Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 December 1890 — Shetland Ponies. [ARTICLE]

Shetland Ponies.

The ponies are not an agricultural, but a domestic necessity. In Shetland, as in parts of Ireland, every family depends for its suppiv of fnel on peat, and as the peat is seldom near at hand on the shore where the houses stand, but on the hill behind them—there is always a hill in the rear in Shetland—each house requires several ponies. After the peat has been dug and dried it is carried home on the backs of ponies in blankets called “cassies.” The Shetland pony is a striking example of development; for generations past he has been bred, reared and trained with a uniformity which could not have been secured in any other part of the United Kingdom. Hence bis physique and general character, his hereditary instincts and intelligence, his small size and his purity and fixitv of type. A pony which has had to pick its way down steep hills for generations must needs be exceedingly surefooted. A pony whose grooms and plavmates are the children of the neighborhood—who roll about underneath him or on his back—must be gentle; and the pony living on the scathold, or air sometimes, must be hardy. The pony of the Shetland Isles is the offspring of circumstances. He is the pet of the family, will follow his friends indoors like a dog and lick the platters dr the children’s faces. He has no more tricks in him than a cat and no more bite than a puppy. He is a noble example of the complete suppression of the vicious propensities some of his kind exhibit when they are ill-treated, and of the good temper that may be developed in horses by kindness. There is no precedent for his running away, nor for his becoming frightened or tired. He moves down rugged hillsides with circumspection, and in crossing boggy spots where the water is retained and a green carpet of aquatic grass might deceive some steeds and bring them to grief in the spongy trap, he carefully smells the surface and is thus enabled to circumvent the danger. In winter the Shetland pony wears a coat of felted hair, especially suited for the season. His winter garment is well adapted for protecting him against the fogs and damps of the climate. It is warm and comfortable, and fits close to the wearer’s dapper shape. But when the coat grows old toward spring, at the season when the new one should appear, it becomes the shabbiest of the kind you often see. Its very amplitude and the abundance of tho material render it the more conspicuous when it peels and hangs for a while, worn and ragged, then falls bit by bit till the whole of it disappears. No horse looks his best when losing his coat, and the more coat there may be to lose the worse he looks.