Once upon a time the rights to graze were unlimited, but in 1965 the government made the farmers register their rights on the Common. From that time on, farmers have been limited to whatever rights that they registered at that date. Some people registered good numbers, and others cut themselves a bit short, as they didn’t believe it was necessary to register. Farmers were required to register their rights in 1965, and if they did not do so, they may not alter their rights to the fell land now. Thomas Capstick registered his rights to the fell land for horses, sheep and cattle.

The Murthwaite Farm is located in Ravenstonedale Parish, Cumbria. The farm is home to his Fell Ponies, Swaledale Sheep, Rough Fell Sheep and crosses of these sheep that still roam the fell, as did their ancestors.

About The Ponies

The highly successful Murthwaite Fell Ponies have been bred for over 40 years. Staying out on the harsh fell year round has helped to give these ponies their hardiness, toughness, soundness, surefootedness and alertness. Their willing, steady character, honed by careful selection, has helped to make them what they are today.

Fell Ponies never roam as a large herd. They generally split themselves up into small groups of five and six, and at times larger groups of eleven and twelve can be found. An example of how groups are formed is, weanlings kept together over the winter become bonded and, when they are turned out in the spring, they tend to stick together and raise themselves within their own group. Likewise, mares will gather together in small groups. A farmer can predict where the “little herds” will be because they tend to go back where they like to be, rather than where the farmer put them. Fell Ponies choose who their groups will be and where they want to go.

A commoner’s restriction rule: stallions are not allowed to be put out with the groups. If they were, the stallions would herd them together into large groups. There was a time when the stallion ran wild with the mares and foals, but a restriction came into place that disallowed that tradition. Nowadays, stallions stay in pastures, contained to the farm.

In the spring, farmers round up the groups of mares, bring them home and pasture them with the chosen stallion. In this way, farmers are able to control which mares breed to which stallion. The mares will stay in the pasture with the stallion for about six weeks and then the farmers’ turn the mares back out to the fell. Thomas’s mares are not put to the stallion until the age of four because they have such a hard life on the fell that they aren’t sufficiently mature until then to be able to carry the added burden of a foal.

Foals are generally born in the spring and they stay with their dams until November or December. At weaning time the farmers round up pairs of foals and dams, and separate them for weaning. Free from their foals, the mares are turned back out to the fell. The foals are brought into an indoor stable for winter and are put into large loose boxes, containing about four or five foals. They are turned out to exercise in the field daily, but are not turned out to the fell until the spring. In early spring, the farmer will open the fell gate and let the foals run. The foals will band together, forming a new group, and will thereafter fend for themselves.

During the winter months, Thomas will throw hay out on the fell bottom for the ponies that come home. If the ponies don’t come home, they are on their own – they make their own choice.

“You tend to find that those ponies that don’t come home winter equally as well as those ponies that do. You can’t tell the difference, which ones were out or in, by their condition in the spring” says Thomas. “If all the ponies stayed away, they would do just as well”


Herd Management

Stallions are kept in enclosed pastures. Colt foals are usually sold in their weanling year. Thomas says that he does not handle the foals in the loose boxes during their weaning unless he has to. “I tend to find if you handle foals they are much more panicky and stressed than if you leave them for one year or two”.

“ When they are first weaned, the foals are wild and nervous. If you’re handling them or quieting them in a subtle manner, such as just wandering about through them, they get used to you. Then when they are turned out, you find you can wander around them outside. They are not frightened of you. There is something romantic about an untouched pony that can go out on the fell and fend for itself”.

Ponies have the right to roam, and they can roam all over the fell, as they want. The fells are hilly with low grass reaching a maximum of nine inches long if not eaten. There are no trees on the fell, no windbreak other than a low stonewall. Valley bottoms may offer shelter somewhat.

Fell Ponies turned out to the fell naturally graze the grass and in winter may receive hay but they receive no grain and they find their own water source. There are thousands of little springs and gutters of water all over the fell.

Once a year, the ponies are brought into an enclosed area and if the farmer can get close enough, a de-wormer, known locally as “pour on”, is poured down the backs of the ponies with the use of a medicine gun. Semi-wild ponies receive no farrier care. “The fell is nice and hard and steep, so the ponies have to use their feet and it generally keeps them very good of their feet”, adds Thomas.

Pony Selection

The hill farmers take a lot of pride in Mountain & Mooreland Shows. I asked Thomas how he chooses a pony to take to the show. Thomas replied that he looks the ponies over carefully. “Some years certain ponies would look better than others”, he says. "I never take to the show anything short of feather; I only take what I think I can to do well with, because I don’t like to lose”, Thomas shares with a laugh.

“What do you look for in a Fell Pony?” I asked Thomas.

“Lots of feather”, he replies. "First and foremost – legs: No legs, no pony. If there are no good legs, I wouldn’t be interested. I look for good feet, nice hocks, flat bone, good knees and the pony must stand on those legs properly”.

“What is flat bone?” I questioned for clarity.

Thomas responds, “flat bone: hocks down to the fetlock has to be flat, when you look at the pony square on, has to be nice and broad - but from behind, hock down to the fetlock joint wants to be nice and flat (not round boned), and similar in the front legs. Bone must be nice and broad from side view - but front or back view, must be narrow but flat (not round). I look for lots of nice silky feather.” He adds.

Thomas always tries to support the society shows: stallion shows, and the summer breed show. He takes ponies that are not always perhaps fit enough or fleshy enough. A judge of a class once claimed that Thomas Capstick’s ponies had fantastic bottoms (feet and legs) to them but lack some top (body). Thomas tells me he took the judge’s words as a compliment. “Because you can feed up the top, but not affect the bottom - that has to be bred into them and too much feed can ruin the bottom. The bottom has to be bred and cannot be achieved overnight. That takes generations of quality and selective breeding”.

Thomas hasn’t gotten to where he is today by selling his best ponies. “Because if you sell the best, you only have the worst to breed from,” he says, adding, “When you get to a certain consistent standard, then you can sell some of your best ponies, for you hope that most of your ponies are of a high standard”.

Thomas quotes, “If a person has a good eye for a pony and knows what qualities to look for, they therefore have a better chance of breeding quality than someone who doesn’t”.


About the Stallions

“I have always used stallions that are proven good getters because if you start using stallions that are not good getters, you can soon lose quality. Always breed for quality, never think of a stallion ‘that will do’, or ‘maybe it will breed something good’. But maybe is not good enough, is it? You want to be as certain as you possibly can.”

“Yes, you want good conformation, but you also want good breeding - for generations back.”

How do you know a stallion is going to get well? “You don’t know until you have tried it, but there are two things you must take into consideration:
1. Good conformation, good legs under him.
2. His breeding, especially his mother, grandmothers and great grandmothers. All generations must be top quality.”

“It is the same on the sire side; going generations back, there must be quality; so then you are lessening the risk of it not being a good getter as much as you possibly can. Take care of what is behind in the sire and dam’s lineage; it can throw back several generations behind, so if there was one not good enough, it can come back through a foal.”


How It All Began

Thomas always had an interest in ponies, since he was a little boy. There were not many magazines available, but from time to time he would see pictures in a magazine. Life was hard for the hill farmers. The land was not as good as the land down in the valley. There came a day when Thomas’s parents gave him a choice: a longed for pony or a bicycle. Thomas chose a pony.

Mr. Ted Benson, a neighbor, went to a sale to buy a pony for Thomas. He brought back a pony, an unregistered pony, which Thomas would later have registered through inspection. So there was Thomas, a proud boy of maybe 12 or 13, with his first pony.

A Bit Of Pony History

The Fell Ponies had been so reduced in numbers in previous years that the Fell Pony Society decided that if a pony looked sufficiently like a Fell Pony, they would register it, with “IS” behind its name to indicate Inspected.

Out of an inspected pony then, you have to start grading up. You breed a section A, and out of a section A you breed a section B, and then out of that you get it pure enough to be recognized as pure, but, you are not allowed to keep a stallion out of the section B.
Thus began Thomas Capstick’s humble start as a breeder of the Fell Pony.

Soon after Thomas’s first pony acquisition, he began to buy fully registered ponies. Thomas did not increase the size of his herd much until 1990. Prior to this date, he was in partnership with his parents raising sheep and cattle, and keeping only a small number of Fell Ponies. Upon the retirement of his parents, Thomas decided he wanted to keep more ponies. Murthwaite was the name of the family farm on which Thomas was brought up, and it is his farm now.


Ponies Then & The Ponies Now

Thomas says that the ponies haven’t changed much in the past forty years, but The Fell Pony has improved generally overall, with higher quality and more ponies available. He acknowledges that the Ponies are now removed from the rare breeds survival and endangered list, although they are still not as plentiful as some native British breeds.

Nuts & Bolts

Some of the oldest homesteads in Cumbria are dating back to between 1600 and 1700. Thomas’s own sister lives in a house that the oldest part has a plaque inscribed 1624. New homes or renovations are to be constructed in the traditional way, according to strict planning laws.

What Happens Now?

The government wants hill farmers to keep less sheep on the fell, to attempt to keep it from being overgrazed. There was a time when the government paid hill farmers an allowance, as the land on the fell is primitive and not as productive as land on the valley bottom or at sea level, and the hill farmers are at a disadvantage. Hill farmers now receive the Single Farm Payment, paid on the amount of land they have and not on how many cattle and sheep they have. “You tend to find that if farmers are not getting paid on the stock basis, they are not keeping as many,” says Thomas.

Sounding heavy hearted, Thomas adds, “Young people struggle to afford homes in rural areas anymore. Non-local people, who have the ability to pay more, now often inhabit our villages. The young folk that have the farming tradition in their veins, are driven away, and those that have money to buy - to out-price youngsters - come and take over. Certain parts have lost a lot of their old families that used to live there. It is a bit sad.”

“What does this all mean for the future of the Fell Ponies”? I quietly ask Thomas.

“The Fell Ponies have plenty of enthusiastic members and breeders, but not necessarily those that can keep them in large numbers on the fell as they always have done. The interest just isn’t there in the hill farmers,” says a low voiced Thomas.

“Do you worry about the future of Fell Ponies, Thomas”? I ask.

“I am concerned that there are fewer and fewer of the hill breeders keeping them as I do. It is the way to breed them, with their hardiness, it is the way to breed them financially, and it is the way to breed them, on the romantic side.” There is a pause.

Thomas continues, “If those that have the ability to breed them onto the fell, choose not to, you cannot force them. There are so many Fell Pony breeders that have already disappeared; The Heltondale Stud, in my opinion, one of the best and longest stud that has ever existed have almost gone. The breeders are getting older, and the young people are not there to carry on.”

“What happens after our day is whatever, we cannot say. We do not know.”

“What is your future with the Fell Ponies, Thomas?” I ask him.

“I will do my best, as long as I possibly can, to maintain the Fell Pony as I am doing now, keeping and breeding them in the traditional way”.
Thomas will continue to do right by the Fell Pony. He will endeavor to breed the finest ponies that he can, he will sell his young colts, and sell some of his fillies and he will hang onto some of the best of his quality, as they are the foundation stock for the future of Murthwaite Stud and for the future of Fell Ponies as a whole.

Thank you, Thomas my friend, for all that you have given me, for your teaching, for your knowledge, and for your friendship. Kim Renee Cote.

Thomas Capstick, can be reached at:

Thomas B. Capstick
Fell End, Ravenstonedale
Kirkby Stephen
Cumbria CA17 4LP
Tel. (0044) 01931-71465

Murthwaite Windrush