, and stallions of the most puny size are allowed to go at large.”[32]

It would appear from this that the selective process by which the small size of the pony has been fixed and exaggerated was not, at this period, one deliberately and consciously promoted, but was contrary to the wishes of those who regarded the interest of the breed, and was the result of economic pressure which encouraged the export of the larger and more valuable ponies, leaving the smaller and cheaper stallions to be employed as stud animals. Larger and not smaller ponies were in point of fact desired; and the decline in size, which seems to have taken place at this period, was a consequence of the poverty and perhaps also of the short-sighted thrift of the crofting owners.

This fact, indeed, sets aside the argument of Mr Vero Shaw[33] and others, that the breed must always have been kept pure, because no cross could be used to improve it by reducing its size. The temptation to introduce alien blood came from the opposite motive—a desire to increase size; and when we read that in 1788 “a fine young horse of the Norway breed had perished in a marsh,”[34] we see that the materials for cross-breeding, as well as the motive to practise it, were actually in existence—the results probably remaining in the larger ponies now used for draught in Shetland.

It must be observed that a scarcity of really good stallions, probably arising from the same causes as formerly, is still the chief impediment to the improvement of the Shetland pony in his native home. But this cause no longer operates to reduce size, as fashion has created a demand for excessively small ponies, which tempts the poorer owners rather to sell than to keep them.

In 1865 we have the first record of an actual attempt to reduce the size of the pony, in the very interesting notes on Shetland pony breeding made by “The Druid” in ‘Field and Fern.’

“Colonel Balfour, grandfather to the present proprietor of Shapinsay, began pony breeding at the end of the last century. He improved the form; and when the colours did not come as they expected, the natives, with a few drops of whiskey to quicken them, laid the entire blame on Spunky, the Orcadian water-kelpie.

“He was black, they say, and the sire of some of the finest original ponies of the islands; and if he was disturbed in his courtships, he vanished under the waves in a mass of blue flame.

“The Hellersay stock have been quite able to dispense with him, as North Unst has furnished them with some of its choicest jewels.

“Brisk, the chestnut, dates very far back, and headed the Balfour stud for wellnigh thirty years, and his brother Swift was in the flesh for nearly forty-six.

“The piebald Cameron cost £24, and although he rather spoilt the colours, he introduced a better shape, a smaller head, and decidedly truer action. Odin, of the same colour, also kept up the form; Thor got them nearly all skewbalds like himself; and Lord Minimus was a grey and sire of grey beauties. They are shifted from island to island as the grass suits, and require the most careful drafting to keep them at nine hands. Mr Balfour has about 40 in all, of which the majority are duns and creams; and they are always broken at three, and made very tractable in a week. Her Majesty has a pair of them; and some of the more fancy colours were once picked up by Ducrow.”[35]

Colonel Balfour, whose enterprise is referred to by “The Druid,” was probably the first to attempt breed improvement in the Shetland pony. His grandson, in “The Druid’s” day, was in all likelihood the first breeder who made a systematic and deliberate effort to accentuate the small size which the poverty of nature and man had already fixed as a breed-characteristic; and his example has not been very widely followed in Shetland.

It cannot, in fact, be said that, on the whole, any clear idea dominates the plans or purposes of pony breeders in the Islands. Individual breeders here and there have pursued an enlightened course in endeavouring to improve their herds; and it is natural that their choice of breeding stock should have been determined largely by the nature of the commercial demand. They have thus been led to concentrate their attention mainly on the production of animals with the weight of body and strength of bone which have been demanded by British and foreign buyers. On the other hand, the conditions of existence in Shetland have greatly contributed to the preservation of an active type of pony such as can gain its livelihood on the poor and mossy pastures of the Islands.

It must be remembered that in many districts there has been, as has already been said, a great dearth of good sires, so that selection of suitable breeding stock has been difficult, and mating has often been carried on, of necessity, very much at haphazard. It is thus all the more remarkable that the pony, so long neglected and so little cultivated in its home, should display so high a degree of excellence as it does. Much of the credit of this belongs to the Marquis of Londonderry, whose stud in Bressay, under the charge of Mr Brydon and Mr Meiklejohn, developed a strain of ponies which fixed many of the best qualities of the breed and became a potent centre of its improvement; and no account of the Island ponies would be complete which did not mention the successful activity of Messrs John Anderson & Sons of Hillswick, the late Mr Bruce of Sumburgh, Mr Anderson Manson, and the Messrs Sandison. Notable throughout Shetland, the fine quality of the pony is specially conspicuous in Unst, which still retains the superiority which “The Druid” found in it in 1865. “The best ponies come from Unst; but both there and everywhere the breeders are far too indifferent to the points of a sire, as long as they are foal-getters. About a quarter of Unst has a skeleton of red sandstone and serpentine, with a thin soil studded with large red stones and the knobs of rock sticking up. Yet among these rocky incumbrances one sees scores of ponies picking the green grass, which the light of Heaven and the breath of the Gulf Stream force up from so barren-looking a bed. Still, Unst may be regarded as the heart of Shetland; and a sunny, genial-looking spot it is, when other parts of the country are dismal enough, in the late northern spring. The heather and the bog-grasses elsewhere do not make much milk, and the mare ponies sink so much in condition that they are invariably barren every other year. If well kept they reach 44 inches; but the average is from 38 to 42. Their owners frequently lose sight of them for a couple of summers, and recognise them when wanted, not by any formal ‘Exmoor Brand’ on the saddle place or the hoof, but by a peculiar slit or bits of tape, clout, or leather tied through a hole in the ear. Each cottar has generally a few ponies on the hill, and when the May and October sales at the different stations are at hand they circumvent them for a selection by the dealers with a line of forty or fifty fathoms. Still, the hard-working Shetlander is little more than nominal lord of his pony: poverty is his lot from the cradle to the grave, and, as the phrase goes, he is ‘still in tow.’ In his dire need the merchants become his mortgagees, just as the curers are to the herring-fishers: they advance money on the security of his foals, and he doesn’t get the best of it with ‘halvers’ mares.”[36]

The chief defects of the Island ponies are to be found in the movement and conformation of the hocks—“cow hocks” being common, and also a tendency to excessive bending of the joints. There is, in fact, a look of “curbiness” about many of the ponies which renders it surprising that curb itself—like almost every other unsoundness—occurs but rarely. How far these hock defects are caused or aggravated by undue hardship in early life cannot easily be estimated, but they can certainly be greatly mitigated by more generous treatment. Apart from them—and from a tendency to roach backs, undoubtedly aggravated by poor rearing—the Island ponies present few common defects that are practically serious; but their general appearance is often much deteriorated by insufficient care in early life.

In colour the pony is much more variegated in the Islands than on the British mainland, where black and brown increasingly predominate. In some parts of Shetland—notably in the western district of Sandness—piebalds and skewbalds are more common than self-coloured ponies; while chestnuts, yellow duns, and mouse-duns (sometimes curiously called “greys”) are exceedingly frequent.

But we still find as “The Druid” did in 1865: “Duns are in great request; but the colour is not so much an object if the bone be only good. Greys and chestnuts are scarce; bay has not its wonted supremacy; and bays and blacks are most common. Some buyers began to go against piebalds from a belief that they had Iceland blood in them, and were softer and slower in consequence.”[37]

The employment of Shetland ponies in Shetland is now much less than it was formerly. Speaking generally, they have become a breeding stock, kept for sale rather than for work. Somewhat larger ponies—from 11 to 12½ hands—are in very common use in carts; and these are probably cross-bred ponies partly of Shetland ancestry. But the introduction of wheeled vehicles in the latter part of last century almost made an end, in practice, of the pony as a means of transport in its own home.

The fact—apt to be forgotten in controversies about Shetland pony type—is that the pony never until quite recently was a draught animal. Roads did not exist in Shetland until they were made, in and after 1847, in order to give employment for the relief of distress caused by the potato famine. Till then wheeled vehicles were practically unknown, and the ponies were used only as pack and saddle animals. We read of them “travelling through the country among the rocks and mosses”;[38] and Edmonstone gives us a luminous glimpse at once of Shetland society and of the stature of the riding ponies:—

“Winter is the season of general mirth and festivity in Zetland, although the wish to visit each other is greatly interrupted by the difficulties which are attendant on travelling. As there are no regular roads, a journey over land is a serious undertaking, for the ground is wet and unequal and the ponies are low.”[39]

One seems to see the cavalcade picking its way through the moss, riders holding up their feet to avoid the soft ground through which their mounts find a path, and ladies tremulous over the fate of the precious burdens of the pack-ponies.

Hibbert gives us an even more complete picture of the Shetland pony in use a hundred years ago:—

“A walk through the valley near Woodwick leads to a large open lawn at the end of the Loch of Cliff, which seemed very populous and well cultivated. I arrived there on the Sabbath morning; the natives of the Vale were all in motion in their way to the Kirk of Baliasta. The peasant had returned home from the bleak scathold, where he had ensnared the unshod pony that was destined to convey him to the parish kirk. No currycomb was applied to the animal’s mane, which, left to nature’s care, ‘ruffled at speed and danc’d in every wind.’ The nag was graced with a modern saddle and bridle, while on his neck was hung a hair-cord, several yards in length, well bundled up, from the extremity of which dangled a wooden short-pointed stake. The Shetlander then mounted his tiny courser, his suspended heels scarcely spurning the ground. But among the goodly company journeying to the kirk, females and boys graced the back of the shelty with much more effect than long-legged adults of the male sex, whose toes were often obliged to be suddenly raised for the purpose of escaping the contact of an accidental boulder that was strewed in the way. A bevy of fair ladies next made their appearance, seated in like manner on the dwarfish steeds of the country, who swept over the plain with admirable fleetness, and witch’d the world with noble horsemanship. The parishioners at length arrived near the kirk, when each rider in succession, whether of high or low degree, looked out for as green a site of ground as could be selected, and, after dismounting, carefully unravelled the tether which had been tied to the neck of the animal. The stake at the end of the cord was then fixed into the ground, and the steed appeared to be as satisfactorily provided for during the divine service as in any less aboriginal district of Britain, where it would be necessary to ride up to an inn, and to commit the care of the horse to some saucy lordling of the stables.”[40]

Peat-carrying appears to have been one of the main duties of the pony in the early part of last century.

“It appears that the use of the shelty, which is seldom more than from nine to eleven hands high, is principally confined to the carrying home of peat; yet, in the transportation of other kinds of light burdens, his back is still surmounted with a wooden saddle. When hay or any light bulky substance is to be carried, maiseys are used, which are made of ropes prepared from floss or rushes, these being reticulated in meshes of some inches in width. A net of this kind is passed round the horse, so as to secure the hay or other light substance that rests upon the boards of the klibbar. This ancient saddle is also found of use when the shelty is required by the female rider to bear her to the parish kirk; she then throws over his back a native coarse manufacture of the country, woven into the shape of a saddle-cloth, and when upon this covering the klibbar is fixed, its projecting pieces of wood which the female holds by, form it into a kind of sidesaddle.”[41]

Till recent times, long after the ridden shelties had given place to the road-using gig, ponies were almost universally employed as carriers of peat.

Cowie writes in 1874: “The peats are now dry, and are either built into a stack on the hill, thence to be gradually removed in cassies during the year, or are immediately conveyed home on the backs of ponies, or in carts. The apparatus by which the pony is now literally turned into a beast of burden consists of a pair of straw panniers or maysies attached to a wooden clibber.

“This process of transport is termed leading the peats. Long strings of ponies engaged in this way may be seen in the month of July, under the command of peat boys.”[42]

In the remoter Islands, ponies are still to be seen carrying creels of peats: but even this is now an extinct use in most districts. The pure-bred pony in the Islands has never been a draught animal to any great extent; and with the introduction of wheeled conveyances its employment has almost entirely disappeared.

Another ancient use—in a sense a by-product—of the pony has also ceased. We find in the old laws of Shetland not merely prohibition to “ride, labour, or use any other man’s horse without liberty of the owner,” but also to “cut any other man’s horse—tail or main—under the pain of ten pounds.”[43]

Thus did the horse-owning fisherman protect the material of his lines. But this use of the pony became extinct even before the changes had set in which are relegating line-fishing to the region of dead industries.

Yet, although the local employment of the pony is a thing of the past, its production remains a profitable part of Shetland farming.

The early records show very low prices for ponies. The ‘Statistical Account,’ 1845, places them at from £1, 10s. to £5; “The Druid,” in 1865, sets the value of horses at £7, and of mares at £5;[44] and even in 1871, when the coal-pits had been using Shetland ponies for twenty years, Cowie valued the horse at £8 to £10, and the mare at £3 to £5. Such prices bear no relation to those of recent years, when good stallions have realised from £18 to £20 for pit work, while better ponies, when fully pedigreed, command very much larger prices. At the earlier rates ponies can have yielded but a poor profit; but under recent conditions they must give a large return on the comparatively small cost of breeding and rearing them in Shetland; and this increasing profit encourages the hope that crofters and others in Shetland may be more energetic in the future than they have been in the past, in improving the pony which is one of the best assets of their Islands.

THE FETLAR PONY.

The Island of Fetlar contains, besides pure Shetland ponies, a distinctive breed of its own.

The Fetlar pony is not, indeed, of pure race. Its origin is traced to an animal which has often been called a “mustang,” but was in point of fact a grey Arab, presented by the famous General Bolivar to the late Sir Arthur Nicolson. From 1837 onwards, for some years, this horse was crossed with the native ponies of the Island, which were presumably somewhat larger than those of other parts of Shetland, Fetlar being one of the best grazings in the Islands. For many years the influence of this horse showed itself in a large proportion of grey ponies in Fetlar. Later, another Arab was introduced; and an Orkney garron cross was also used. The resulting product is a pony of about twelve hands—ranging from eleven to thirteen—from which the grey colouring is now practically eliminated. The ponies bred in this way show a degree of unity in type and size which is truly remarkable, in view of the apparently very different sources from which they are sprung. Indeed, the singular fidelity to type of this essentially cross-bred pony is highly suggestive of a common element in the ancestry of the Arab and the Shetland pony. The Fetlar is, in type and quality, one of the best of native ponies. It has a good deal in common with the ponies of the outer Hebrides.