MiLWARDS Selections. 219 



The Commissioners of Woods and Forests have been repeatedly pressed to exercise control 

 over the New Forest sires, with the view of excluding those likely to propagate offspring either 

 ill-shaped or diseased ; but the work seems to have been at once too practical and too trouble- 

 some for these often over-zealous servants of the Crown. 



OTHER PONIES. 



Those who require ponies should pay not the slightest attention to the tales as to " from 

 whom descended and by whom begot " — tales which are probably not true, and if true, of no 

 consequence — but confine their investigations to the merits of the animal presented to them. 



In addition to the real ponies of Wales, Exmoor, Dartmoor, the New Forest, and the 

 Shetland Islands, and all the ponies sold under the time-honoured names of these places, 

 there are a certain number bred by farmers and gentlemen out of good animals, which, from 

 their symmetry and price, are quite removed from the category of cheap family ponies ; on the 

 contrary, they are amongst the luxuries of the stable. Anxious for information on this class, 



1 applied to the late Mr. Richard Milward of Th'.irgarton Priory, Notts, an active member of the 

 Council of the Royal Agricultural Society, a Nottinghamshire squire who for many years 

 made breeding and buying ponies a profitable hobby — I lay stress on profitable, because 

 raising superior live stock of any kind without profit does nothing for its permanent improve- 

 ment. 



Mr. Milward wrote to me (April, 1873): — "About twenty-five years ago it was very 

 difficult to find any ponies with good shoulders. After the success of my sales became known, 

 ponies were offered me by farmers on all sides. Nine out of ten were under-bred, bad-shouldered , 

 brutes. I was always a buyer of anything really good, so I showed them their defects, 

 explained what was and what was not worth buying at any sale in my neighbourhood 

 (Nottinghamshire), and they began to breed a better sort of animal. And now, although I 

 send about twenty ponies every year to Tattersall's between 13 hands 3 inches and 14 hands 



2 inches high, they have nearly all good shoulders, and most of them are considered to be 

 without a fault as regards symmetry. 



" There are two modes of breeding ponies (I call everything a pony under 14 hands 2 

 inches) : either from a small thoroughbred mare foal put to a Yorkshire (Norfolk .-') trotter — 

 this was how Don Carlos, Lord Calthorpe's celebrated stallion hack, was bred* — or, more 

 commonly, by a small thoroughbred sire out of a Welsh, Irish, or other pony. I hold that 

 to produce anything worth rearing, either sire or dam must be thoroughbred. I have had a 

 few good Norfolk ponies, but they had not first-rate shoulders. Two Thousand (sold at my 

 sale to Lord Hastings for 120 guineas), Dunstan and Crisis (with which Mr. Frisby carried oft 

 several prizes at the Agricultural Hall shows). Rarity (which was sold at the hammer for 160 

 guineas), had all fine harness-action, but none of them quite good shoulders. 



" My best ponies have been bred in Shropshire and Cheshire, the sires thoroughbreds 

 belonging to Lord Combermere and Sir Watkin Wynne. A very celebrated pony stallion was 

 at one time in this country — Bobby. Bobby was bred by Mr. Ramsay of Barnton ; his sire 

 Robin, a son of Dr. Syntax and a Cotton mare dam by Borack, an Arab (see page 217). 

 Brunnette, which was purchased at my sale for no guineas by Lord Stamford, and ridden 

 hack by him for a dozen years, was by Bobby ; and also a piebald which fetched the same 

 price, and was driven for years by Lady Caroline Kerrison. Most of my ponies for this year's 



* See Coloured Plate I. 



