The winning ingredient

Robust, versatile and trainable, Welsh breeds continue to have a strong influence in the flashiest of sports ponies, both here and on the Continent, finds Madeleine Silver

- Madeleine Silver

“NOT only is it common for performance ponies to have some Welsh breeding, it’s almost inevitable,” says Lucy Sheldrake, studbook manager at the Sports Pony Studbook Society (SPSS).

You don’t have to look far on the team sheets from recent pony European Championships to find the flag flying for Welsh breeds; take British dressage rider Holly Kerslake and her 2017 team bronze medal-winning Welsh section D Valhallas Zorro, or British eventer Ibble Watson and Bookhamlodge Pennylane who won the 2019 individual silver and team gold medals, another handsome section D.

Perhaps less obvious are the likes of British dressage rider Izzy Lickley’s 2019 Euros ride Mister Snowman – passported as a German Riding Pony, he is by the Welsh section B The Braes My Mobility, with a section D damsire to boot. Similarly, German dressage rider Rose Oatley’s palomino German Riding Pony Daddy Moon, who took the team gold medal at the 2020 Euros, has a Welsh part-bred great grandsire (Oakley Bubbling Bobbety).

WIND back the clock, and it’s clear that the influence of Welsh breeds on sports ponies is nothing new. “It would be difficult to find a top performance pony without Welsh blood,” says Meirion Jones, who bred the now legendary section D Machno Carwyn (see box, overleaf). “The Continentals recognised the significance of the Welsh breeds early on and so lots of quality breeding stock was exported to the Continent in the 1970s and ’80s and has continued to do so.”