PRICES were up at the autumn pony sale in Tavistock last Friday, with auctioneers ?very pleased? with the result.
Chris Clapham, auctioneer with Ward and Chowen, said there had been a good number of buyers and good trade from start to finish. Around 400 ponies werefor sale and there had been buyers from Ireland, as in previous years.
The ponies going to Ireland were ?all the expensive ones?, said Mr Clapham. ?They all ride more ponies over there and are horse mad.?
Some ponies from the sale were still likely to end up as horsemeat, going to a Somerset abbatoir for use in feeding lions in zoos.
Charlotte Faulkner of the Friends of the Dartmoor Hill Pony described the market as ?more buoyant?.
Some ponies had come with passports under the new system ? although the need for every animal to have a passport has been put off until next year ? but ones with passports had not made any more money, she said.
She added she was meeting with Defra officials again on October 14, with the Dartmoor Pony Society, and was ?quite hopeful? the passport problem could be resolved. ?We are trying to negotiate to make it cost a nominal fee,? she said.
Prices at the market ranged from the reserve of eight guineas for bay colts up to 55 guineas for bay fillies and 110 guineas for coloured fillies.
l Two new initiatives to support ponies on the commons of Dartmoor begin this month: the Dartmoor Hill Pony Conservation Grazing Fund, and the Unregistered Dartmoor Pony Preservation Scheme.
The first fund will underpin the present Environmentally Sensitive Area scheme, helping ensure a basic level of support for all ponies on land in the ESA scheme. The initiative will be administered by Defra and financed by Dartmoor National Park.
A park spokesman said it was envisaged the fund would provide an essential stop-gap until current ESA agreements are phased out and new agreements with an element of support for ponies come into effect from 2005.
The unregistered pony scheme provides additional funding and will help to maintain bloodlines on the commons by ensuring herds continue to run only with approved stallions, and filly offspring are retained as replacements.
The spokesman said Dartmoor Pony Society had already identified the 26 herds on the commons which were eligible and had informed their owners of the new scheme.
In addition, a mobile handling unit project has been set up, instigated by Dartmoor Commoners? Council.
It will help commoners and pony keepers carry out necessary pony welfare management practices, to meet legislation requirements related to passports, and prove invaluable in helping with the operations of the two new schemes.