02/11/2023
This weekend is the annual gathering of the unique and rare Carneddau pony. A selection of these special ponies will be available for anyone to offer a home to - the best place to find more information about the gathering and how to get a foal is to contact the “Carneddau Ponies rehoming” page on Facebook Carneddau Ponies rehoming
Horse Sense Wirral also has Carneddau ponies available for rehoming - they rescue many of the ponies that come off the mountain due to illness & injury etc.
Carneddau ponies are one of the purest forms of UK native ponies, they have not been selectively bred for looks or work, only for survivability on the mountain. There‘a been little (if any) introduce blood since the Tudor times - they are the original Welsh pony and largely a product of nature.
Legend has it that the ponies escaped a cull ordered by Henry VIII (as they couldn’t carry a Knight in Armour) by living in the mountains where they couldn’t be hunted. The truth is a little more boring. Henry VIII certainly wanted to “improve” the general quality of horses, and his Acts in 1535 & 1541 were more related to commons grazing. It seems Henry did not want good grazing to be taken by “poor” animals. He wanted poor, old, & infirm animals removed or culled - and this was done annually which is where the practice of gathering has its roots! What is so unique is that these ponies have never been “developed” - there are no imported breeds in them unlike their close cousin the Welsh Mountain Pony (which had breeds like the Arabian & Barb introduced). They’ve roamed the Carneddau mountains for centuries where they’re still found today, managed in much same way as centuries ago. DNA studies show them to have a shared ancestry with Welsh Mountain (Section A) Ponies, but they are genetically distinct enough to be a separate breed. They hold valuable genes that need to be protected. These ponies are incredibly important to the ecology of Eryri 🐴⛰ ©Ruth Chamberlain/Ruth on the Hoof. Any use of these images (including art references) and text must have prior permission from the author/creator🐴🐴
