Ponies grazing near blowdown due to microburst six months before.

I came outside to do my last-of-the-day check on the ponies before dark. On the hillside to the southeast I noticed black spots up high, so after feeding my stallion, I headed towards the black spots thinking they were my mare herd. I got about two-thirds of the way to them, and it seemed strange that the black spots would be my ponies because they were in the prevailing wind. Usually the ponies seek areas that are sheltered from the wind. Then I realized that what I was seeing was cattle.

I climbed around a knoll, and sure enough, two ravines over on the top of a level spot out of the wind, I saw my ponies. By the time I got through those two ravines, only two ponies were close enough to me to say hello to. I couldn’t venture to the others up higher because impending darkness meant I needed to start heading down. As I called good night to the rest of the herd and headed down the hill instead of towards them, I heard a young pony cry out to me. It was Lettie, the two-month-old daughter of my heart pony, wondering why I wasn’t coming to say hello.

My pony herd has created or enhanced paths across the landscape: the obvious one on left and another on the right under red arrow

As I turned downhill, I realized that the approaching darkness was going to make my descent interesting. I was still favoring a sprained ankle, so I needed a route down as free of obstructions as possible. I also needed a route where I could see the ground in the failing light, since the grasses and shrubs easily obscured rocks and holes that my ankle would be quite unhappy encountering. Around me were numerous downed trees, the result of a microburst or mini-tornado in the spring, making the choice of route even more complicated than usual.

My ponies have now been on this pasture long enough that they have established paths across the landscape, in many cases using paths created by other, sometimes previous, four-legged inhabitants. I have learned by following them that the ponies typically choose routes that are relatively free of obstructions so can be trusted from that regard, and while they may not appear to go where I need to, they likely lead to another path that will indeed go where I want to go. So I looked about me in the failing light and was relieved to see that the ponies had not only made paths in the area but had rerouted them since the blowdown. A pony path was just what I needed when I couldn’t see very well.

Trees down over fence due to microburst

As I pondered which of the paths to use around the downed trees, I remembered a story in the histories I’ve been reading about this area. The story said that while Native Americans loved the Black Hills and considered them sacred, they also were afraid of them because they felt the Great Spirit grew angry often and caused wild wind storms. Having witnessed myself that microburst a few months before, I could totally relate to that mixed feeling of awe and fear. The cattle that had led me astray in my search for ponies were in the pony pasture because the microburst took out much of the fence on that end. The ponies have not ventured out, but the cattle have ventured in!

I am very aware that my presence in the Black Hills here in South Dakota has been made possible by a broken treaty in the 1800s. The US government had agreed with the local tribes that they could have the Black Hills, and the government would keep Americans out. But then gold was found in the Hills, and the US government reversed course and allowed miners and prospectors and supporting businesses to enter the Black Hills. I don’t like it when agreements I make with other people are broken, so I completely understand that the tribes felt violated and may still. Knowing that my presence here is due to a broken treaty makes every day here a gift.

It is easy to assume that things were the same in the past as they are in the present, but that’s usually not the case, just like the pony trails have changed over time to adapt to changing circumstances, and Euro-Americans now occupy land once occupied by native tribes. I read a story recently about two native American tribes that pushed a third tribe out of a region that they all occupied in the 1800s. Where the tribes were prior to being forced onto reservations isn’t necessarily where they were just a few decades before that.

Petroglyphs that researchers have chalked in to improve visibility.

Near where I live are petroglyphs, historic rock art created by ancient Americans. I have been told repeatedly that the art was done not by today’s native Americans but by people who lived here before them. The art has been dated to 3,000 to 6,000 years ago. Who lives in these Black Hills has obviously changed over time for a very long time indeed.

Maiden Castle (the pile of rocks on the mid horizon) on Burnmoor in the Lake District, Cumbria

It’s thanks to my ponies that I have an enhanced appreciation for how things change over time. It was on an historic packhorse track in the Lake District that I first appreciated that that area was settled by successive waves of humanity. On that trip it was the ruins known as Maiden Castle that I visited alongside two Fell Ponies that underscored for me that how a landscape is utilized today isn’t how it was utilized previously and that the people using it now aren’t the ones that used it before. The Lake District saw settlement by Romans and Vikings long before our time. There is evidence of Bronze Age and medieval settlement preceding more modern uses. Maiden Castle is considered Bronze Age by some and may also have been used as a communication beacon in the day. (1) For me, though, its importance is as a marker of changing circumstances, including how people steward land, what tools they bring to bear in that work, and how nothing ultimately stays the same. I am watching now with great interest as the Lake District’s humans struggle to figure out the way that stewardship of that landscape will look in the near-term future. Fell Pony stewards hope our ponies have a continuing opportunity to use the landscape as they have for centuries, while others want the use of the landscape to be different in the future. This struggle is at the same time current and ancient.

Here in the Black Hills, I’m aware of how this area has been used by successive waves of humanity, too. Of course I don’t know all the stories of humans in this place, but I know enough that each of us is here but transitorily. The Oglala Sioux tribe, former users of this landscape, now occupy a reservation to the southeast of these Hills, but it turns out they do own land here. I was fortunate to overlook a piece of their property, as American society currently defines it, on a summer venture into a nearby canyon. Perhaps the tribe will one day again make use of the Hills as they once did, but it’s also possible and maybe even more likely that it will be another wave of humanity that comes here to leave their own paths on the landscape that my ponies and I currently tread.

1) Fair, Mary C. “Some Notes on the Eskdale Twentyfour Book.” Read at Carlisle, April 7th, 1921. CWAAS Volume 22, #7.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2021

I am intrigued by how my Fell Ponies use the landscape where they live. Four are visible just above the lower trees.

The Fell Pony is in part a landscape-adapted breed. (1) As a Fell Pony steward, then, it’s not surprising that I am intrigued by how Fell Ponies use the landscape where they live. My best mornings are when I wake up and look out the window and see my herd of mares high on the hill that is their pasture, similar to how their ancestors have lived in England on the fells for centuries. The picture here shows one such view.

I am also intrigued by how people use landscapes. That’s why I’m currently writing a series of articles for Rural Heritage magazine on regenerative agriculture. And being so intrigued explains why I am enthralled with the workings of the cattle ranch where I live here in South Dakota.

So I suppose it’s no surprise that I’m especially intrigued by how humans and equines work on landscapes together. Orchard Hill Farm in Ontario, Canada features in several of my regenerative agriculture articles in part because they use their Suffolk Punch draft horses in their market garden. That Suffolks are a rare breed made the stories there even more of interest. (Click here to see pictures on Orchard Hill’s website.) Closer to home, I hope to get my ponies more involved on the cattle ranch where we live. The picture shows when Willowtrail Wild Rose and I encountered a hay trailer recently unloaded while out on a ride.

I am also intrigued by how people interact with landscapes, including on the cattle ranch where we live. A load of hay was recently unloaded from this semi.

I have been blessed to be writing articles for Rural Heritage for many years about draft horse use on farms and to compile an entire book about harness. And I have a series underway in my Fell Pony newsletter about how the ancestors of Fell Ponies participated in the industrial and agricultural past of the region they call home in England. (Click here to read some of the articles.)

A completely different interaction of humans and equines on landscapes was during the stagecoach era. Over the years, I have read about stage coach routes and practices and companies on this continent, in Britain and in Australia. You can imagine then my elation when I learned that an important stagecoach route went within just a few miles of where I now live. This area and places I regularly see when we travel nearby are rich with stage coach history. I made this discovery while researching my articles on regenerative agriculture!

Looking north towards Minnekahta along the Mickelson Trail , a Rails-to-Trails conversion in South Dakota. There is evidence nearby that this railroad followed an old native trail.

When we go to Custer, South Dakota, we go north from the Minnekahta Valley on Highway 89. Highway 89 follows roughly the route of the Mickelson Trail which is an old railroad bed converted to a trail under the Rails to Trails Act. When I heard that a stage route went nearby and north to Custer and on to Deadwood, I wasn’t surprised because over the years I’ve learned that often highways follow rail lines which follow old stage routes and pioneer wagon trails which often follow old native pathways. A picture shows Rose and I looking up the Mickelson Trail, and there is evidence of a native trail nearby. Pony Express routes often paralleled old stage routes, too. We found the marker shown in a photo along the North Platte River when investigating pioneer wagon train routes.

Pony Express routes often paralleled stage routes and pioneer trails. This marker is near a part of the Oregon Trail in Wyoming.

In the course of my education about this area, I had been told about the Metz massacre nearby. But it wasn’t until a Red Canyon resident told his version of the story to me that I realized just how close it was to where I live. So when I had company coming and we were headed to Red Canyon for reasons of regenerative agriculture, I decided to get informed to be a better tour guide. That’s when I learned that the context of the Metz massacre in Red Canyon involved stagecoaches and so much more. For about a year beginning in 1876, the Cheyenne to Black Hills Stage ran through Red Canyon on its way to Custer and Deadwood. The reason was gold fever. The Red Canyon route was eventually abandoned by the stage company, but the route was still used by hopeful migrants. Click here to see a picture of the location of the Metz Massacre taken in 1876, about six months after the tragic event. Rarely do we have photos from this period!

The topography in the area of Red Canyon, with the steep-sided and narrow canyon itself in the mid ground.

The stage company abandoned the route in part because of a shorter route to the west, but also because of Red Canyon’s topography. One passenger described its hair-raising character: “Red Canyon was like a cake cut in two and the pieces shoved back a little. You couldn’t see the sky unless you put your head out of the coach.” (2) A picture here shows the topography of the area with the narrow slot of Red Canyon in the midground. Anyone intent on harming through-traffic had ample places to hide and advantageous positions up on the canyon walls from which to shoot or even just throw rocks to spook stock.

It was the massacre of the Metz family that eventually helped bring military attention to the area. Those responsible for the murders were never found. Some blamed it on Native Americans who certainly had ample reason to be hostile. More on that in the next story. Others say that it was likely the road agents who were active along the route. Just as Border Reivers wreaked havoc in the Fell Pony homeland in their day, road agents did similarly in their day, close to where my ponies now live.

I am grateful to my ponies for teaching me to look at landscapes with new eyes, appreciating how humans and equines have worked together in the past and can still.

1. The Fell Pony also has a breed description that breeders use in selection of breeding stock, so the breed is also in part a standardized one.

2. Spring, Agnes Wright. The Cheyenne & Black Hills Stage and Express Routes, p. 138. 2016 abridged and edited edition of the 1949 original.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2021

With my long interest in working ponies, and being steeped as I am in British native pony breeds and especially the Fell, I am always pleased and surprised when I learn of a new breed of working pony. It can be so easy to assume that Great Britain and to a lesser extent Europe have been the sole enthusiasts of small equines for work. So I was thrilled to learn of the Hequ (previously known as the Nanfan), a breed from the 7th century in China.

Hequ horse by gill_penney courtesy Creative Commons 2 license (2)

Not unlike the Welsh Pony with its four sections, there are three types of Hequ: the Jiaoke (or Jiaode), the Suoke and Kesheng. The types vary in characteristics based on where they are from. They range in height from 12.3 to 14.3 and are typically used ridden, including local racing, or for light draft work. They are uniquely adapted for life at high altitude. Hequ are sure-footed and show good endurance and recovery from exertion. While they are referred to as horses, they have many characteristics of the pony phenotype, such as a wide forehead, a broad and deep chest, a well coupled loin, legs of medium length, and a well-sloped shoulder.

This breed came to my attention because of arising health issues. (1) The issues were reported after changes in grazing management. The issues ended up being due to a lack of selenium in areas where the horses were grazing and were resolved with selenium supplementation.

Because I’ve been dealing with (minor) health issues related to grazing management in my Fell Pony herd, I couldn’t help but notice a parallel between the Hequ and my ponies. For my herd it was copper, not selenium, that needed to be supplemented to resolve the fading of their coats. It can be so easy to forget how important minerals are to good health and how changes in grazing practices require us to pay attention to changes in the nutrient content of the forage that is the foundation of their health.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2021

1. “Modern Problem for an Ancient Breed,” Equus #502, Autumn 2020, p. 17.

2. Photo by gill_penney and used via Creative Commons 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

I heard on the news that most of North America is experiencing its longest streak of cold weather on record. I have certainly felt that this run of high temperatures in the single digits Fahrenheit (-15 C) is the longest I’ve encountered. I’m glad to know my memory is still serving me well!

When the weather is like this, I adjust my pony care routine. I check them earlier in the morning, and I spread extra hay then. The mares also adjust their routine. They have been meeting me at the barn at sundown rather than being out on the hill where I walk to find them. They are right to assume that their looks through their foggy breath will convince me to throw them some hay when normally I expect them to get what they need off the hill.

Having spent most of my life in the high elevations of Colorado and now South Dakota, I’m accustomed to three days in a row of below zero Fahrenheit nights and frigid days. I’ve learned that my ponies can handle it just fine, so I can too. But this run of six days, with more on the front end that weren’t exactly warm, I have found trying. I’m weary of three neck gaiters, three inches of ice to be broken off waterers and three different sets of chemical warmers to keep my body functioning. But I’m extremely grateful for my tough ponies. Though they’re greeting me with frosty eye lashes, ice crystalled muzzles, and elevated appetites, they still are holding their own as they sift hay or dry grass from the snow-covered ground.

I know there are places where this sort of weather is the norm in the winter rather than the exception. I admire folks and their critters who can handle it. Given how widespread this current weather system is, I suspect they’re dealing with their own sort of extreme. It doesn’t feel right to gripe when we’re all in this together!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2021

You can read more stories about my life with my ponies in What an Honor, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

A fuzzy-in-more-ways-than-photography Fell Pony stallion Kinniside Asi

Around the start of each year, I have a tradition of wassailing my ponies. I take pieces of apple and/or carrot to each pony in my herd in turn. When I offer the treat to them, I thank them for their presence in my life and wish them a happy new year. Usually, the youngstock and my stallion aren’t interested in the edible attention, but they of course still get well wishes.

For many years, I had company when I wassailed the ponies. Now I make up for being alone by roping friends into the ritual. This year weather interfered with one friend’s physical presence, though I could definitely feel her presence in spirit. Another friend, for the second year in a row, made up for the thousand miles between us by wassailing hers at the same time as I did mine. It was great fun to get a photo texted to me of her first encounter as I was about to have the same.

I like to take pictures of my interactions with each pony each year as a sort of record of the herd. Being alone, getting pictures requires creativity. My stallion is currently housed by himself, so a camera on a tripod with a self-timer was put to use. Unfortunately, it appears to have been focused on a snowflake, so Asi and I are fuzzy, but I still like the picture. This year he at least mouthed the apple before spitting it out. In past years he hasn’t even taken it from me!

I found the mares out on the hill, and I was encouraged that I wouldn’t immediately have a mob around the camera and tripod because they were looking off into the distance. I triggered the self-timer and got a few shots but couldn’t retrigger it for fear of having it knocked over by a curious young Aimee. One of the pictures shows her looking right at it! I gave up on pictures and focused on the messages.

During a challenging week, after a challenging year, there is no question my ponies have made things easier than they might otherwise have been. I am so fortunate to have them in my life. I hope you can say the same. Happy New Year.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2021

There are more stories like this one in my book What an Honor, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

I had a new farrier out to trim my ponies’ hooves. Technically he’s not really a farrier; he calls himself a barefoot trimmer. I have recently come to an enhanced appreciation of that vocation. I hadn’t realized that indeed there is a difference between trimming hooves and trimming to mimic an ideal hoof on an equine living a barefoot (rather than shod) existence.

Two different hoof shapes

I asked the trimmer about the shape of one of my ponies’ feet. They are more oval than round; you can see hers and a rounder hoofprint in the photograph. This pony hadn’t ever had her hooves trimmed before I purchased her, and I have known she and I are on a journey to getting her feet healthy. The answer the trimmer gave about the shape of her foot surprised me but made perfect sense.

I had learned a few months before that a healthy foot on an equine living on perfect terrain develops an arch in the quarters of the hoof wall (think 4 o’clock and 8 o’clock). The arch allows the hoof wall to compress onto the ground when under full bearing weight, enabling it to absorb concussive forces and then spring back to arch shape again. (Click here to read my previous post on hoof arches and how hooves are dynamic structures. A photograph of an arch is included there).

Conventional hoof trimming as I was taught has the hoof wall nipped and filed to be in a plane, all one level all the way around. What happens, then, when the hoof meets the ground under full bearing weight? What happens if there’s not an arch in the wall to absorb some of the concussive forces of landing? The barefoot trimmer suggested to me that those forces may push forward and backward on the foot, elongating the shape of the hoof into an oval. Of course, every equine is different, with different shock absorption abilities based on conformation and other factors, so even if two ponies are trimmed conventionally it isn’t necessarily the case that they will both develop oval hooves.

There is, naturally, good news in the trimmer’s explanation of my mare’s oval hooves. Each time he trims, he makes sure there is an arch in the hoof wall, so in time we should see my mare’s feet become more round and more healthily shaped. I look forward to watching the process!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

You can find more stories like this one in my book The Partnered Pony: What’s Possible, Practical and Powerful with Small Equines, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover!

Sometimes we’ll hear people say that everything in their life before now prepared them for the life they’re living currently.  I chuckled over the summer at how that wisdom has manifested again in my life. 

My days now of course revolve around my ponies.  Most of the year, they are extensively grazing on a large pasture.  It is my habit to check on them twice daily.  In the morning this usually involves bringing them into the corrals for vitamin buckets and a looking-over.  Later in the day, I walk to wherever they are on the hill.  Since a good portion of the hill isn’t visible from my house, sometimes I guess wrongly about their location and find myself walking an extra mile or more looking for them at the end of the day when I am already tired.  Not wanting to give up this late-day check, I nonetheless have learned that I need to not walk so much.

In my pre-pony life, I used a lot of personally-powered transportation.  I walked to school, walked on the beach, and took forest walks with my family.  As soon as I began to ride a bicycle, I rode it to school, rode it to house-sitting jobs, and rode it around the neighborhood.  In high school I even took a long-distance bicycle trip in Europe.   Another decade on, I learned to mountain bike and explored many breathtakingly beautiful desert landscapes in Utah. 

I find operating a vehicle powered by an engine to be tiring, or I could have used my pickup to drive the ranch roads to get a distant view of the hill and the location of my ponies.  Instead, though, I decided to harken back to my bicycle days.  I found a used mountain bike that could quickly be brought back into service, and before long my evening walks to find the ponies were directed by information on their location gathered by bicycling the ranch road to ascertain their whereabouts.  It is wonderful to be a little less exhausted at the end of the day!

One morning, all the ponies came in except Madie and Aimee.  I knew where they were, so I decided I would take their bucket to them rather than bring them to the corrals.  When I got part way to them, I realized I didn’t have to walk all the way.  I hung the feed bucket from the bike’s handlebars and rode to their location.  That’s when my chuckle was most hearty about my previous life preparing me for the life I lead now.

I’ve discovered one big difference so far about bicycling in my current life compared to my previous bicycling experiences.  My dogs go everywhere on the ranch that I go, and they don’t quite know what to make of me riding a bicycle.  I am constantly watchful of where they are so they don’t pull on my pants leg or dash in front of me, necessitating a hard application of the brakes.  The ponies, too, are having to get used to the idea of a bicycle in their midst.  I’m glad I can get them used to it because there is a wonderful public trail nearby open to equines as well as bicycles.  Someday soon we’ll be meeting two-wheelers there, I hope!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

There are more stories like this one in my book What an Honor, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

I have two pairs of mares that at the moment are reminding me that ponies don’t respect clear orders of dominance or rank.  Each night and morning I swap them in and out of pasture, in what may be a vain attempt at managing their weight.  My goal is to halter one pony but bring in two, and that has required letting go of preconceived notions about who is leading who.

One of the pairs is a mother daughter one.  The mother is the undisputed though reluctant lead mare of the herd.  The daughter is in the middle of the herd.  (It’s so interesting that I wanted to use the terms pecking order or middle-of-the-pack there, but neither is about equines.)  This mother-daughter pair, though, complies with the ‘normal’ rules.  I can halter the mother and lead or ride her in and the daughter follows.  When I put them out, I let the daughter loose first, and she will usually wait for her mother before taking off for greener pastures.

The other pair is an unrelated set of three-year-olds.  One is clearly dominant; she can lay her ears back or toss her head and make the other one move.  Occasionally she will turn and offer to kick and get the same result.  For awhile I was haltering and leading this mare in, but the other mare didn’t follow.  I finally figured out that if I haltered the lower-status mare and led her in, the higher-ranking mare would follow us, sometimes immediately and occasionally within five minutes.  When I put them out, I began by putting the lower-ranking mare out first so that she could move off when the higher status mare was put out with her, but I found that the lower-ranking mare would often leave and be out of sight by the time I put the higher-ranking mare out, causing her distress.  So now I put the higher-ranking mare out first and she waits around until the lower-ranking mare is put out and they move off together, usually with the lower ranking mare in the lead!

Despite the second mare of each pair coming in on her own, sometimes she doesn’t come in when the paddock gate is open.  I then need to go out and bring her in through the gate.  I am mindful of my goal of ‘haltering one to bring in two,’ and I am very fortunate that these mares still make that goal achievable.  Both of them will come through the gate when I beckon them or if I put my hand under their jaw and lead them that way.  Still no halter and lead, so it makes me smile!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

More stories like this one can be found in my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

Honey subtly communicating with the cock of her head

I took a brief break from the pressure of a publishing deadline to go see a friend work with her horse.  When she had described what she was doing over the phone, it seemed almost counterintuitive, so it was clear to both of us that an in-person demo was needed.  We started by watching a short video of my friend’s instructor using the technique then we went out to see my friend use it on her horse.  My brief observation of the technique was not enough to fully grasp the power of the method, but I did take away a few things.  It’s pretty subtle stuff.

What most caught my attention was the focus on brace in the horse: how to see it and how to modify our handling of a lead rope, for instance, to keep our horse from bracing against us in the first place.  The example was a simple one.  When we have our horse on a lead rope standing still and then we move to a walk, typically we let the rope tighten between us until the horse begins to move with us.  If that rope tightens and the horse doesn’t move, it’s because they have braced their body against the tension.  Instead, this technique involves giving the horse more rope as we move away and encouraging them to follow by the use of our gaze, our posture, the energy we send down the lead rope, and if needed, the strategic movement of a whip. 

It was the bit about posture that most resonated with me.  The idea seemed to be that rather than just move from a stop to a walk, we should shift our posture in a consistent way, for instance by straightening up and squaring our shoulders, before we move off.  This gives our equines a choice to prepare to move off with us rather than brace.  I’ll be handling a lead rope differently next time I’m with a pony.  Subtle stuff!

Earlier in the day, I was working with my seven-year-old mare on ridden work.  I set the session up to be really simple so I could try to use the most subtle cues I could to tell Honey what I wanted.  It was a thrill to experience how little it took.  After the first few cues and responses, Honey did something I didn’t ask for.  However, I knew she was responding to something she’d sensed from me, so I scanned my body quickly to figure out what she’d reacted to.  Then I realized it was a thought I’d had.  I’ve had that happen before with my ponies; it’s flattering but it’s humbling, too, because I don’t control my thoughts as well as I could to fully utilize this sort of connection.  Subtle stuff!

I have said it before, and today I felt it again strongly.  One lifetime won’t be enough with my ponies.  While our relationships are already rich, days like today with the demonstrations of the really subtle communication that is possible make me wonder just how much more rich our already fulfilling relationships could grow to be.   

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

In a recent article on the Fell Pony shoulder, I suggested that a well laid back shoulder requires special consideration when it comes to harness adjustments. My colleague Doc Hammill and I have written an entire book on harness, so I will obviously be brief here compared to that full treatment of the subject. I particularly want to address, though, ideal angle of draft and point of draft. In the discussion that follows, I’m assuming collar-type harness rather than breast-strap-type harness.

Norwegian harness fixes the angle of draft at the ideal

In my opinion, the ideal angle of draft is especially important to understand when we are talking about working ponies in harness. Ponies, being smaller, need to be given every opportunity to work efficiently, transferring as much of their power as possible to moving the load to which they are hitched. The ideal angle of draft enables that sort of optimal transfer of power. The angle of draft is measured between the line of the collar/hames and the line of the traces that are connected to the load. The ideal angle of draft is 90 degrees, meaning the trace is perpendicular to the collar/hames.

It is interesting to me to consider Norwegian harness when thinking about ponies and work harness. Norwegian Fjord Horses are like Fell Ponies in that they have been bred for centuries to be versatile: ride/drive/draft/pack. The quality of the shoulder is critical to that versatility, which usually means laid back. To ensure the ideal angle of draft for their versatile small equines, the Norwegians designed their harness so that the trace is fixed to the collar at the ideal angle. A picture of a Norwegian harness on my Norwegian Fjord Horse is included here. I consider the Norwegian style of harness to be proof positive for the importance of ideal angle of draft when working ponies.

Trace location for ideal angle of draft is shown in green.

The next picture is from Wikipedia, and it shows a carriage horse with a more conventional collar-and-hames-type harness on a well laid back shoulder like a Fell Pony is supposed to have. Note how the collar is laying back on the shoulder bed of the horse. Then find where the trace leaves the collar/hames and note the angle that the trace makes with the collar/hames. I have drawn a green line on the photo to show the ideal angle of 90 degrees. Obviously it would be impossible to hitch anything to this horse at that ideal angle with that collar fit where it is. Instead the collar fit would need to be adjusted, using padding for instance, to bring the top of the collar forward to change the line of the trace so that the angle of draft is closer to ideal. I saw a photograph recently of a Fell Pony stallion with heavy muscling on his neck that would take the place of ‘artificial’ padding to keep the top of the collar forward while still being well-seated on his shoulder bed.

Another problem with the collar fit shown on the well laid back shoulder in the Wikipedia photo is that a hard pull on the trace could pull the collar up into the bottom of the neck where the windpipe is, potentially causing a comfort issue for the horse. It is likely that this particular hitch requires very little effort for this particular team of horses so hopefully that comfort issue never arises. (I also have an issue with this harness because it lacks breeching, so the horses have no ability to hold the vehicle back, so the teamster must brake the vehicle to keep it from running up on the horses.) With typical harness and collars and hames, the ideal angle of draft of 90 degrees can be difficult to achieve on a laid back shoulder unless the equine has adequate muscling or adjustments are made to the collar that might not be necessary on an equine with a steeper shoulder.

The ideal point of draft is also especially important to consider when dealing with a laid back shoulder. The ideal point of draft is actually a marriage of three different ideal points: one on the shoulder, one on the collar, and one on the hames. The marriage of these three points ensures the equine is able to work as safely and comfortably as possible. Doc’s and my book has an entire very long chapter on this subject, so the following discussion is just an overview.

Point of shoulder and spine of scapula approximately shown in red. These are places where bone doesn’t have much padding of muscle over it so harness needs to be kept away from them. When the trace leaves the hames, for instance, it needs to go between the two red markings.

The ideal point of draft on the equine is located such that the line of the trace falls midway between the bottom of the spine of the scapula and the upper limits of the point of the shoulder; these two anatomical features are roughly located on the picture here and are close to the surface of the skin so it’s important for the trace to run between them.

In our book, Doc shares, “In the herd of horses that Cathy and I have, there are Suffolks, Fjords, and a Welsh Pony. On the Suffolks, there is a three inch space where the trace coming off the hames should pass… On the Fjords, the area is two-and-a-half inches average top to bottom. On the Welsh Pony it’s just two inches.” (1) Clearly with ponies we have a special responsibility to locate that ideal point of draft carefully so the trace lays comfortably on our working partners.

The ideal point of draft on a collar is the thickest and widest part of the collar, but the trick is getting that part of the collar to sit correctly on the ideal point of draft of the shoulder. Then the ideal point of draft of the hames is where the trace needs to connect to the hames to lay in the narrow region described above and also ideally be on the thickest part of the collar that is over the ideal point of draft of the equine. Whew!

Where the trace attaches to the hames, circled in red, seems too high, potentially causing the trace to ride up onto the spine of the scapula.

I saw a picture of a Fell Pony working in harness recently that had a laid back shoulder with the collar laid back on it, similar to the horse at rest shown here in another Wikipedia photo. The point of attachment of the trace on the hames seems high, possibly causing the trace to ride up onto the spine of the scapula and potentially cause injury. That high point of attachment on the hames can also possibly pull the collar up into the bottom of the neck as described above, with that laid back shoulder making this more of a possibility due to its impact on the angle of draft as described above. Most hames have very little if any ability to adjust the attachment point, so often people make do with what they have, hopefully paying close attention so there are no adverse effects on their working partners.

Doc concluded our chapter on the elusive ideal point of draft by saying, “The ideal point of draft is an anatomical and kinetic balance point in the area of the shoulder of the equine. While the ideal point of draft can differ from equine to equine, the point of draft on a particular equine remains constant. It is the point of draft on the collar and most importantly the fit of the collar and the point of draft on the hames that must be monitored and adjusted to ensure our equines’ comfort.” (2) It has been my experience that equines bred specifically to work in harness tend to have steeper shoulders than the ideal versatile Fell Pony shoulder. Therefore, when we work ponies with their laid back shoulders suitable to a wide range of activities, we have a special responsibility to fit their harness so that they can work efficiently, comfortably, and safely.

1. Morrissey, Jenifer. Harness Lessons with Doc Hammill and Friends, 2013, p. 85.

2. Morrissey, p. 97

   (c) Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

The information here is a small subset of the crucial considerations when fitting harness on equines. Learn more in my book Harness Lessons with Doc Hammill and Friends, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

Whenever I spend time with my ponies, there are small interactions we have or things I observe that touch me.  Here are a few from the past month.

Salsify:  This common weed was one of my first pony’s favorite snacks.  I often gave the flower heads to her instead of treats.  Mya is now in a loving home elsewhere, so when I saw a salsify plant and thought of her, I picked it and fed it to the pony here who was a friend of hers.  Madie seemed to appreciate the gesture, if not the meaning!

Gratitude:  It was four in the morning. I’d just come home from being up all night taking Asi to the hospital and seeing him settled there.  The evening before I hadn’t been able to swap day ponies for night ponies, so after feeding the ponies in the paddocks, I pondered what to do.  Dawn was just lightening the eastern sky and a near-full moon was still bright to the west, so I could see reasonably well.  I looked over the fence into the pasture, and there was Pearl.  I went to get her halter, and by the time I got back to the gate, Madie and Aimee had arrived, too.  I put all three away for the ‘night,’ thankful that they had been so extremely cooperative when I was exhausted.

Aimee and Pearl:  When Aimee was about a month old, she and her mom came to see me when I was at the barn.  Three-year-old Pearl was also there and was the object of my attention; I needed to bring her into a paddock.  I tied Aimee’s mom Madie then went to halter Pearl.  Much to Madie’s frustration, Aimee started following me towards Pearl.  Pearl was somewhat concerned about the fit Madie was throwing, but Aimee wasn’t bothered and walked right up to Pearl and sniffed noses.  She didn’t do the typical ‘I am just a little foal’ mouthy submissive type of approach.  She walked up as if she were the same size and age and introduced herself.  I nearly fell over laughing!  I thought to myself, you’re a confident little one, aren’t you!  The next time I saw Aimee and Pearl, though, Aimee did approach more meekly.

Aimee Answers:  This young pony is quite remarkable, so that’s why so many of these stories are about her.  One late afternoon I went out to do chores, including swapping the day ponies for the night ponies.  I was tired and I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do a lot of walking to find the ponies on the hill, but they were nowhere to be seen, so I wasn’t optimistic.  As I was cleaning Asi’s stall, I sent out a silent message to my hill ponies that it would be really helpful if they would make their whereabouts known so I could easily find them.  The next thing I knew, there was a whinny nearby.  At first I didn’t see any ponies, until I realized it was little Aimee behind the fence at the waterer answering my request.  What a pony!

Aimee on the Rock:  One night when I was bringing Madie and Aimee in, I stopped next to a prominent rock.  It’s a flat hunk with a slight slant to it and a surface of about five feet by twelve feet.  Sometimes I call it my inversion table, a natural version of a healing tool I recently learned about from my chiropractor, because it’s big enough to lie down on.  That night as we paused there, Aimee walked past me and out onto the rock.  I was surprised at her confidence to just walk out on the slightly irregular surface.   I hurriedly took a picture of this unusual behavior, but it didn’t come out very well because she lost interest and hopped off to go elsewhere.  Then the other night, I was bringing Madie and Aimee in again past that rock, but this time Aimee was quite a ways behind us.  When I realized she wasn’t with us, I turned around, and there she was, standing on the rock.  This time I had plenty of time for pictures!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

As we stood there in shock waiting for the vet to decide what to do, Linda and I both asked my Fell Pony stallion Kinniside Asi, “How could you be so stupid?”  Not wanting to call my pony stupid, I revised my admonition to “How could you do this to yourself?”  Bruce and Linda and I have worked hard to make him a home here that has equine-friendly fencing, but he had opened a gate and let himself out and run a fence with a mare in heat on the other side.  He had lots of fun for the first few minutes, but that all changed in a brief instant.

Linda’s admonition had its roots in the fact that Asi had not stood still to be haltered when we approached him during those first few minutes.  Had he done that, or had the mare on the other side of the fence done that, the injury would never have happened.  But neither of them made that choice.  Sometimes I am amazed at the power of hormones.

The next day, with Asi in a hospital, I walked the fence line to try to understand what had happened.  I found a section of fence with Asi’s mane and other hair in it, but my detective work did not reveal how the injury had happened.  I began to wonder if I was giving Asi too much credit.  Maybe his hormones had in fact caused him to lose his senses and not exercise any self-preservation.  I prepared to go visit him two hours away, replaying in my mind the evidence I’d found as I drove.  In addition to hair in the fence wire, I had also found numerous broken juniper branches.  The juniper was bushy down to the ground, and it was over my head in height, so it was in that realm of being somewhere between a shrub and a tree.  The fence disappeared into the juniper on one side and emerged on the other, but was invisible in between.

After a slightly longer night’s sleep than the first one when I’d spent most of the dark hours either on the road or watching Asi get stitched up, I went out to do more detective work.  This second visit to the scene bore more fruit.  I looked again at the hair in the fence and the broken branches on the ground, then I thought to part the juniper along the fence wire.  Sure enough, obscured by the dense foliage, I found a metal fence post.  My faith in Asi’s inherent intelligence returned.  He could not have seen that fence post when he launched himself toward the mare through the tree, breaking branches as he went.  His injury now made much more sense.

After being a poor detective with another pony’s injury a few days before, I took some satisfaction this time that I had figured out the sequence of events.  Now I just have to work with my two young ponies on our catch-me game when their hormones are driving their behavior, so I have some chance of preventing something similar from happening again.  Oh, and the gate Asi opened?  Bruce had a safety put in it before I even got home from the hospital!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

It was dusk, and I was out swapping ponies from pasture to paddock and paddock to pasture.  I had handled three when I noticed I had blood on one hand.  A quick scan of my hand led me to conclude I wasn’t injured, so then the question was where did the blood come from.  I examined the three ponies I had been handling and found nothing, so I thought perhaps I had wiped a bug bite I had been scratching on my neck.  But then when I went back to the barn for the next phase of pony movement, I found a trail of blood drops on the ground about thirty feet long.  So I went back to again examine the three ponies I had been handling who had had access to that area all day.  Still I found nothing.  Maybe a barn cat had made a kill and carried a bloody prize somewhere? 

I finished my chores as darkness fell with no further information to explain the blood I’d found.  I went to bed puzzled, but since I hadn’t seen any unusual behavior from any of my ponies and I had a reasonably plausible set of explanations, I decided perhaps the blood wasn’t pony blood after all.

The next morning I discovered I had been a poor detective.  I went out early to check on the three ponies that I had been handling the night before when I found the blood.  Sure enough, Madie had an injury.  It was a puncture wound on her cheek; I apparently had brushed it with my hand when haltering her.  In hindsight I realized I had seen her be a little tender about chewing a treat I gave her.  Sigh.  The wound had obviously bled well the night before, but I cleaned it up and treated it with my healing products.  Then I made arrangements to transport her to the vet to have her checked.

Madie of course has her foal Aimee at foot.  I felt so fortunate that I had been taking Aimee on trailer rides for nearly two weeks so the trip the vet with her mom wasn’t too much of a stretch for her. Especially since my truck was in the shop so I had to borrow a truck and trailer and ask Aimee to step up into a higher trailer.  It turned out it was the unload that was more challenging for her!  It took her a bit to figure out how to jump down those extra few inches.

I had been a poor detective by not doing a thorough physical exam after I found blood.  I had checked back, neck, flanks, belly, and legs but I hadn’t thought to check faces.  Lesson learned!  And I’m grateful that no harm came from my error.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

“There’s lots of laminitis in the Black Hills.”  My stomach dropped when I was told this, shortly after moving myself and my pony herd to the Black Hills of South Dakota.  My ponies of course are considered easy-keepers, so I always worry about them developing any of the diseases of over-indulgence.  And my first spring here has certainly made me feel how incredibly fertile this environment is compared to the high elevation landscape where we all lived in Colorado. 

In Colorado, I had pony metabolic management well in hand.  By that I mean that I managed them in a way that respected their natural cycle of fattening in the summer and slimming in the winter.  Coming into spring each year, I had the herd in the moderate range of the Henneke Body Condition Score, where “ribs cannot be visually distinguished but can be easily felt.” (1)  Through twenty years of pony ownership, I never had to deal with laminitis or the other health problems of over indulgence.

This spring I am recognizing some errors in management that I made during the winter.  In Colorado I sometimes had to increase the amount of hay I fed to keep my ponies’ weight from dropping too far when the weather got tough.  This past winter in South Dakota, the ponies were full time on dormant pasture.  When the weather got particularly cold and/or snowy, I supplemented with occasional tubs of hay.  I was basing this on the condition of the lead mare, which was a mistake because she was not representative of the rest of the herd, who were all heavier.  So this spring, they’ve all come into warmer weather and green grass with a little more ‘cover’ than I like to see. 

My late husband and I, on our numerous trips to England, would come home and look at my ponies with a critical eye.  Often I would feel like my ponies had less substance than the ones we’d seen, but after one trip, Don pointed out that many of the ponies we were seeing had much more flesh than mine do except late in the year.  More recently I’ve had my hands on ponies bred by other people, and I was surprised how much flesh they had on them for the time of year.  I was reminded of a study that found that many owners don’t know how to assess healthy body condition in their equines. (2)  Equally likely is that equine owners don’t understand or manage to the natural cycle of fattening in the summer and slimming in the winter, with that second part - slimming in the winter - being the challenging part.

A recent visitor said, “Your ponies don’t seem obese.”  No, that’s true.  On the Body Condition Score, obese is considered to be when it is hard to feel the ribs, and I can still feel their ribs.  Nonetheless, I’m keeping the mares in for half days, following the lead of a like-minded equestrian here in the Black Hills.  I will feel more comfortable with their current weight when the grasses start to die back in the late summer.  And you can be sure that next winter, I’ll be careful with that extra hay!

1. Camargo, Fernanda, et. al.  “Body Condition Scoring Horses: Step-by-Step,” thehorse.com, article #164978, 1/15/19.

2. Morrison, Philippa, et al.  “Perceptions of obesity in a UK leisure-based population of horse owners,” 9/25/15, as found at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4595036/

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

You can find more stories about what’s possible, practical, and powerful with small equines in my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

I was visiting a friend, and while we were talking in her barn, she coughed.  “It’s not coronavirus.  I promise,” she said quickly.  I believed her because she had been self-isolating, and she lived in an area where incidence of the pandemic had so far been low.  A dry cough is, of course, one of the symptoms of COVID-19.  I was at a cattle sale several weeks ago, and despite our efforts to sit away from other people, socially distancing ourselves, someone came in after we did, sat down behind me, then coughed in my direction.  I moved to another location quickly, and everything turned out all right, but we talk about that situation often whenever we venture into public.

The other day when my friend coughed, I also believed her assurance that her cough wasn’t due to COVID-19 because of what she said next.  “I’ve got a pony hair in my throat!” I have caught myself coughing multiple times for exactly the same reason.  It’s hair-in-the-throat season around here, with many of my ponies leaving me with handfuls of hair whenever I pet them.  Some of that hair, despite my best efforts, becomes airborne and enters my mouth.  Whenever I cough, though, I do catch myself pausing for a second to make sure I’m feeling all right otherwise.  What a fascinating time we are living through, where so much of what used to be normal is no longer that way.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

You can read more stories about my life with ponies and its connection to the world around us in my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

Sleepy Willowtrail Fell Ponies. The one standing up is the lead mare. The fully recumbent one is 9 months old. They definitely prefer hard bare ground for their napping location.

We likely have been told how important good quality sleep is to our own health.  It turns out that the same is true for our equine friends.  New research in 2019 found that the majority of horses studied are not getting enough sleep in their usual environments and that there is a correlation between inadequate sleep and collapse with associated injuries. (1)  Veterinarians say that equine owners should know how much sleep their equines are getting to avoid the risk of collapse.

We know that our equine friends can sleep standing up, but it turns out its important for them to sleep lying down each day, too.  Dr. Michael Hewetson at the Royal Veterinary College says, “A normal horse requires a minimum of one hour’s REM sleep per day which requires the horse to lie down.  If a horse lies down for less than that, they have an increased risk of sleep deprivation which can lead to collapse.” (2)  REM sleep can occur either when a horse is lying down with its head still up but resting it on the ground or when the horse is flat out on its side. (3)

The 2019 study by Juan de Benedetti of Brunel University, Uxbridge, found that 20 percent of the horses monitored were lying down less than one hour per day, and nine percent were lying down less than 30 minutes per day.  The longer rest periods (35 minutes on average) were between midnight and 3am and the next longest (25 minutes on average) were between 9pm and midnight.  These were horses “living most of the time in a stable and turned out in a field or paddock at least for a few hours every day.”  (4)  Dr. Hewetson says, “At the hospital we see cases of sleep-deprived horses due either to an underlying painful condition or because the horse is insecure in its environment.” (5)

In normal herds, one or two members remain alert while the others rest.  Often it is the lead mare, as shown in this picture.  She gets rest when a ‘second-in-command’ assumes the watch duty.  This system can be disrupted by stalling, by herd groupings that are unstable, or by an equine living totally alone, leading to sleep deprivation. The articles I read suggested that large barns with their many comings and goings and diverse noises can be problematic for some equines regarding adequate healthful sleep.

Foals, of course, sleep more than mature equines.  A university of Georgia study found that the average foal is resting lying down 32 percent of the time during the first week of life.  By four months of age, they are resting lying down only 5.1 percent of the time.  As a foal matures, more of its rest time is done standing, up to 23 percent when they’re older from 3.6 percent in the first week.  (6)  I have observed that up to at least a year of age, I’m more likely to see weanlings resting lying down than adult ponies.

I never thought about it until it was stated in an article and I recognized it to be true, but equines in paddocks or on pasture tend to prefer to lie down on hard-packed or heavily grazed areas, as shown in this picture. (7)  It may be because it’s easier to get up quickly on firm footing.  It may also be that sound carries more easily across an open area than into grass and the same with being able to see, and for prey animals the quicker information arrives, the better.

When I see an adult pony lying down, I am immediately watchful.  I wonder if they are okay or experiencing some sort of upset.  With this new understanding of the importance of their sleep, I will try to be thankful for their recumbent rest rather than worry about it immediately!

1. “Study shows sleep pattern concerns,” The Westmorland Gazette, December 2019, p. 29.  Courtesy my colleague Eddie McDonough.

2. Same as #1.

3. Mariette, Kim.  “Help Your Horse Sleep Better,” Equus #497, Summer 2019, p. 47.

4. Same as #1.

5. Same as #1.

6. “Sleeping Like a Baby,” Equus #497, Summer 2019, p. 50.

7. Same as #3.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

You can find more stories like this one in my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

Several years ago, an article with a sensational headline was posted on the internet:  “Shetland pony behind Thoroughbred Speed.”  It was quickly pointed out that the headline had no support in the text of the article, which was indeed about the source of speed in the Thoroughbred.  At the time, research based on DNA analysis had provided information on the genetic basis of the breed’s speed.  Fast forward several years, and the actual research paper finally crossed my desk.  Not only did it become clear why Shetlands were called out in the erroneous headline, but also the article contained a surprise:  Galloways, often linked to Fell Ponies, were called out too.  In addition, Connemara and Highland Ponies were part of the research data set. (1)

Galloways as pictured in Oliver Goldsmith’s 1774 book Earth and Animated Nature

The researchers, based in England, Ireland and Sweden, both in academia and private industry, studied a gene that has one of two expressions:  sprint speed (C allele) or stayer/endurance (T allele).  They found that the C-allele is “not restricted to the Thoroughbred and Thoroughbred derived populations, is not a new mutation, and seems to occur at variable frequencies depending on the selection pressures on the population.” 

The history of the Thoroughbred suggests that the stayer/endurance type equine would have been more favored in earlier times when races were longer and several heats were run, whereas sprinters are more favored in modern times when single races over relatively short distances are run.  The Thoroughbred is interesting to study because it has had a closed stud book since 1791, so the researchers point out that the C-allele must have been present at the founding of the breed, but that it has been concentrated in modern times by selective breeding. 

The researchers were able to sample past significant Thoroughbred sires, such as Eclipse foaled in 1764, to learn that all of the historic sires were homozygous for the stayer gene.  Then using pedigree analysis of modern day sprinter versus stayer horses and doing DNA analysis of them, the researchers concluded that the C-allele was introduced as a founding event on the female side, from perhaps a single mare.   Since the breed was created in England, a British mare or mares is therefore assumed to be the source of the speed gene (C-allele).

In addition to looking at the presence of the sprinter and stayer genes in Thoroughbreds, the researchers also sampled numerous other types of equines to try to determine where the sprinter gene may have come from.  Donkeys and zebras were found to have no sprinter genes (all stayers T/T).  In fact the only sample where sprinter genes were dominant and homozygous was in the Quarter Horse where 83% of the samples were C/C, compared to only 22% of Thoroughbreds over all.  Modern sprinter type Thoroughbreds were homozygous for the sprinter gene in only 46% of samples.  So it was surprising to learn that the Shetland pony samples had an average of 34% homozygous sprinter alleles (C/C).  The headline writer can be forgiven for leaping to their erroneous conclusion of a link via speed between Shetlands and Thoroughbreds!  No other equine group that was sampled, outside Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses, had as high a percentage of homozygous sprinters nor as high a frequency of the C allele as the Shetland.  I found this quite amazing.  Keep in mind, though, that there were lots of breeds that were not included in the research.

Most equine enthusiasts are aware of the three legendary founding sires of the Thoroughbred:  The Godolphin Arabian, the Darley Arabian, and the Byerly Turk.  Equine researcher Deb Bennett, PhD, has posited that the English Hobby, an extinct breed/type, populated the female side of early Thoroughbred pedigrees.  Because the Hobbies crossed so well with the eastern sires, breeds created from the cross survived down through time while the Hobby was lost.  Yet some of those breeds also suffered extinction from their own success as crosses, including the Scottish Galloway, according to Bennett.  (2)

The researchers mention the Galloway in a context I was not previously familiar with: “…the Galloway breed, which was the preeminent British racing population before the formal foundation of the Thoroughbred breed.”  I had never before heard of Galloways as formal racers.  Informal, yes, as the mounts of the Border Reivers, but I was not aware of the history of racing before the Thoroughbred.  Miriam Bibby, who many Fell Pony enthusiasts know through her association with History on Horseback, contributed to the book The Horse in Pre-modern European Culture.  She says there that formal racing began at the Scottish/English border in the late 16th century. The Fell Pony Museum cites an announcement in the Newcastle Courant for a race at Penrith on June 17, 1736 exclusively for Galloways.

I found the following statement by the researchers problematic:  “The Shetland is closely-related (at least geographically) to the Galloway…”  First, there are other breeds that the Shetland is closer to geographically, such as the Highland Pony in the north of Scotland.  The historic range of the Galloway is towards the south of Scotland, often particularly along the Solway Firth.  And second, genetic research often links the Shetland breed more closely to the Nordic breeds than to the other British mountain and moorland breeds; the Shetland Islands are nearly as close to Norway as they are to Scotland. So it’s not clear to me that the Shetland and Galloway are very closely related.  I suspect the researchers made this statement to try to tie the Shetland to an early racing type that might have contributed the speed gene to the Thoroughbred.  The researchers could definitely have made better choices for comparison, however.  Bennett lists the following extant breeds similar to Galloways who are descended from Hobbies crossed on eastern sires:  “Welsh, Dartmoor, Asturian, Galician, Navarrese, Mérens, and Breton.”  Bennett says that the Irish Kerry Bog pony is the last remaining direct descendant of the Hobbies.

In addition to the Shetland, the researchers sampled two other mountain and moorland breeds:  the Highland and the Connemara.  In both these breeds, unlike the Shetland, the speed gene (C-allele) appeared in only 10% of samples with 86% of samples being homozygous for the stayer allele.  The Fell Pony is usually said to have significant endurance and is sometimes said to be related to the Highland.  These Highland results certainly lead one to believe that Fells are more stayer than sprinter.  The results for the Highland also distinguish it clearly from its near-neighbor the Shetland.

The Connemara hails from County Galway in Ireland.  When I mentioned the research about the speed gene to my friend Eddie McDonough, he recalled a song about horse races in Galway sung by the Dubliners.  I was struck by the lyrics that so easily conjured the excitement of a race day.  To listen, click here! I will continue to wonder if Galloways, while being known for speed, were truly sprinters or whether they were stayers like their modern mountain and moorland kin.

1. Bower, Mim A., et al.  “The genetic origin and history of speed in the Thoroughbred racehorse,” Nature Communications, 1/24/12.

2. Bennett, Deb, PhD.  “The World’s Most Important Horse Breed,” Equus #446, November 2014.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

My book The Partnered Pony celebrates how ponies improve our world. The book is available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

Many fell-running Fell Ponies in England experience flyovers by military jets. Many get to a point that loud, low-flying aircraft aren’t a big deal.  My ponies when we were in Colorado occasionally had military or emergency services helicopters fly over at low altitude, so they became accustomed to them.  Here my Fell Pony mare Rose and I experienced a flyover of a different sort, and it was a perfect addition to our ride.

Rose looks at turkeys on the ground under the grain bin.

I had taken Rose out to work on standing still around cattle.  We rode to the bull corrals and stopped to watch several older bulls eat.  They were pretty focused on their hay, and she did fine with that.  We then rode a little farther where a few more bulls including some younger ones were a little more active.  After a few times of me resetting Rose’s feet after she moved, she got the idea about standing still.  Then we headed towards the calf pasture where Rose’s feet tend to be the busiest. 

Almost immediately, though, we had company on the road.  First came the tractor and hay processor which Rose is quite familiar with, followed by a familiar Jeep then an unfamiliar pickup.  They all passed us by no problem.  Rose has been around equipment her entire life, so I thought this parade should be an easy test for her, and she passed with flying colors.  We continued on to the calf pasture and stopped to watch a dozen steers drinking from the waterer.  I had to reset Rose’s feet a number of times before she stood still enough that I could count a success and let her move on again.  We headed back toward the barn.

As we approached the barn, we saw that the tractor, Jeep, and pickup were all parked there, so we were to again have a good test of Rose’s ability to deal with relatively common stimuli but in a new place.  I was pretty certain it wouldn’t be an issue, and as we approached I could tell that Rose saw what was going on and didn’t have a problem with it.  Then, out of the corner of my eye, I could see we were about to experience something we hadn’t experienced before on our rides, and I had no idea what to expect.  A flock of about thirty wild turkeys had been spooked, and they were flying over the bulls at about fifteen feet elevation and approaching the road just ahead of us.  Perfect!  A flyover!

We had seen turkeys numerous times on our rides, always quite a ways ahead of us and always on the ground, but we’d never had them above us.  So I was extremely pleased and a little surprised that Rose kept on walking toward the barn.  The turkeys kept on flying just ahead and above us, and Rose acted as if it was perfectly natural that large black heavy birds with long wings and funny heads were crossing our path airborne.  I couldn’t have planned a better addition to our lesson ride.  The last of the turkeys flew over, and we continued to the barn.  We passed the vehicles at the barn, too, so it was easy to call the entire ride a success.

I was talking to a friend, and she mentioned that people sometimes poo-poo trail riding as a lowly use of an equine and the easiest to train for.  My friend and I heartily agreed on the contrary.  At least where she and I ride, the number of possible unexpected stimuli seems infinite.  How do you prepare a pony to remain calm and safe when faced with infinite unexpected stimuli?  And then how do you arrange for a flock of turkeys to fly overhead during a training ride to test that preparation?!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

You can find more stories like this one in my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

I grew up in the temperate part of Oregon, so I had early experience in my life with gray skies and damp ground conditions.  I didn’t start to raise pastured livestock, though, until I lived in the dry high country of Colorado where rocky ground and powdery snow were common conditions.  The contrast in environments I’ve lived in helps me understand that management strategies vary, by necessity, from place to place.  My first visit to Indiana and Ohio showed me again that management does vary depending on where you are.

I bought my first pony more than two decades ago, and I was fortunate to have a pony mentor to help me learn how to manage my new hooved friend in my Colorado environs.  My grass was seasonal, and when it was green, it was rich.  Hay was an important food stuff for many months of the year.  My mentor showed me that dry lots were a crucial part of managing ponies where we lived.  That continues to be the case even today where I am in South Dakota.

Dry lots have several advantages in managing ponies.  Ponies are such easy keepers that they often can’t handle living full time on pasture with its ready access to food.  At the same time, regular movement is crucial to ponies’ mental and physical health.  And it is rare that a human partner can provide that sort of movement through work as British native breeds traditionally had.  We just don’t have lifestyles that allow us to use our ponies day in, day out, all year round.  Dry lots – large bare paddocks – allow ponies to wander about but not have constant access to grazing.  (The track system advocated by Jaime Jackson and others has similar advantages.)  Dry lots also allow ponies to be kept in herds where important social interactions can occur.

On my visit to the Midwest, I saw how several ponies that I bred were housed in that environment of deep soil and humid weather.  The ponies were kept for most of the day in stalls.  Their owners had learned that this was the best way to manage their easy keepers and still have them in their lives. 

When I was more naive I might have been horrified that the ponies spend so much time in their stalls.  Why were they not on dry lots where they could move about and reap the benefits that movement and intimate interaction with other equines provide?  Then I saw a ‘dry lot’ and it was anything but dry; more like a mud lot this time of year!  In some places, I suspect the only way you can have a dry lot there like I am used to here is to pave it, which of course has consequences that aren’t ideal for equines either.  Instead the ponies I saw were given daily access for several hours to a covered arena with equine-appropriate footing where they could run around, often with equine companions. 

Once when I advocated a dry lot as a management tool to another pony acquaintance, she was horrified by my stance.  She had had a pony once in a dry lot that had grown weeds, and the pony had been poisoned by one of them.  Obviously a dry lot in one part of the country may be a good management tool for ponies, but it isn’t necessarily a good tool somewhere else.  Other strategies are needed to deal with the mental and physical health of easy keepers.

I am grateful for having the opportunity to visit the Midwest and see how some ponies are kept there.  I visited in winter, and I suspect that management strategies vary around the year (and certainly by location and owner).  I am thankful for the owners of my ponies who have put so much thought into finding situations where their ponies can be healthy and content and still be part of their lives.  They are blessings in my life, just as are the ponies in their care.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

More stories like this one about the practicalities of owning ponies can be found in my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

The other day I was talking to a master teamster, and when our conversation neared its conclusion, he asked if I was going out to put harness on my horses after I hung up.  Alas, that wasn’t my plan.  I then shared with him that when my life changed last year, I had sold all my dead-broke ponies.  My attention now is on bringing one back into work who’d had a few years off to have foals in hopes of creating my next working partner.  I clarified that I knew there’s no such thing as dead-broke, and he quickly assured me he knew what I meant.  He realized recently that all his horses who knew their job in their sleep were nineteen years old or older, so going out to work right now meant going out to train.  We agreed that it isn’t so much about the physical work for which they need training.  Instead they need mental work; they need to be reminded about the mindset of working safely and reliably.

I decided that to bring my pony back into work we would commence with ridden work before revisiting harness work.  It was the right choice since it quickly exposed that indeed it is her mind that most needs attention.  Something about motherhood convinced her that she knows best, and I suppose that is true where the safety of her foals was concerned.  In fact that was indeed the assignment I had given her.  Now, though, I have had to explain to her that in our working relationship, I will have a say. 

I received a gift of a small book from a Fell Pony friend.  Reading it, I had been entertained through the first 80 pages, but I suspected at some point I would get even more out of it.  Sure enough, the author eventually came around to talking about mental work.  The key, he says, to working with animals is to engage with them mentally not just physically.  More importantly, that mental engagement should be one of equal footing, not superior to inferior as we humans often do to the animals in our lives.  We must recognize that they are aware of our thoughts at some level, and the more honestly we recognize that and utilize our thoughts in our relationship, the more profound the relationship becomes.

I have no problem with this concept of engaging with animals on equal terms mentally.  I have spent the better part of the last two decades seeing more of my animals than of people, so it has been fairly easy to establish communication with them.  I do have a long way to go, though.  And my mare reminds me daily on our rides both where I am now and what is possible if I keep training myself.  Two or three times each day on our rides, she catches me thinking something and she alters her movement to reflect my thought, whether changing gait or line of travel away from ice or, worse, finding something more interesting to do since my mind has wandered.  When I realize what she has done, I collect my thoughts and reengage in the task at hand and endeavor to keep my mind on what we’re doing.  That she is so tuned into my thoughts is a reminder of how much potential there is in our relationship if I were to be as aware as she is.

My master teamster friend said he was headed out to feed hay to his cattle with a gelding put to the hay sled.  The gelding knew where to stop for him to fork off the hay and when to start up again, obviously fit mentally for that job.  I was headed out, in contrast, to do a chore related to my breeding program.  My master teamster friend kindly acknowledged the challenge of actively breeding while also trying to put horses to work regularly; there are rarely enough hours in the day for both.  For sure, I may not get training done as quickly as I might if putting my ponies to work were my only job, but my motto is that if I just show up each day, in time we make visible progress.  And showing up daily is the most important thing right now for the mental work we need to do.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

You can read more musings like this one in my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.