Observations on ....
The Fell Pony Breed Standard

You can find the text of the Fell Pony Breed Standard on the Fell Pony Society web site (click here.)  It is called the "Description of the Fell Pony and Scale of Points."

Below I have excerpted observations I have made about some of the Fell Pony's characteristics as described in the breed standard.  Click on the topic below that interests you.

 

Colors of the Fell Pony 

• The Fell Pony comes in four colors: black, bay, brown, and gray.
• Black ponies are the most numerous in the breed today, though brown ponies used to be the most common.
• Gray ponies represented only 7% of the 2002 foal crop and have always been the minority in the breed.
• There are two colors of black: jet black and summer black or ‘brownie’ black. Jet black ponies don’t fade in the summer; ‘brownie’ blacks develop a rusty tinge.
• For more information, request Feather Notes, Volume 1, Issue 2, Summer 2005.

Gray Ticking

• Ticking is common in the breed, appearing on the flanks, hindquarters, base of tail or in the tail.
• Ponies don’t manifest it when born; the occasional white hairs appear as the ponies mature, usually in the summer, then disappear in the winter coat.
• These white hairs are to be distinguished from the gray hairs associated with age.
• For more information, request Fell Pony News, June 2006.

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Bob Silvertail

• Deep in the pedigrees of nearly all Fell Ponies is a stallion named Bob Silvertail.
• Foaled in 1923, Bob Silvertail stood 13.3hh and was black with, as his name implies, white hairs in his tail, making it 'silver.'
• One or two silver tails are noted in the stud books of the Fell Pony Society each year.
• Tails that are silver when ponies are born often turn black by four years of age.
• For more information, request Fell Pony News, July 2006.

Acceptable White Markings

• The breed standard says, “A star and/or a little white on or below the hind fetlock is acceptable.”
• In America, “acceptable” might be considered less than “excellent” or “good.” In England, or at least in the context of the breed standard, “acceptable” means “worthy” or “welcomed.”
• The inheritance of white markings is not well understood. Several long time breeders say that white markings are a part of the breed and impossible to breed out.
• My own experience bears out the impossibility of predicting the inheritance of white markings. My first stallion had two white feet and a star (acceptable within the breed standard.) Bred to a pure black mare, he threw one pure black pony and one pony with a white star; neither offspring had white feet. Bred to a black mare with a white star, all three foals had white stars and one had white feet. His mother, who is solid black, when bred to a black stallion with a white star, threw a pony with four white feet. Perhaps someday someone will untangle the logic in these results!
• For more information, request Fell Pony News, September 2006.

Dapples

• Dapples can indicate good physical and nutritional condition.
• There are three types of dapples. The most common is dark rings around lighter centers.
• Much less common is the reverse: light rings with dark centers.
• Finally, there is an unpigmented dapple that is just textural. This is the sort of dappling that I think reflects good physical and nutritional condition.
• For more information, request Fell Pony News, Issue 3, 2007.

Mealy Effect

• In the Fell Pony breed, the brown color is recognized by mealy markings. 
• In Equine Color Genetics, Sponenberg defines mealy as “…pale red or yellowish areas on the lower belly, flanks, behind the elbow, inside the legs, on the muzzle and over the eyes.” 
• Brown and bay Fell Ponies are often difficult to distinguish from each other. Bowthorne Matty, my two year old filly, has helped me understand this problem, as she has the black points of a bay and the mealy markings of a brown.
• For more information, request Fell Pony News, February 2008.

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Selection, Hardiness and Maturation Rate

• Breeders of any type of animal select certain characteristics in favor of others.
• Actively selecting for certain characteristics is reasonably straightforward, for instance the color black in Fell Ponies; what I’ve been pondering recently is how we as breeders of Fell Ponies might passively be selecting away from certain characteristics as we pursue others that we desire.
• I have heard several times that certain breeding lines of Fells are hardier than others.
• From my observations of the Norwegian Fjord and Fell Pony breeds, I have come to understand that time to maturity has been a selection criteria.
• As fewer ponies are reared on the fells and more are bred on the lowlands, the population of ponies that retain slower growth characteristics could easily dwindle.
• If we wish to retain hardiness, can we ignore it in our breeding decisions? If we wish ponies to mature faster or if we provide them with the means to mature faster, are we at risk of losing hardiness?
• For more information, request Fell Pony News, February 2008.

Flip Side of Fell Life

• One of the things that attracted me to Fell Ponies is their hardiness.
• A brochure by the Fell Pony Society stresses the importance of the ponies’ native environment on their character. The Fell Pony breed standard does not mention the importance of environment except in passing. 
• The difference in how the breed is presented in these two documents reflects tensions I feel when discussing the importance of fell-bred ponies to the breed.
• Lowland Fell Pony breeders are quick to point out the flip side of Fell life: ponies don’t grow as big, mares can’t be bred until later in life, and they don’t live as long.
• Can we as breeders maintain enough environmental stress to ‘keep pure the old breed of pony’ as the Fell Pony Society advocates? Can some environmental stress on modern ponies offset the better care that we provide?
• For more information, request Fell Pony News, April 2008.

Pony Ears 

• I have only ever owned ponies, never horses, so perhaps that’s why I am so opinionated about ears on Fell Ponies. If they’re truly ponies, they should have pony ears, of course! 
• For more information, request Feather Notes, Volume 3 Issue 2 April 2008

Fell Pony Movement

• Proper Fell Pony movement isn’t easy to find.
• One of the keys to proper Fell Pony movement is hock and knee action. The action isn’t meant to be extravagant, but it is meant to enable a pony to effectively cover rough ground.
• While proper hock action is easiest to see at the trot, a trained eye can see it at any gait. I’ve been told, for instance, that at the walk, from behind, you should be able to see the entire sole of the foot when it comes off the ground.
• All of these words are helpful now, but until I saw proper movement, I didn’t fully understand what was being described.
• For more information, request Fell Pony News, March 2008.

Temperament: Fells & Children

• My adult Fells thoroughly understand that children are special; all of them have been quiet and still when children have come to meet them.
• People with experience with the breed vary greatly in their opinion. Some would never trust their child with a Fell and others have told adoring stories about their first pony, a Fell.
• Are Fell Ponies appropriate for children? It depends. It depends on the child and on the pony and the training level of both. 
• For more information, request Fell Pony News, March 2005.

Breed Type and the Work at Hand

• The Fell Pony breed type has been shaped as much by the work the ponies have been asked to do as the fell environment they call home.
• Modern uses do not replicate the traditional work of the breed, and the breed type is being impacted.
• Preserving the opportunity for both traditional work and the new work at hand of leisure activities, including showing, must be the priority of today's breeders.
• This article was called 'a masterly description and explanation of the changes which affect, not just hte Fells, but ALL our native pony breeds' by the associate editor of The Native Pony magazine Dec 2010/Jan 2011 edition, published in Scotland.
• For more information, requestFeather Notes Volume 4, Issue 2, August 2010.

Fell Pony Croups

• When I got two questions in close succession about Fell Pony croups, I was silenced.  The word 'croup' doesn't even show up in the breed description.
• The short answer to the questions is that properly conformed Fells do not have high croups; they have nearly level or slightly uphill conformation. The longer answer covers many of the challenges of Fell Pony breeding as well as touching on how a pony matures.
• Croup height and uphill build are things that can be readily assessed from quick observation. What I have learned, though, is that proper conformation requires more careful scrutiny.
• Now, when someone says that Fell Ponies have high croups, my pause will be to consider how to ask them to look more closely.
• For more information, request Fell Pony News, October 2011.

Temperament:  Angels and Otherwise

• A friend has a Fell that he can do anything with.  A few other people have told me stories about their angelic Fells as well as their very challenging ones.  I have seen great variation in temperament in my own Fell Pony herd over the past decade, though no pony so far has been on either of the extremes of 'angel' or 'demon.'
• An article from the Fell Pony Society newsletter entitled "The Docile Breed?" does a great job of describing that while Fells have many admirable traits, docility isn't one that is common.
• Because Fell Ponies are relatively rare and because Americans generally have little experience with ponies, it is not surprising that training these ponies is a different experience for us.
• As a breeder not only do I feel great responsibility for ensuring that my ponies receive effective training when they are in my care.  I also want to guide buyers regarding training so that ponies they buy from me receive proper handling to ensure they are good ambassadors for the breed.
• For those interested in natural horsemanship, Fell Ponies provide a wealth of fun, often putting their intelligence to work in creative ways that inspire laughter as well as appreciation. 
• For more information, request Fell Pony News, February 2011.

Picking Faults vs. Picking Ponies

• When soliciting feedback on the quality of a pony, there are two ways that the pony can be judged:  against other ponies in its class (as in competitive showing) or against the breed standard, as in a card grading-type system.
• Dr. Deb Bennett, an expert in equine conformation, has stated, “[Horse] shows simply do not permit enough interaction between the animals and the judge. Often a horse that a breeder has spent significant effort to raise gets less than two minutes’ total evaluation. This leads to what I consider the cardinal sin of livestock judging: picking faults (because they can be enumerated quickly) rather than picking horses."
• A long time Fell Pony breeder has stated:  "The winning of trophies is not the answer to breeding good stock…. The answer to breeding good stock is in the ‘eye’ and being able to translate the breed standard … into the living breathing pony... So study the breed standard and understand it. That is the best advice that anyone could follow."
• Using the breed standard as a point of reference has many advantages. First, it honors the fact that there is no single, best pony. More importantly, it gives the owner concrete information about how a particular pony can best contribute to the future of the breed. Finally, referencing the breed standard makes evaluations much less treacherous because it is a comparison to the ideal rather than to other ponies.
• For more information, request Fell Pony News, January 2011.

Action versus Movement

• The Fell Pony breed description has a section entited “Action.” Recently, though,  I’ve come to think of the word ‘movement’ as more helpful in describing a Fell Pony’s way of going. Action is what the legs do, but movement is the overall appearance of the animal in motion.
• Several long-time breed enthusiasts, with forty to eighty years of experience with Fell Ponies, say that loss of traditional movement is the biggest change they have seen in the breed.
• If proper movement has been in decline over that many years, then most of us in North America, being relatively new to the breed, haven't seen proper movement unless we've specifically gone looking for it.  Many people in the Fell Pony's home in England likely have the same problem.
• In Susan Harris' book Horse Gaits, Balance and Movement, she describes six different types of equine movement.  By comparing her descriptions to the breed standard and other breed resources, it appears that Fell Pony movement is on the boundary between round and medium movement.
• In this internet era, it is easy to watch lots of video of Fell Ponies and look at lots of pictures.  Unfortunately, I have found that it is very rare to see balanced movement with good knee and hock action, as the breed standard specifies.
• When I worked in industry, a colleague had a sign hanging in her office that has come to mind as I’ve been thinking about the difference between action and movement: “Be like a duck: calm on the surface and paddling like mad underneath.” Good Fell Pony movement has also been compared to a train, with its wheels spinning but no up-and-down movement overall.
• I’ve been told, and my own experience confirms, that it’s much easier to learn about good movement if you’re able to see it in person. I have found that by seeing it daily in my own herd, it’s easier for me to see when other ponies lack it.
• I was asked once why people make such a big deal about movement. As Harris says in her book, how a horse moves is particular to its breed.  The more I've learned about Fell Ponies, the more I've realized that a Fell Pony’s movement is unique because of its history and use and that that movement is endangered.
• For more information, request Fell Pony News, February 2012.