ABOUT PONIES.

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 606, 11 February 1921, Page 5

ABOUT PONIES.

THEIR USE AND BREEDING. The ’ term “ ponies ” everywhere means a small horse, but the limit varies, according to an authority, in every locality so that a pony may mean a hoi’se under eleven or under fifteen hands high. The old-fashioned hardy ponies of the New c orest, Exmoor, or Wales, have all been crossed with small thoroughbreds, until any distinctive character about them is lost. They are all active enduring animals, capable of carrying light weights to a great distance. The Shetland pony alone retains its character. The peat bogs of Scotland do not suit even a cross with the thoroughbred, so that the little rough shaggy animals may still be found in all their interesting docility. The most active demand for them, and probably the most useful occupation they ever had, arose over sixty years ago- when it was mercifully decreed that women and children should no longer be used as beasts of burden on underground tramways. Since then these little cart horses have worked in places too low for any bigger anihal, and some of them,\ it is said, have drawn trucks twenty miles a day for sixteen years without ever seeing daylight or breathing the fresh air with which they were supplied so abundantly in their infancy. Shetland ponies are now used a great deal in the Dominion, and their wonderful eyes and lungs seem to stand asi those of few other animals would do.