Disclaimer: this is my personal home page: any views expressed here are purely my own, not representative of the University of Dundee, the Highland Pony Society, or any other body.
In June 2001 the members of CSHPC were kindly invited to Ballinton Stud, Thornhill, Stirling, for a Highland Performance Weekend, a fun event designed to relieve the lack of shows and social gatherings for Highland Pony owners. Hosted by Scott McGregor, the weekend was a fun event allowing all levels of participation, from pony club games and a rideout to a cross country event. Non-competitive types like myself were delighted to be able to take part in as much or as little of the event as we felt appropriate, and to be encouraged in whatever we did attempt. A barbecue was laid on, a huge log fire burned all night, and much socialising was enjoyed.
As part of the programme, Scott offered a walk around his two fields of broodmares and foals, and kindly gave running commentary on who was what, which he had to repeat several times while Shirley took notes and I took photos! The results are below, with apologies for any continuing errors. I am happy to be corrected if the wrong photo is put by a name, and I freely admit to missing noting whether some were colts or fillies! Scott is a very experienced second generation Highland Pony breeder and has had a number of stallions over the years, so the ones we saw were by 4 different stallions, his hugely successful performance stallion Fyfedene, Maverickdene, Rory of Balinoe, and Auchnahillin Scarba (who is now sold and standing at stud in England).
There are two different stud names in active use - Ballinton is used as a prefix for foals off bought in mares and the suffix of -dene is used for foals off homebred mares off his own lines. Thus Selinadene, the RHS Champion mare a couple of years ago, is dam of Fyfedene, while Ballinton Islay Mist, though a homebred mare, is out of a mare that Scott didn't breed. Both names are well known in the show ring, both for inhand and ridden/performance classes so no difference in quality is implied.
Both Scarba foals were definitely colts, and very impressive ones at that. There was at least one Rory filly, possibly both, but I'm not really sure to be honest! Will see if I can verify and amend the notes.
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E-mail: a.douglas@dundee.ac.uk
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Copyright ©A Douglas 1997 |