Stud Cards

Stud cards were "local advertising" for a travelling stallion.

Advertising the Stallion

John Gate recalls:

When we were boys we used to kind’o collect them, y’know, when they come round wi’t stallions, they used to give you a card. Like you used to collect cigarette cards, we used to collect stud cards.

This posed photo from around 1885 shows the farmer paying the stallion man's fee. The horse is a Clydesdale type, possibly a half-bred. Photo courtesy of Becky Sim, Cumbria.

Some stud cards are said to have shown an extended pedigree for the stallion, but the cards in the Museum on the whole do not. Pedigrees on such cards are not necessarily true; for the sake of advertising value, they could easily include stallions that had been fashionable a generation or two earlier, rather than those that really were in the pony's background!

Heltondale Victor, around 1920: wearing in-hand show tack, with his mane braided, and complete with prize "ticket" following one of the Stallion Shows. Victor was unusual in having his own poem printed on his card:

Here comes Heltondale Victor,
We know him by his walk.
This is the horse that goes so well
And makes the people talk.
Look at his head, his neck, his eyes,
Mark well his shape and size;
Superior action he displays,
Amazing strength likewise.

Mountain Hero II

Mountain Hero II was advertised in 1900 as "a rich bay Highland pony", 13.2 hh at 3 years old, with "spectacular action".

"Will Serve Mares at 15s each, and heath-going Ponies at 12s 6d each, with 2s 6d Groom Fee in each case. The Groom Fee to be paid at time of service, and all other demands at the end of the season."

Left, Mountain Hero II as shown in the 1910 British Agricultural Encyclopaedia. (Is there a resemblance between his handler and the handler of Heather Boy?)

The stud card gives his pedigree as:
by Young Mountain Hero (Owned by J Bell of Caldbeck)
by Old Mountain Hero
by Rob Roy
by Highland Laddie (see below)
by Ling Cropper

His dam was Black Bess by FitzGeorge; she was a registered Fell, and Mountain Hero 2nd was himself registered as Fell number 250 in the Polo Pony Stud Book Vol VII.

"It can be seen from the breeding of Mountain Hero 2nd that he is bred from two of the best breeds of ponies that England can produce. Being bred and brought up on fell land, he cannot fail but produce a healthy stock."

Sir Walter Gilbey remarks that in the 1880s the Rev Lowther of Boltongate "made an attempt on a modest scale to improve the ponies of the Caldbeck Fells by selecting sires and dams from among the best of them" and his best sire was "a 13 hands pony named Mountain Hero". It may be guessed that he, "Old" Mountain Hero, could have been the grand-sire of Mountain Hero II.

"Highland" or "Fell"?

A stallion called "Highland Laddie" also occurs in the pedigree of Highland ponies in the Polo Pony Stud Book of 1899. A pony of the same name was mentioned in the extended pedigree of The Mikado (200) as bred by J Wearmouth of Swindale Head, and owned by Thomas Gibson of Friars House (High Force, Teesdale); that "Highland Laddie" is said to have bred until he was 26 years of age.

It is impossible to be certain whether Mountain Hero 2nd was really a "Highland" in the 20th C sense of "a Scottish pony", or a pony bred on "high land" implying even tougher going than the "fell", or just a good hardy pony going under a fashionable description. It must be remembered that he was registered at a time before the two societies had begun to separate the Highland and Fell "breeds"; in fact, in 1900 the societies themselves did not yet exist, being then under the umbrella of the Polo Pony Society.

Note: The generations between Highland Laddie and Lingcropper must have been telescoped in Mountain Hero's background, if they are the same pony in both pedigrees. Names tended to be repeated, so this can't be taken for granted.

The Mikado's pedigree runs:

by Young Perfect x Dolly Varden

Young Perfect's sire line:

Black Jock | Bewcastle Jock | Ayrshire Champion (breed unknown; he could have been Highland, Galloway, or even a Clydesdale type)

Dolly Varden's sire line:

Highland Laddie | Merry John | Merry Driver who traced through the dam's line to Old Lingcropper and through him to two Shales stallions (Norfolk horses of Hackney stamp) and back to Flying Childers (the first English thoroughbred to gain fame as a racehorse: a bay horse, foaled 1714, by the Darley Arabian x Betty Leedes by Careless).

Dolly Varden was a noted trotter and her pedigree was said to go back to a mare by an "Old Lingcropper" and another by "Lingcropper" six generations earlier - possibly in this case the original Lingcropper.

The only reason to doubt this pedigree is that it was produced to support the registration of The Mikado who is described as "Black-brown with tan and white hind heels". However, contrary to the breed standard, he was skewbald, and his registration had been accepted while the committee were a little the worse for alcohol.

Fertility

Fertility varied a lot among the stallions, despite their long weeks of travelling which kept them fit. In 1913 the percentage of live foals to the number of mares served by Premium stallions was recorded by the Fell Pony Committee:

The Committee reported that the "percentage of living foals to mares served must be considered fair" in comparison to other breeds of horses at that time.

Weardale Hero

For one year in the early 1920s the New Forest pony breeders used the Fell stallion Weardale Hero. However, one well known Judge wondered if any of the progeny of the two "imported" stallions would ever, in fact, run on the forest. Opinion was that those ponies with the most actual Forest blood did better than the progeny of the imported ponies. Recently the New Forest Commoners took a vote on whether one of David Trotter's ponies, Tebay Blease (foaled 1990), who had been sold south, should be allowed to run on the Forest as a stallion to "beef up" the NF type. This time the idea was not accepted, and so the pony was gelded before the new owner was allowed to turn him out.

Lingcropper: the first "named" pony

This famous pony was found saddled and bridled on Stainmore in the 1740s, cropping the "ling" heather, but with no trace of a rider. He was sufficiently striking to be celebrated in ballads and stories of the time. He may have been a Galloway , whose Scottish rider had been killed in a border raid.

Royal Star

The Museum's stud card for Royal Star is a photocopy of the original and is for the season 1910. Royal Star was a Hackney over 16 hands high owned by Thomas Winder, The Grapes Hotel, Caldbeck. His groom's fee was 2s 6d, the same as for the Fell ponies, but the service fee was higher, at £1 15s. Royal Star's dam was said to trace back to a horse called Eclipse. (This may have been the great 18th-century racehorse and sire, who began racing at age five and was undefeated in 18 starts: "Eclipse first, the rest nowhere." Eclipse sired the winners of 344 races, including three Epsom Derbies. However, it's not certain that the pedigree goes back as far as that in years.)

Royal Star was by Young Pluto, by Pluto, by Bay President; and his dam was by Abel, by Spencer, by Cotherstone. Mr Winder is said to have travelled this big fast high-stepping horse by driving him in a sulky, instead of walking beside him as the Fell pony stallion men did.