Semi Feral Herds – 2008

With an ever-increasing membership and a record number of foals registered last year, the Fell Pony Society is certainly thriving. There are now people breeding Fells over the whole length of the country and Fell ponies are now to be found in increasing numbers in America and Europe and even as far away as Australia.

However, underneath all these positive indications for the future of the breed, there is another statistic that is a worry. The numbers of ponies that are running on the fells in Cumbria are falling, and on some fells they have disappeared altogether. Over the last twenty years or so, as the numbers of ponies and breeders countrywide has increased significantly, so the numbers of ponies and the people breeding them in their natural environment in Cumbria has fallen.

Today there are only nine hill breeders left that run their ponies on the open fell, and of these, only a handful have a significant number of breeding mares. A few more of these breeders are nearing retirement and have reduced their numbers down to only a handful. In the last decade around ten hill herds have gone, the Heltondale and Tebay herds included, which were two of the largest herds running on the fells.

Why then is this happening in the breed’s heartland, when all around them the popularity and demand for the Fell pony is at an all time high? with the people that own them. These ponies that run the Cumbrian fells are all owned by hill farmers, and like other farmers all over the country, they have had to suffer many major changes and pressures and a huge increase in the levels of bureaucracy and red tape associated with the running of their businesses over the last fifteen or twenty years.

One of the results of that is that many of the youngsters that would in the past have followed on in these hill farms have sought employment with better reward elsewhere. Some that have followed their parents on in the farm just had no interest in the ponies. So one of the major reasons for the decline in pony numbers in these semi- feral herds is the lack of young people and it was the environment and their management in it that made them what they are today.

Taken away from the fells and bred on better ground with a different type of management, these ponies quite quickly lose many of the traits that make the breed what it is today, and it is for this reason that the hill bred ponies are so vital to the breed and why other breeders need to keep coming back for an infusion of ‘hill blood’ now and again.

With so many ponies being bred away from the hills, now more than ever it is essential to retain these hill herds for other breeders to go back to in order to keep the breed true to type with the characteristic movement and hardiness for which it is renowned. It is a situation that is recognised and being looked at by the Fell Pony Society Council, but one to which there are no easy answers. following on and willing to keep the ponies.

Of the hill breeders that are left, only two have young family that are interested in keeping the ponies on. One of those is Colin Roberts who, along with his sons, runs the Bybeck ponies on the Howgills at Tebay. While so many of the old established herds are being lost, they have come in and established a new herd that offers a glimmer of hope for the future.

Some may ask, since the breed is increasing and in good heart, if it really matters where the ponies are being bred? It is obviously encouraging and healthy for the breed to have so many breeders establishing studs all over the country and indeed there have been established studs breeding Fell ponies many miles away from Cumbria for a long time. However, the vast majority of these studs come back to Cumbria again and again, to the hill bred ponies, for breeding stock to introduce into their herds in order to keep them true to type. Fell ponies have been on the Cumbrian fells for hundreds of years Ian Smith Bracklinn Fell Ponies

Ian Smith, Bracklinn Ponies, Autumn 2008