The lead mare ambled from the shade of the blossoming whitethorn and the herd gradually roused from its noon rest, drifting after her in search of fresh grazing. Flat out in the spring sun, head among the golden cinquefoil, for the length of a lark-song one foal slumbered on peacefully. When he woke, alone, confused, he started away up-slope, unwittingly trotting farther from the herd. His shrill whinny was absorbed into the wide expanse of lonely moorland. Hidden by slack ground, the mares grazed on unperturbed. It was the prick-eared stallion who snorted a reply, and came pacing to retrieve his errant son.
May is the prime time for foaling on the moor, although Exmoors have been dropped in unlikely months and unusual places. Jackie Ablett and Gill Langdon, owners of Herd H17, remember when Candy gave birth on Cloutsham Ball in the midst of a February blizzard, little Crystal surviving among the icy flakes, snugged-up close between her dam and the sheltering warmth of another mare. One late spring when grass was scant on the hill, the ponies made their way from Brockwell to Wootton Courtenay along what was then a gated road, left unsecured by careless walkers. After a nourishing overnight stop on the lovely green cricket ground, daybreak revealed a mint-new foal among the herd – which is how ‘Bat and Ball’ acquired her name.
Exmoors have a reputation for independence that can be seen as a laudable survival trait among free-living ponies, but when challenged by human intentions may be regarded more in the light of a stiff-necked, wooden-headed and cross-grained intractability.
Belewen (Cornish for ‘Venus’) was born on Helman Tor and came to Jackie as a wedding gift. Presently lead mare of Herd H17 she is a stalwart character, nimble-witted and bold-hearted, useful qualities if facing a wolf-pack, less admired when she repeatedly heads the escape at the autumn gathering, breaking through the line of riders in an unstoppable, ground-covering charge. Then there is Victor. A September foal brought off Dunkery at the 2005 gathering, overwintering on Tawbitts Holding. In the spring his life took an unexpected turn when he assumed the office of the late Miss Moses’s donkey – for twelve years palm-bearer at St John’s, Cutcombe. An unlikely role, surely, for a pure-bred, hill-born Exmoor, yet Victor might have been a regular attendant at Sunday worship, so faultlessly did he behave. Not once did he jib at the bells, the organ, or even the choir. Off duty, he trimmed back the churchyard grass, sparing the primroses, and with patient amiability accepted the congratulations of the younger members of the congregation. “Ears a trifle on the short side,” was the general verdict, “but overall very creditable. A proper Exmoor.” And so an established tradition took on a unique turn, as a new candidate for palm-bearer is chosen annually from among the under-twelve-months crop of colts.
Wild as Belewen, obliging as young Victor: what makes a ‘proper Exmoor’? Height, colour, markings, all the physical details have been established since the founding of the Exmoor Pony Society in 1921. But the essence of a true Exmoor, the traits that form a recognisable character are more elusive. ‘Mother-wit’ is undoubtedly one, but perhaps the keystone is ‘versatility’. An attribute that brought their ancestors trekking sturdily out of the ice age, safely past the last sabre-toothed tiger, and allowed them to survive an even more deadly predator – by learning to co-operate with human beings. A remarkable adjustment, from millions of years of herd-centred independence, to a human-orientated dependence. It is a continuing process, that of reconciling wild instincts with a tame, domesticated life, and Exmoors are amazingly good at it, some can even switch successfully between one state and the other.
So how wild are the Exmoors?
Precisely when, and to what degree their indisputably ancient lineage has been affected by human influence, is still a matter of debate. But the herds that range the moor today do so through the deliberate minimum-interference policy of the owners. For every pony has an owner, just as every herd has a number or symbol. Every pony must provide DNA samples for its passport, and be branded and micro-chipped. Which stallions run with the mares is a matter of selection by the owners, and every stallion must have a licence. Most of this work is done at the yearly gathering, when the ponies brought down to the home farms demonstrate various degrees of wildness, as the aching, hirpling, less than perfumed handlers can verify. In the past they were said to be considerably livelier, many suckers and even some yearlings having never before seen a human, let alone come within kicking distance. Even for Exmoors it is hard to be totally wild, when obliged to share the moor with expanding numbers of motorists, cyclists, hikers, joggers, army recruits, bird-watchers, photographers, picnickers. Only the farmers seem to be growing scarcer and shyer, glimpsed at dawn and dusk, recognised by their wellies and adhering wisps of hay or straw.
Not wild then, in the way of the nameless, ownerles creatures of the moor, but just as able as fox or raven to fend for themselves when left to themselves, thriving where the hardiest breeds of cattle and sheep will fail, surviving winter conditions too savage for even the deer to endure. Only a handful live all their lives unshod and unbridled, the scent of the moorland air in their nostrils – but those few are vital for keeping the native vigour, the territorial knowledge and the wild instincts alive and honed.
From its outset almost ninety years ago, the concern of the Exmoor Pony Society has been to ‘promote and encourage the breeding of registered Exmoor ponies’. They are the holders of the Stud Book, and they train the valiant Inspectors who stand for hours in mud and rain, lifting agitated hooves and examining fearsome teeth. It is largely thanks to their quiet dedication that Exmoors are no longer classified as ‘critical’ and, although still perilously few in number, that there are breeding herds not only in other parts of Britain, but also overseas.
Jackie Ablett and Gill Langdon have been associated with the Society for almost half its life, but their link with Exmoors goes even farther back. Jackie recalls riding in a governess cart before the war, with her Mother driving Nobby, an Exmoor gelding. Gill saved up and bought her first Exmoor when she was 18. Puck, a five-year-old, had been found on Exford Common as an orphaned colt and reared on milk from Jean Bentley’s pedigree goats. Oddly enough, their foundation mare, Hawkwell Lady Margaret, was also a fosterling, her dam having broken a leg on Codsend Moor only three weeks after giving birth. The little foal stayed with the herd, stayed little, but throve, double-suckling off another mare. When she came to Tawbitts in 1972 she was two years old but looked a
yearling. And so she remained: small but small like the thorn tree. From the age of four she was never out of the ribbons, and was Bath and West Champion at the age of 21. She bred 14 foals, and lived into her thirties. Her last foal, Tawbitts Mickey, for many years roaming Dunkery as stallion of Herd H17, with the flexibility of the true Exmoor has recently settled into happy semi-retirement on a
smallholding just north of Bristol.
Retirement does not feature in the plans of the Tawbitts folk. Once they’ve adopted you, Exmoors are for life. It’s a mysterious knack the little horses have, of winning our affection and filling our daily thoughts, providential, one might say crucial to their survival. Because no-one owns Exmoors for economic profit. The rewards are more elusive, personal, magical. And whatever reason says, it’s the heart that so often decides what we are moved to save and what we allow to slip into oblivion. Back in the war years, poached for the meat trade and used as living targets by American gunners, the number of Exmoors fell to approximately fifty. The heroine of that black time was Mary Etherington of Withypool, who worked with passionate perseverance to lead them back from the brink. Today, there are the overseas herds as comforting insurance, but even so, Exmoors remain an endangered breed.
A line of unshod hoofprints meanders across the snowy, wind-whipped expanse of Long Breach Bottom; a moulted tuft of brown hair is snagged on the greening hawthorn above the Punchbowl; the jaunty whinny of a June foal startles the dawn stillness on Honeycombe Hill – there they are, the pony herds; there may they always be, living in naturalness and freedom, a sight all the more stirring in the knowledge that their liberty is a gift, bestowed by human friendship. Tough, resilient, lovable, the Exmoor ponies could have no better guardians than their counterparts, the tough, resilient, lovable Exmoor people.
Many thanks to Mrs Jackie Ablett and Mrs Gill Langdon for their ever-welcoming kindness when sharing with me their long and expert knowledge of Exmoors. For information on the Exmoor Pony Society visit www.exmoorponysociety.org.uk.
