Nl66 winter2013

News, Views and thanks of how you help us help them. Page 1

Open to visitors; May/Oct=Sunday 11am – 4pm. Weekdays 10am – 2pm. Closed Saturdays Nov/April= by appointment,

Adults £4:00 OAP/Children £2:00 or £10:00 per car. Groups/Schools/Clubs by appointment. Special needs visitors please telephone to discuss your needs.

NB All visitors it is always advisable to telephone 01443 480327 or 07798584735 before you visit.

PROVIDING TENDER LOVING CARE TO NEEDY HORSES & PONIES

A picture appeared on Face-

book in May with the story that the

pony was “free to a good home”.

This is a picture of the last so called

“good home” he was in. It was not

good at all, more of a pony prison.

Poor little Lightening was homed

from pillar to post around the South

Wales area all his life. He was a full

stallion. No-one would invest the

£200 odd pounds to have him

gelded. He is a very quiet and

friendly little chap. His current home

is with us thanks to a lady called Sue

(who sometimes wears a cow one

piece suit). She was moved by the

stories going around and bothered

herself to track him down to the

grotty little yard you see in this

picture. The folds of skin especially

around his lower neck tell us he

suffered dramatic weight loss

recently. Being a stallion has meant

no-one wanted him? He is not good

enough quality to use for breeding,

(by any-one who cares where their

foals eventually end up).

Newsletter No 66

Fforest Uchaf Farm. Maindy Road,

(Maendy) Penycoedcae,

Pontypridd.

R.C.T, Wales. UK. CF37 1PS

Tel; 01443 480327 [email protected]

www.pitponies.co.uk

www.sponsorapony.co.uk

www.visitpitponies.co.uk

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.pitponies.co.uk/


Here is Lightening pictured just after arrival at the Centre. He has just been seen by the Vet and

micro-chipped for his passport. Hence the indignant look. Since then he has been gelded by a vet

thanks to another lovely lady who made a little money on some shares. The picture left/below

shows him meeting some sweet fillies for the first time in October. Of course he had company all

along but not fillies. Soon after this he went out with the entire herd. He has settled in very well

and has lots of four legged friends. Mostly

female our geldings seem to have very little

time for him. There is always a possible

problem with gelding a mature stallion that they

will change in nature. Lightening is still the

sweet gentleman he was and is usually seen with

a little group of ladies about his size. The

picture inserted above/left is of Lightening in

his stable with three little ladies for company

and the other four are just over the wall next

door for his winter. Well done Jools & Sue

money is very useful when helping the needy.


When a dog has a nice tasty bone to gnaw & chew and a mother hen and her chicks is after it too.

Who wins? (See page 7)

The Grand Bonfire night prize draw raised £2516:00. Thank you all who took part

and sold tickets to friends & family.

The lucky winners were.

1st prize £250:00 went to Ms Moncrieff in Scotland.

2nd

prize £50:00 went to Mrs Brown in Guernsey.

3rd

prize £25 gift voucher went to Mrs Turner in Hampshire.

Of course the real winners were the Ponies after printing costs and prizes £2022:34 went to the

general fund for Feed, Vet, and Farrier etc. That will buy a good bit of winter feed. Your Grand

Saint David’s Day Prize Draw tickets are enclosed please do your best for the ponies you have

until the end of February to sell out. If you want more books just let us know.

We have just had the first load of feed for this winter. It will last about 3 to 4 weeks

depending on the weather. The bill is £1690:00 that does not include Hay, Straw, and Shavings

etc.


7 Littlies you will doubtless recall came to us after having been dumped in a local Cemetery.

They came through our Local Authority via the Dog Warden. Trading Standards were aware of

their movement and we are assured all the necessary legal checks were taken. We informed the

Police in October 2012 as we wondered if they had been stolen with intention of a quick profit.

We had a read receipt but no reply. Sometime later when we had the Vet at the Centre we had

them scanned and were surprised to find they were all micro-chipped. Armed with the chip

numbers we contacted DEFRA and the Passport Issuing Authorities. Quite a while later a

gentleman phoned from the Welsh Pony & Cob Society and asked for more details and later

confirmed the chips were from a batch supplied to them. We asked them officially for help with

replacement passports in June 2013. To date we still don’t have them. The Welsh Pony & Cob

Society has been truly unhelpful and as difficult as possible to deal with. Trading Standards even

told the previous owners where the ponies were. We had just popped up to see Angela’s mum

when our daughter who was Farm sitting for a few days phoned early one morning to say some

aggressive people had turned up demanding to see our ponies saying they were looking for theirs.

Our daughter who has a baby in arms to care for as well as run the Centre was quite frightened by

the incident and we had to drop everything and come back to the Farm. However it seems it was

Rosie, Candy, Caramac, Rhona (front), Sapphire (behind), Bluebell and Geraldine.

Watching wild Ponies on the bleak &

barren commons last winter.


all just a smoke screen of pretence that they had been searching for their ponies, to try to avoid any

legal action from Trading Standards. One year on, these little ponies have had the best of care and

so there is a fair sized bill to pay for anyone who wants to claim them.

It would seem the Horse Passport regulations are a farce. Horse owners are threatened with a

£5000 fine for having a un-pass-ported equine but no-one seems to enforce it. . It appears DEFRA

have no idea who owns

any pony via the micro-

chip. You have to write to

all the authorities with the

chip number hoping

someone will recognize it

and bother to reply. The

National Equine Database

is defunct. We were all

sold the idea that if we had

our Horses micro-chipped

and they were stolen a

simple scanning would

reveal our details and we

would get our Horses back.

It now seems we were sold

a pup, and if anyone finds

a Horse in another part of the country it will take a lot of effort and searching for them to be able

to contact the owner. The regulations say if a horse already has a passport you can’t re-passport it.

However if (as in our case) you have horses that are micro-chipped but someone else holds the

passports and won’t pass them on? You can’t get

passports for them. DEFRA don’t want to know.

The Welsh Government seems to be doing nothing

different for Wales.

Bonnie is Puzzles mum. However Star has

muscled in and almost taken over. Puzzle goes to

Bonnies for milk but spends a lot of his time with

Star. When we have to separate them she behaves

like his mother whereas Bonnies seems quite at

ease with it all. We have recently taken puzzle

away from his mum as he is now six months old

and Bonnie needs to build herself up for winter.

Star has taken over the mums role and is quite

protective towards little puzzle. He is busy

making new friends in the Herd here at the Centre.

“Bluebell”. & Patricia getting her

used to people and being ridden.


Special Volunteer Patricia is pictured here de-lousing the last of our herd, “Star”. The entire herd

has been done several times this

summer. She is such a hard

worker. According to her all the

ponies had lice. The lice

powder is good for the ponies

and keeps them free of all the

other pests anyway. She has

now at last gone to Specsavers

for an eye-test. Could be a TV

ad in that?

Below some of the Littlies

having a nice cool drink from

the spring fed top pond.

We had some visitors this

summer with a very hairy and

hot Newfoundland dog he is also

pictured enjoying the pond in a different way. He absolutely loved it and swam up & down for

ages cooling off before and after his walk. No bother to the ducks & geese just enjoying a cool

refreshing time.

Mrs Yeo has been busy again this

summer and donated another £67:00 from her

craft work sales. She also came to Roath Park

Festival with Roy and helped on the stall all

day. She donated a lot of handmade children’s face masks. They went down very well and many

scary Monsters, Pirates, Tigers, Clowns etc. helped many small children enjoy their day out.

Arnie, Deana, Dylan (behind) and Sandra drawing the winners. The hen.(from page 3)


A Little taste of Wales.

Llanddarog Fair Cakes Traditionally sold as “Fairings”. These little cakes from Carmarthenshire contain beer and are

topped with dried fruit. (Alternative suitable for vegans & vegetarians)

Ingredients

6 oz self-raising flour. 2 oz caster sugar. Pinch of sea salt.

3 dessert-spoons of beer. 4 oz butter if not vegan. (Solid baking fat for vegan alterative)

1 oz sultanas 1 oz currants.

Method.

Set oven to heat at 375 F/ 190 C or gas mark 5. Sift the flour and salt together into a bowl, then

rub in the fat until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar, and then add the beer and

mix to a soft dough. Roll out on a lightly floured surface to almost ½ inch/1.25cm. Cut into

rounds with plain cutter. Mix the sultanas & currents together and press into the tops of the

rounds. Bake for 15 minutes in your pre heated oven and then cool on a wire rack. Serve plain. Mwynhewch y pryd! (Enjoy your meal)

Thank you all who are saving & sending Stamps for our Charity you sent sufficient stamps to The

Pit Pony Sanctuary C/o Fords Farm, Horsey, Norfolk. NR29 4 EP to raise a further £22.62.

Please keep on telling you friends, work colleagues etc. At £6 per kilo its money for old rope.

However it may not last forever so get them sent soon. That first feed bill of £1690:00 could have

been paid for with 282 kilos of old used stamps.

Interaid charity shop in Crewys Road Cardiff and working hard and recently presented a

cheque in late June for £1000. Also customer Nicky Askins saved loose change and raised £30.95.

A mystery man gave £10 and a little competition raised a further £15. Well done Chris & Co.

Miss Lynfa J Evans wrote that her sister Susan Evans of Orpington sent £50. The cheque was from

Lynfa & Mr Fred Edwards instead of presents for her 50th birthday. Well done all & Happy

Birthday Susan from us and the Ponies.


Letters from Friends of the Ponies.

N.B, Not our words, thoughts or opinions and printed as written warts & all.

Mr & Mrs Lovell from London wrote. “Sorry no computer-still getting used to sliced bread! That

gave us a laugh as we know how she feels!

Mrs Margaret Clinch from Darwin Australia wrote; I have just had one month in the UK and was

looking forward to visiting your Pit Pony refuge and meeting some of you. However I was on the

big highway and past Pontypridd before I knew it. It was raining, and so I weakly travelled on.

Hopefully next time I will get to see you. I have a special interest in your particular area. My

great uncle was from Devon but went to Pontypridd to look after Pit Ponies. He had previously

worked at the Naval College at Dartmouth. I think he was actually a Farrier rather than a miner.

In about 1948, I was taken over to Pontypridd from Devon with my mother to see him. He was

living in a terraced cottage in a street with a long slag heap on the other side. He was probably in

his 90’s then and I think he died soon afterwards. It is a happy memory. It does not help that his

name was William Smith and I do not know what colliery he worked at. Of course I would be

delighted if anyone knew of him. He had a sister called Elizabeth Smith living with him at one

time. She was a midwife but she was also very elderly by then. She was my Great Grandmother.

That is my connection. Hopefully I can visit another year.

Mark Chaldecott from Cambridge wrote; I first found out about you a few years ago through a

poster on the notice board of Addenbrooks Hospital – giving information about your work and

asking for any CD’s, DVD’s etc. that you could sell to raise funds for your work. I am hoping this

is still the case and am enclosing the DVD of “Hanna” 2010 staring Kate Blanchett.

Mrs M A Everton from Suffolk wrote; don’t take away our independence. I am told there are still

6-7 million of us not on the computer. Let there be choice! Choice is freedom!

Jen Hughes a teacher from the Phoenix Academy near Telford who worked with her pupils to help

them with their English language and often used idea’s from our little Centre as teaching aids and

organised things like a Lucky Dip one lunchtime. Year 9 pupils went on to sponsor Star and often

wrote about her. Jen retired recently and we wish her well.

Donations have recently been received in memory of; Sylvia Wilson, Duncan Lyon, Mrs Thurman’s father in law Bob

Mr David M Rees, Mrs Jean Cooper, Miss Edna Riches,

oO-0-Oo

Documents

Nl66 winter2013