Blog Post

MEPBG Runs Out of Patience 

MEPBG • Nov 08, 2019

Five years and counting and STILL the same registration problems

Thank you to all the moorland farmers and landowners who attended the MEPBG meeting in Exford last night - and those who gave apologies due to clashing commitments. It was one of our most progressive meetings so far and incredibly heartening to see the dedication and commitment to doing the best for the endangered breed Exmoor ponies of Exmoor National Park.

Attending: Representatives from farmers/herd owners spanning Brendon Common, Dunkery Commons, Molland Common, Anstey Common, Withypool Common, Haddon Hill and North Hill.

However, the Moorland Exmoor Pony Breeders Group continues to be exasperated at:
1) Continued difficulties in registering perfectly good quality, authentic, moorbred Exmoor ponies.
2) A faltering Exmoor Pony Genome Project - a separate report will be coming out about this soon.
3) No progress on an upgrading system and supplement to a closed Stud Book.
4) Failure to audit the Exmoor pony DNA parentage verification system.

It's not good enough and The Moorland Exmoor Pony Breeders Group is running out of patience.

Exmoor ponies are a tiny breed with a dangerously small gene pool and high inbreeding coefficients. In addition to pedigree-registerable Exmoor ponies, there is a significant population of perfectly healthy, beautifully conformed, well-marked, tough, robust moorland Exmoor ponies languishing outside of pedigree registration and recognition.

The moorland Exmoor ponies retain the genetic and behavioural characteristics and behaviours of extensively-grazing, semi-feral animals. In short, as we have been shouting about for years - they are the 'real thing' and knock spots off paddock-bred ponies in many respects. Yet they're not being recognised as 'Exmoor ponies' and they're breeding outside of the recognised gene pool - or being unnecessary slaughtered due to obstructions and negativity.

Exmoor ponies are proving very expensive to try to register and keep through the long delays in the registration process, and this is jeopardising the safeguarding of the small number of moorland herds. Farmers are fed up with tussling with an intransigent breed society that regularly discourages their breeding programmes and tells them there is no market for their ponies. The younger generation is seriously contemplating keeping profitable cattle and sheep stock instead of Exmoor ponies.

Case Study:
The owner of the oldest family owned herd of moorland Exmoor ponies has this year been told by a breed society representative that he shouldn't be breeding so many foals because 'there is no market for them'. The herd owner informed the representative that he had already agreed sales for over half his foals BEFORE the inspection day. There are just seven beautiful colt and filly foals left to find homes for, from two large moorland commons.

This year, he is organising basic ID passports for his foals so they can be sold quickly off the moor, rather than having to be contained in the barns for months, like last year. There is no turnout at this very wet farm when the foals come off the moors and they ideally must be passported and sold as soon as possible after gathering. Last year, there were extraordinary delays in waiting for breed society DNA parentage verification within a herd of pedigree mares running with one or other of two pedigree stallions. This disgraceful delay caused poor foals to be confined to the barn in some cases for 9 long months. The last foal eventually travelled to Scotland to his new home and is STILL waiting for DNA confirmation. That is a total disgrace and fail of the registration system. There are no crossbreds in this herd.

All of the beautiful moorbred Exmoor foals should be speedily pedigree registered within two weeks of leaving the moors, not months later due to an inefficient and incompetent process. Keeping foals shut away in barns waiting months for sometimes inconclusive DNA parentage verification is a welfare issue. If the system is not up to the standard then it needs to be changed.

When herd owners have to resort to basic ID passports in some cases, it risks these ponies being lost from the endangered breeding gene pool as new owners may give up trying to get the pedigree registrations finalised. It also incurs the herd owners yet more veterinary and passporting costs.

The question should also be asked why the breed society is failing perfectly good moorland foals for 'a few white hairs'? This is an endangered breed. Safeguarding genetic diversity is critical. These few white hairs can disappear within a couple of coat changes. Also, these 'few white hairs' have been in the breed since the breed was identified and recorded. A few white hairs can occur for many reasons in a foal, including nutritional issues in the mare. Isn't it time we stopped rejecting these foals as 'Exmoor ponies' and instead created a Section B category where they are registered as perfectly good, healthy Exmoor ponies, whose progeny can return to Section A if born with no white hairs.

Let's remember the breed society representatives who boast that 'no paddock born foals are failed for white hairs' while mentioning various hair colour brands, etc. It needs to be said.

There is a double standard in Exmoor ponies: The entire registration system, breed standard and reasons for failing foals needs serious discussion. Before a few selfish hobby breeders have a catastrophic effect on the preservation and conservation of real, authentic Exmoor moorland ponies - due to their rules and regulations and registration system. And self-serving aspirations that do not hold the interests - and survival - of the true moorland herds at heart. That also needs to be said.

So the Moorland Exmoor Pony Breeders Group has had enough and will be shouting about this from the roof tops, yet again. Remember, we first asked for improvements to the registration system, a supplement and upgrading system added to the stud book, and audit of the DNA system in 2014. FIVE years later and we're still in the same situation.

It's not good enough!
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)
@RBSTrarebreeds Exmoor Pony Project Exmoor-Nationalpark

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