The Fell Pony Society

Registered Charity, Number 1104945.
Patron: Her Majesty The Queen.

The Fell Pony Society is a Company Limited by Guarantee 3233346

The Fell Pony Society's aim is to foster and keep pure the old breed of pony which has roamed the northern fells for years and to circulate knowledge and general information about the pony breed.

The Society deals with the Registration of Ponies, applications for Membership and export matters, and produces two Magazines per year, lists of ponies for sale and a regular calendar of events.

FPS Passports

On Wednesday 12 May 2013, I attended a meeting of ‘Native Pony and Rare Breeds GB’ to consider the new proposals following E U legislation regarding equine identification and passports. Major changes are planned to take place later this year.

If you have foals to register this season, please do so as soon as possible to avoid the possible delays and additional costs which may occur when the new system is introduced.

Also, can I remind you that it is a legal requirement to notify the passport issuing office i.e. the FPS Office, within 30 days, of a change of owner or death of a pony.

Eileen A Walker - Chairman

13 June 2013

Society News

Elizabeth Parkin, the FPS secretary, is taking early retirement from full time employment, so from Monday 17th June 2013, Council, with the approval of the Charity Commission, have appointed Katherine Wilkinson to take on this responsibility.

The FPS Office will remain at Ion House so the office telephone number (01768 353 100) and email address (secretary@fellponysociety.org.uk) remain unaltered.

Elizabeth will provide treasurer and occasional secretarial support whilst the FPS Office remains part of her home.

Eileen A Walker - Chairman

23 May 2013

CEM (Contagious Equine Metritis) Testing For Stallions

HBLB is supporting a scheme to cover the cost of the laboratory fee for CEM testing of stallions that have not previously been tested for CEM.

To qualify for the free test, swabs must be taken by a veterinary surgeon. They must be accompanied by the HBLB voucher, attached, completed and signed by both the stud / owner and the vet, and sent to one of the 3 participating labs.

The lab will report the results of the test back to the vet and there will be no lab fee for the owner/vet.

Initially HBLB is offering our society 5 vouchers to allocate to its members that have eligible stallions. If the scheme is successful, they hope to expand it.

Vouchers can be obtained by contacting the Society Office and can be used with immediate effect. Obviously, once a stallion has been tested, any visiting mares must also have been tested clear.

21 May 2013

New FPS Office E-mail address

Following episodes of hacking of the web-based e-mail account last year the FPS Secretary now has a new e-mail address. It is secretary@fellponysociety.org.uk. The Hotmail address will be removed from all FPS paperwork over the next month or so and the account will eventually be closed down.

2 May 2013

REVISED FEES FOR 2013

Please note the revised fees for registration, change of ownership etc., effective from 1st March 2013. Members of the Society pay the lowest range of fees.

Overseas fees include a standard surcharge to reflect the cost of mailing documents.

The full list can be seen on page 20 of the Spring 2013 Magazine and on the Registration and Fees page. 26 February 2013

Reminder from the FPS Office re purchasing a Fell pony

Check that the pony has been issued with a Fell Pony Society passport, as this confirms that the pony is a registered Fell pony. If an older pony has an ID-only passport, please check with the FPS office who will be able to confirm whether the pony is registered or not.

Please check that the pony and the passport match and if necessary get the microchip in the pony scanned prior to purchase.

If in any doubt and it is important to you that the pony is registered, we would suggest that you contact the office prior to purchase. This may prevent a problem that we cannot resolve later.

Also note that it is illegal for someone to sell any horse/pony without a passport.

STALLIONS & COLTS AVAILABLE AT STUD

We receive many enquiries in the office regarding 'Stallions Available at Stud'. Stallions at Stud can be listed on the FPS website, free of charge; please ask the FPS office for more details.

Online Access to the Fell Pony Stud Book

Council have agreed to give Society members free access to the Society's Grassroots database, so that they can view animal details, member details, pedigrees and progeny lists online.

To access this, you need to enter your access number (not your membership number) and password, as notified to current members with the Spring 2009 magazine.

Click here to access the database

Notification of Changes via the Web

Members who use the online access to the Stud Book might like to consider notifying the office of some transactions via the web.

Members can now notify the office of deaths, castrations and stallion services – it doesn’t update our database directly, but transfers the information so that it can be downloaded in the office.

For deaths and castrations, the passport still needs to be sent in to the office as soon as possible after the event.
Stallion owners can enter service records via the web and print off a copy of the record for the mare owner. This will remove the need for posting service books backwards and forwards each year, saving postage costs for both the stallion owner and the Society.

If you are interested in doing this, please get in touch with the office (fellponysocietysecretary@hotmail.co.uk), and we’ll learn together!

'The Fell Pony' DVD

The Fell Pony Society has made a DVD to aid the promotion of the breed. It features the Fell pony, at home amid breath taking scenery, on the fells in Cumbria, seeing them as they have been for hundreds of years, running on the ground that shaped the breed and made it what it is today, with interviews from some of the hill farmers that run the ponies on the fells, where they talk about the ponies and how they manage them on the open fells. The filming also follows the ponies performing in some of the spheres in which they excel and features the Fell Pony Stallion Show, the Breed Show, the Performance trials, Lowther driving trials and through to the ridden finals at Olympia. It shows the versatility of this wonderful breed and gives an insight into why it is so important for the breed to hold onto the remaining hill herds.

The DVD was filmed by Alan and Denise Tibbitts of DVX Productions with narration by Brian Blessed and together they have produced a film that will be of tremendous value to all with an interest in native ponies.

The DVD is available from the Fell Pony Society office at a cost of £15, plus £2 postage and packing for the UK and Europe, or £3 for the USA and Canada.