^{April 2009 Newsletter}

We hope you are all well and enjoying the sunshine! We love this time of year when the blossoms are in full bloom and everything starts to look so colourful! The ponies are moulting so there is lots of fur flying around! The longer evenings have meant we can do much more with the ponies now and we are feeling very positive about the rest of the year ahead. We have been steadily re-homing ponies which is excellent.

Shows

This year we intend to take some of the ponies to a few shows. The first will be 10th May when we will be attending Moretonhampstead show with Trixie, Leo and Kathryn’s pony Tigger. The weekend before this Trixie and Leo will be at Trago Mills meeting the public!

In July we will be at Dunsford Show and in August we hope to attend the Brooke Animal Hospital Show. There may be a few more in between so keep checking out the blog for news!

^{Website and blogs}

Unfortunately we find it difficult to keep our website up to date, we hope to finally get this in to a format where it can give basic details about us and our work and any news updates will be on our blogs. Just to remind you we have three blog sites.

The first is general updates and news about the centre http://dptc.blogspot.com/

The second is a blog giving information about the ponies we have for re-homing, how to re-home our ponies and updates on those that have been re-homed http://dptcrehoming.blogspot.com/

The third is a Dartmoor Pony sales list which we have put together to try and promote private sales of Dartmoor Ponies http://dartmoorponysaleslist.blogspot.com/

I am sure many of you are aware of the risk of laminitis in ponies and horses, sadly Kathryn’s horse Lily suffered a bout of laminitis in January, there is a blog on how Lily came to suffer laminitis and her recovery and also information about laminitis http://lilylaminitis.blogspot.com

There are always lots of new photos being added to the blogs so please do keep looking!

Our Ponies

Our ponies are currently split in to two herds at different fields. We took on some more land in Moretonhampstead to rent as you can never have too much! It made sense so that in future when we take on new ponies from market we can quarantine them properly away from the herd before introducing them (preventing the risk of diseases such as strangles which ponies from market are prone to have).

It also serves well for those waiting to be castrated! At the moment we have a bachelor herd of ponies living there these include Merry, Tinker, Woody and George. We also have some ponies who belong to a farmer, we are helping to sell them for him. They were due to go to conservation grazing but as a result of a passport mix up they could not. We hope to help him sell them privately as they may have to go to market if we are unable to which would be sad. They are all very sweet inquisitive boys (they are on the sales list blog).

Merry

Merry is very happy in the batchelor herd at the moment, he is becoming quite aloof.  So much so that he will now be the last pony to come over and see us!  He has so many boys to play with he is in his element.  Unfortunately we are unlikely to be able to take him to any showst whilst he is in the bachelor herd (it's too difficult to load the ponies up in tow different places).  However sponsors are very welcome to visit him by arrangement!

^{Trixie (Photo on the right)                                                                                                    Trixie                   Amy}

Trixie is white again at the moment, being a roan it is amazing how many different colours her coat changes as she moults and right now she is white! (when she hasn’t rolled in any mud...). She will be coming to Trago Mills and some shows with us this year. We have been working on long lining her and taking her out for lots of walks which she really enjoys, she thrives on attention. It has been fun trying to make her walk forward when long lining as she likes to stop and eat quite often!!

Tinker  (Photo below)

Tinker is living in the bachelor herd waiting for his castration. This should be happening at the beginning of May, as one of his testicles has not dropped it will be a more serious operation than a normal castration. How serious we will not know until the actual operation, it will depend on where the testicle is actually hiding, it is possible that it could be very deep in in which case he will need up to 6 weeks box rest after the operation so we really hope it will be a little easier to get to! Tinker has a home awaiting him once he has recovered on a 100 acre organic farm with Rona and Ebony.

Grey Mare

The grey mare still has no name, we will be running a name the mare and foal competition once her foal is born. Bob Langrish the horse photographer has kindly donated a signed poster of a photo he took of Dartmoor ponies and this will be part of the prize for the winning names. Keep checking the blog for news of the arrival and competition. We believe the foal is due around the middle to end of May.

Amy & George

Amy is still with us in the main herd, George has now been weaned and is in the bachelor herd, he will be castrated later in the year and then re-homed. George is very friendly now and can be quite boisterous, he has to be reminded about personal space on occasion! Amy will be moving to the nature reserve in Gloucestershire later in the year to live with Harry, Jet, Pippin and Finn.

Gorse, Bramble & Milo

We are pleased to say these three have been re-homed together and are doing really well. Bramble is very cheeky still and Gorse is coming along nicely with her training. Milo has also found a lot of confidence and is a new pony!

New Book

Look out for a new book being launched on 10th May 2009 called No Fear, No Force by Sarah Weston. We are very excited about this book which is a long awaited guide to handling and training the unhandled foal. We have worked with Sarah in the past and she demonstrates her handling methods at our open day, you will note the front cover is a photo taken by Natalie of some Dartmoor foals! It is a huge advantage to finally have a book where everything you need to know and consider when handling an unhandled foal is covered. Having worked with Sarah Weston we strongly admire her capability and attitude towards training these foals and ponies, she works in a quiet, calm manner which puts foals at ease and always has an open mind – there is no one better to educate us on such a topic!

Bonnie

Bonnie has found a home! We are really pleased to have re-homed Bonnie, she showed us how not every pony thrives living in a herd. After she had Rona and Rona become more independent Bonnie never really bonded with any of the other ponies, she was often on her own and always seemed quite low in herself. She loved lots of attention but with so many to look after we couldn’t ever give her enough so once Rona was weaned we were desperate to find her the perfect home. We sent out a press release and following this Lynn got in touch with us. Lynn had recently lost a grey mare named Bonnie and still had the name plate on the stable door! She was interested in meeting our Bonnie as a companion for her horse Cherokee. She came out and visited and instantly liked Bonnie, the home she could offer was ideal, lots of one on one attention! So Bonnie moved and as expected is thriving in her new environment, her personality and character are finally coming through again, we are very happy for her.

Rona                                                                                                      Rona and Ebony

 

Rona has also been re-homed. She was due to go to Sirona Therapeutic Horsemanship but unfortunately the scheme is on hold for now so we have re-homed her elsewhere. She is living with Ebony and will be joined there by Tinker once castrated. She is proving to be a little madam! She will lead but if she doesn’t want to do something she will let you know! She has even turned her bum on her current loaner when she has not been happy with something but luckily Karen is more than capable of dealing with her little tantrums!!

Woody

Woody is living in the bachelor herd and will be moving with Amy to the nature reserve in Gloucestershire later in the year. He is very happy and healthy, he is still a bit nervy but is growing in confidence.

Leo 2

Leo is doing very well with Ro. He will be going to his first show at Moretonhampstead on 10th May, he will also be at Trago Mills the weekend before. He is coming on nicely and still very laid back about everything!

Alfie

Alfie was re-homed with Leo just over a year ago, he had come to us unhandled. He was doing very well in his home but unfortunately recently he had been becoming a bit dangerous for his loaner who has 2 young children, Alfie kept testing his boundaries and unfortunately his loaner felt it was too much when she has 2 young children near him. For this reason he has come back to us. So far he has not put a foot wrong, we will continue to assess him but believe he will do well in a home with a confident adult handler who will not take any his nonsense!

Hay
We are hoping to cut hay this year, our 3 fields are already being rested in the hope of a good crop, fingers crossed we have some dry weather at cutting time to enable us to make hay rather than haylage (hay is much better for them).

Address

Natalie is moving house! For this reason our address will soon be changing, our temporary address is 2 Sherwell Court, Buckfastleigh, Devon, TQ11 0BG.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT, PLEASE REMEMBER TO KEEP CHECKING OUR BLOGS FOR REGULAR UPDATES AND PHOTOS OF THE PONIES AND OUR OUTINGS.

Outgoings

We are still desperately trying to keep funds coming in to cover the cost of things such as farrier visits, vet bills (we still owe money for the castrations), the cost of having the haylage cut and baled, monthly field rent and the list goes on! We have just taken on 5 more acres about a mile from our current fields, this will be ideal for any ponies that may need separating (i.e. because they are in need of gelding) or for new ponies coming to us who may need to be quarantined from the others for a while, of course taking this on does mean added cost! If you have any great fund raising ideas do let us know, or if you would like to organise anything to raise funds for us and need information or donation boxes don’t hesitate to ask.

^{Our Websites:}

^{www.dptc.org.uk - our main website though it does need updating}

^{http://dptc.blogspot.com - this is where you will find all the news from the centre plus lots of photos}

^{http://dptcrehoming.blogspot.com - Here you will find updates on our ponies that have been re-homed as well as see the ones currently available for re-homing}

 

  

The Dartmoor Pony Training Centre

Tel: 01364 654609 e-mail: dartmoorponytrainingcentre@yahoo.co.uk

www.dptc.org.uk