A PROUD moorland tradition came an end this week, with the announcement that Dartmoor ponies will no longer be for sale at Tavistock market.

The sheer downturn in demand for the animal has pushed Tavistock Livestock Centre to take the decision, with reluctance, to cease pony sales.

However, managers stressed that although there would be no more pony sales, unless there was a drastic upturn in the market, the centre in Whitchurch Road was still very much healthy when it came to cattle and sheep markets.

David Landick, the market manager of TLC, told the Times: 'The decision was really made after the last Dartmoor pony sales in October. We had 90 entries and sold 14 at an average of 11 to 12 guineas — the lowest it's ever been.

'It costs us around £1,000 to put on each market with the cost of advertising, the staff and the setting up and clearing up afterwards.

'There is just no profit in it. When you compare the numbers of ponies we sell to the ones with cattle and sheep, it just doesn't make business sense to carry on with it.'

Buyers for the iconic moorland animal used to come to Tavistock from all the country, but that went down to six at the last sale.

Russell Woolcock, who has been in the business since 1944 with Ward and Chowen of Tavistock, and although a former auctioneer acts a consultant to the firm, remembers when Dartmoor sales were thriving.

He said Princetown was the traditional home of the pony sales, but when its railway line closed down in 1956 the business transferred to Tavistock market.

Such was demand in those days, there were also other pony markets at Hatherleigh, Newton Abbot, Chagford and Ashburton for landowners to sell their Dartmoor ponies.

Mr Woolcock said: 'Most of the ponies went off by rail. There was a great demand for the Dartmoor ponies to be sold off as pit ponies in those days.

'There would be around 500 ponies being sold in the market and it was quite a sight seeing them being driven down Whitchurch Road by the farmers.

'It became a big social event. Farmers coming for the chit-chat and to swap local gossip while their wives came into town to shop. It was good for the town.'

However, where in those days there were 5,000 ponies on the moor, now the numbers have been drastically cut, so today there are around just 1,000.

Demand has not been helped, said Mr Landick, by the cost of transport, the £20 cost for each pony to have a passport, be micro-chipped and regulations that only four ponies can go in one lorry.

Mr Landick said that although there would no longer be the pony sales in October, the livestock centre in Tavistock still had a thriving 12 cattle and sheep markets booked from September to October.

He said; 'It is sad to see a tradition go but it just was not viable anymore and unfortunately you can't survive on tradition.

'However our cattle and sheep have very healthy sales in Tavistock and we look forward to our next livestock market on Tuesday, March 4.'

For the time being, Dartmoor ponies will continue to be on sale at Chagford, with auctioneers Rendells holding a pony market on Thursday, October 9.

Peter Farnsworth, a partner in Rendells and an auctioneer, said that despite the downturn in the market, his company was prepared to give Dartmoor pony sales another go.

He told the Times: 'We need some uplift in the market prices.

'Certainly the four in a lorry rule has not helped.

'We had one man who came down from Derby who bought six ponies and was rapped over the knuckles for transporting them but in fact it was safer for the animals with six in his lorry than four.'

Last year at the Chagford sales, of the 160 entries, 52 were sold, at an average of £21 a head — nowhere near a number or price to make it profitable for the organisers.

Mr Farnsworth said there was some glimmer of hope, as the recession began to lift.

He said prices at a recent Newton Abbot market were slightly up — and controversially, he felt that if there was demand for ponies to be consumed as food in this country, there could be a more steady market.

Transportation costs to countries which eat horsemeat, such as on the Continent, currently prohibit its export.

Mr Farnsworth added: 'We don't want to give up on selling the ponies — it's very much a Dartmoor tradition we want to keep.

'We would not want to see the ponies disappear off the moor completely.'