HAVING just got back from holiday and seen the headlines of October 2 of the Times, I was horrified! If there is any other way to avoid putting pony meat on butchers' slabs, then it must be taken. South West Equine Protection's idea of stallion restriction seems logical and should be the way to go. After all, since when do we in Britain eat our companion animals? What's next — puppy steaks or kitty burgers from surplus animals in pet rescue centres? V L Aston Tavistock IT was perhaps inevitable that with the ability now to identify horsemeat in food products, that the bottom would fall out of the lower end of the horse trade business. Much has been made in recent letters and articles such as that of Mary Alford about the 'end of the breed', the 'loss of a way of life', and even the disappearance of the moor under scrub due to undergrazing. In fact the ponies shown in recent local news features are of no particular breed, like those on most of the moor, they have been bred out using stallions, (just one is presently too many), of other types and breeds to follow whatever was in current market fashion and chase the last couple of quid above the meat price, most recently for coloured children's riding ponies, all now proven loss makers and taking part in a race to the bottom for the 'Dartmoor' ponies. The majority of ponies on Dartmoor are not like those of Exmoor with closed breeding herds, using a type of pony identifiable back to the Ice Age. If there is a better 'way of life' to keep ponies going on the moor it is not the wretched one that I have observed locally the last 40 years, using this hotch potch of ponies, some of which do not thrive on the moor, suffering rain scold in the winter and sunburn on their pink skins in the summer, to produce a foal for the abbatoir in Bristol or further up the motorway. Much better, planned and supported, there could be a way forward for those keeping a sustainable number of registered Dartmoor ponies as a breeding stock, such as for those riding enthusiasts who keep and breed ponies off Dartmoor, even in other parts of the world who would go back to the native bloodline bred in its local environment. The Rare Breeds Survival Trust has operated as just such a charity for over 40 years to help breeds like the Dartmoor and previously the Exmoor pony, to maintain a critical breeding number in their native environment. If the farmers on Dartmoor were to accept that this is the future and not that of the £5 foal for meat, they would find a much better long term future for themselves and the breed. The economic future of Dartmoor within this overcrowded island lies as much in tourism and recreation as hill farming. While some may try out one of Charlotte Faulkner's pony sausages or steaks, this is unlikely to represent the 'way of life' for the majority of tourists coming from these islands, whose custom you rely on, and who will come here in increasing numbers to see and ride ponies. The cultural flow within the tourist industry and elsewhere is towards a majority who increasingly care about what they are consuming, and for them, as we have seen in last year's national press — eating and riding horses are not part of the same mouthful. Dartmoor farmers, Commoners, hoteliers and their colleagues — Natural England and the Dartmoor National Park — should think very carefully before enclosing the park's emblem with a knife and fork, if only because that is not where the future money is. Chris George Yelverton