Dartmoor Pony - History

History

The bones of prehistoric horses have been found in chamber tombs dating from Vere Gordon Childe's period III - IV in southern Britain. This would date the bones at the transition from a hunter-gatherer society to an agricultural society (the Neolithic Revolution) at around 3500 BC; the bones are probably from wild horses but domestication may have begun by that date. Archeological investigation from the 1970s has shown that domesticated ponies were to be found on Dartmoor as early as 1500 BC. The first written record, dated to AD 1012, refers to wild horses at Ashburton, and early records from Dartmoor manors refer to ponies being branded and ear-marked.

The Dartmoor Pony was used in medieval times for carrying heavy loads of tin from the mines across the moor. It suffered greatly from the infusion of Shetland blood in the years between 1789 and 1832, when breeders decreased the numbers of purebred stock while trying to produce a suitable pit pony. When the mines closed, some ponies were kept for farming, but most of the ponies were turned out onto the moor. Ponies were bred at Dartmoor Prison from the early 1900s up until the 1960s, and used by guards for escorting prisoners.

The Dartmoor received Arab blood from the stallion Dwarka, foaled in 1922, as well as Dwarka’s son, The Leat. Welsh pony breeding was introduced from the stallion Dinarth Spark, and infusions of Fell Pony blood was also added.

The first attempt to define and register the breed was in 1898, when the ponies were entered into a studbook started by the Polo Pony Society. In 1924, the breed society was founded, and a studbook opened. World War I and World War II were devastating to the breed. Only a handful of ponies were registered during World War II. However, after the war, local people began to inspect and register as many ponies as they could, and by the 1950s, numbers were back up.

Two schemes have been introduced to halt the decline in numbers, and broaden the gene pool of the Dartmoor Pony. The Dartmoor Pony Moorland Scheme (DPMS) was established in 1988 and is administered by the Dartmoor Pony Society and the Duchy of Cornwall, as well as being supported by the Dartmoor National Park. In 2004 a new scheme, the Dartmoor Pony Preservation Scheme (DPPS), was introduced, and herds taking part in this new scheme must enter one mare each year to the DPMS. The Dartmoor Pony has been granted Rare Breed status.