and horse & pony breed. Positive, trust-based horsemanship makes for more successful horse tourism - whatever you’re doing and wherever you’re doing it. The practice of Multiple Hot Branding is one particular area where reform to the current system would bring welfare and other benefits on many levels, including horse tourism for this region.
The Exmoor Pony Dawn Westcott
Dawn Westcott, Editor of
Equinetourism.co.uk, owner of Holtball Exmoor Pony Stud and current International Horse Agility Club World Champion with Hawkwell Versuvius
Progressive Reform for Multiple Hot Branding
This month, Equine Tourism has been focussing on ‘Multiple Hot Branding of Equines’ - an important issue involving native ponies in the South West. Some of you may have seen the recent BBC news story produced by BBC Spotlight about the Multiple Hot Branding of Exmoor ponies, which called for an end to the practice and reform of the current hot branding system.
(See the BBC report and video footage here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england- devon-18439045)
You may be wondering why Equine Tourism is getting involved in a campaign about the Multiple Hot Branding of equines in England and Wales? Well practices like this can have a major impact on horse tourism in this area, and across the UK.
Equinetourism.co.uk was set up, in 2004, to promote equestrian activities, events, organisations & individuals, services, horse & pony breeds and good horsemanship - UK and worldwide. For the concept of ‘Equine Tourism’ to flourish and succeed, you need happy horses, and you achieve happy horses through good horsemanship practice, and this runs through every geographical location, discipline, activity, horsemanship method
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www.equestrianlifemagazine.co.uk
For many years now, the practice of Multiple Hot Branding has been carried out on our indigenous Exmoor pony breed, largely located within Exmoor National Park. There are both free-living and domestic herds and, while the moorland farmers of the semi-feral herds have a real need for ‘visual identification’ of their stock, the domestic, or ‘in ground’ ponies are already microchipped and therefore do not need to be hot branded for either their welfare, or their management.
Currently, up to seven individual ‘marks’ are branded onto the foals, in three or four separate sections, with red hot irons – on their shoulder and rump (a ‘star’ brand, a herd number or symbol and a pony number). Pain relief is not given and the foals have to be forcibly restrained while undergoing this practice. For wild foals, this is often the first time they have ever been handled by humans and coincides with being weaned from their mothers and leaving their familiar environment. The burns cause lesions which last for up to 7 days and are likened by scientists to severe third degree burns. It is very painful.
The Exmoor pony is very important because it’s the oldest, purest breed of free- living Native British Hill Pony. Exmoor ponies roamed and grazed alongside Woolly Mammoths and Sabre-Toothed Tigers and have remained genetically pure for tens of thousands of years. It is unfortunately an endangered breed, due to its numbers diminishing to around 6 stallions and 50 ponies in total after the Second World War.
In 1921, The Exmoor Pony Society was established to preserve and conserve the Exmoor pony breed and create a Stud Book and management system to ensure the ponies remained pure and the breed survived. All Exmoor ponies are owned and have passed a rigorous inspection as foals to ensure they have the correct characteristics. Successful foals are then entered into the Stud Book. The free-living herds are highly valued as living in semi-feral moorland situations, with little help from humans, enables them to retain their true ‘wild pony’ characteristics and qualities.
It is very much about ‘Survival of the Fittest’.
Foal trotting
The Exmoor pony breed has been nurtured back from extinction and is still on the endangered list, so small breeding groups off the moors are also encouraged, to ensure widest possible use of the gene pool, and survival of the bloodlines. The Exmoor moorland farmers run their herds in the wild terrain of Exmoor National Park, where the environment is hilly, harsh and there are moors, steep coombes, heavily wooded areas, open moorland and rocky escarpments. In order to identify and manage their ponies, the farmers need to visually identify their stallions, mares and youngstock.
Although the herds are supposed to run in large contained enclosures, it is inevitable that gates are left open, fences are broken, hedges are broken through, stallions are compelled to roam - and the ponies can get mixed up. So for a long time, hot branding has been used, after foals are gathered from the moors and inspected, to enable them to be visually identified thereafter.
Currently, the Exmoor Pony Society gives breeders a choice of whether or not to brand. However, while the moorland ponies do need to be visually identified, the ‘domestic’ Exmoor ponies (i.e., those who live off the moors) and who are already microchipped - do not need to be hot branded. Equine Tourism feels that a complete reform is needed for the Multiple Hot Branding of Exmoor Ponies, as the number of brands applied is excessive and there are ponies being branded who do not need to be. So we are calling for the following reform:
1) That there is no longer any hot branding domestic Exmoor ponies.
Exmoor pony filly foal and her dam
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