The Breed
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The Breed
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Roman
Early 19th C Quizzes
and Jigsaws |
Stud Cards.
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. The cards in the picture were found on a beam in the stable of Mr J Graham of Caldbeck and donated to the Museum.
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.
The Cards in the Case
The cards are for stallions who travelled between 1900 and 1934 or '35. The stallions and their owners are as follows:
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 was unusual in having his own poem printed on his card:
Mountain Hero 2nd 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."
The
stud card gives his pedigree as: 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. 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 service fee was higher, at £1 15s, but the groom's fee was 2s 6d, the same as for the Fell ponies. 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. |
Left,
Mountain Hero II as shown in the 1910 British Agricultural Encyclopaedia.