# Thimble



## Foxhunter (Feb 5, 2012)

In the UK there are several Autumn sales of the feral ponies bred on the moors, mountains and in the New Forest. 

These are not the best of sales and majority of these feral bred ponies go for slaughter.

There are also older and privately owned horses and ponies for sale at the same time. 

I had gone to the New Forest to see what was about, looking for a couple of ponies for the riding school. 

I did buy two ridden ponies, I also saw a pathetic little pony standing frightened and miserable being pushed and shoved by bigger but equally frightened foals, just weaned from their dams, many only a couple of months old.

I don't know hat it was but I justmfelfmso sorry for this colt that when he went into the ring I bought him for the princely sum of £2.

I had a two horse trailer so loaded the foal into the front and then the two ponies but they were not being nice to him and he was able to walk under the chest bar trying to suckle the other two. 

I had to stop and we unloaded him through the grooms door and stuck him in the back of the Landrover. 
Poor thing had never been handled in his life and there he was lifted into the back and surrounded by children. By the time we arrived at the stables he could be classed as 'well handled'
A good friend of mine had bad a foal and wanted another to run with it so Thimble spent three years with her. His grown height was all of 11.2 hands. He couldn't look out over the door and copied the goats and would rear up and hook his front feet over the door so he could see.

Breaking was no problem and he spent a few years in the riding school and then went from one family to the next as a first ridden/lead rein pony. 

He wasn't the best of conformation so rarely ever won but was always well behaved, safe and long suffering.

Unfortunately like many ponies he suffered from laminitis so had to be monitored carefully. 

A good friend of mine had a young daughter who was severely epileptic. She desperately wanted to ride but as her fits were unpredictable, parents were reluctant. 

I lent them Thimble knowing that they would monitor his feed carefully and knowing that if any pony was going to be safe for this child, Thimble would be.

They had Thimble for a day and that evening I get a call from Simon saying that he had nearly called me to come pick Thimble up as he had spent over an hour trying to catch him in a small paddock in torrential rain. He said that he was walking out the paddock, stuck his hand in his jacket pocket and found a very old peppermint in a wrapper. He started to unwrap it and Thimble was there asking for his share.

I was working away and had no contact with the family. I came home and attended the County Show, there in the Lead Rein class was Simon, Thimble and the daughter. Thimble looked so well, he was, for him, thin, but well covered, looked remarkably fit and a lot less than his thirty years. 

They were about to do their individual show when Thimble stopped dead and much to my surprise Simon never made him go forward but listen his daughter off. Raised his hat to the judge as a sign of retiring and carried his daughter out the arena. 
A few minutes later she started to fit.

Simon told me that Thimble had started to do this a couple of months after they had him and that his daughter could ride him off the lead because before she fitted he would stop and nothing would make him move.

That child rode him for some years, she was small and lightweight, and when he became arthritic, he remained with the family until the end.

One very special pony.


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