A new departure - Welsh arrivals!

Well, dear readers, it was my firm intention at the start of this year to write at least one blog post every month. Now that, even with the extra day in February, I’ve still failed at that one, let’s see what we can do…

I’ve never been particularly into Welsh ponies or cobs. Not that I ever had anything against them, you understand – on the contrary, I respect them as attractive, sound, eminently useful equines. I just never really got into collecting Welsh models – I preferred to concentrate on some of the rarer British natives, such as my ‘local’ pony, the Dales. The Welsh always seemed to have plenty of support without needing mine; indeed, the Welsh classes seemed so competitive that I was never particularly tempted to join in. With no Welsh models to speak of, I had no need to research Welsh pedigrees, and though I read a couple of Dr Wynn Davies’ books, I tended to retreat after a while with my head spinning due to the numerous variations on Trotting Comet, Young Trotting Comet, Old Briton, Young Briton, Trotting Briton, Flying Comet, Trotting Railway and so on. However, the past couple of years have seen something of a departure for me, and I now own a number of Welsh Cob models.

This change can be traced, I think, to two things. Firstly, my friend, fellow hobbyist and pedigree enthusiast Helen Cooke died. Welsh, particularly Cobs, were Helen’s first and enduring love, and during her last few months she was writing an article about her model Welsh stud for my club newsletter. I was entrusted with the task of typing up this hand-written, unfinished piece after she died, which meant quite a lot of reference back to lists of Helen’s models to make sure I was interpreting her abbreviated notes correctly. It was a pleasure and an honour to do it, but also it helped me to share something of Helen’s love and enthusiasm for her Cobs. I ended by feeling it would be a shame if some at least of her model bloodlines were not carried on.

Secondly, the following Christmas, I received this little mare as a gift from my BOPAR Secret Santa that year, Sam Helton:

I felt that she would make a reasonable Welsh Cob – certainly as good as any other OF plastics available. Indeed, I got so enthusiastic that I enlisted another friend, Carra McClelland, to look out in the USA for two more colourways on this mould, with the idea that I could make them into three generations of mares. The prospect of having an instant entry for the Dam Produce and Breeding Family classes in BOPAR shows was also a contributing factor!

Carra was very efficient in sourcing the models and in due course these two arrived:

In the meantime I’d also been having an online chat with another friend, colour authority Lesli Kathman, asking her about pedigrees for roan Welsh Cobs. I hadn’t realised that true roan is quite a rare colour in Cobs, many of the horses described as roan really just carrying roaning from the sabino and/or rabicano patterns. Lesli however pointed me to this site, and via that to the home website of the Balnecroft Stud, where most of the surviving true roan Cobs can be found.

As at the time, neither of these sources showed information on younger roan ponies (they have since been updated), I decided that the roan mare should be the oldest and the grandmother of my group. As her parents I chose the chestnut roan stallion Balnecroft Red Shadow and the liver chestnut mare Balnecroft Telyn. The model’s name is Balnecroft Gloriana and she has at least two real full siblings. I made her foaled in 1995, and had a momentary panic when researching this blog as I went back to the updated stud site and read that her sire had been gelded. However, All Breed Pedigree lists four of his offspring foaled after 1995, so I seem to be OK.

I wanted the chestnut mare to be her daughter, so I needed a sire likely to produce chestnut, preferably a model one. Bernadette O’Neill is well known as a fan and breeder of Welsh Cobs in the British model hobby, so I asked if she had anything suitable, and she suggested her palomino stallion Brynog Rhodri. His sire is Bernadette’s Llanarth Nebulous (Robin Hood (r) x Llanarth Rhoswen (r)) and his dam is Brambridge Cariad, who is a portrait model of Bernadette’s real mare of the same name, and has always been a favourite of mine. I was delighted to accept Rhodri as the sire for the chestnut mare, whom I called Clifton Firebird.

The youngest mare, Firebird’s daughter, is called Clifton Felicity and I already had a sire lined up for her, since while all this was going on I had succumbed to temptation and acquired this handsome fellow:

He is a Laura Behning ‘Cardiff’ resin painted by Molly Pengra of the USA, and his name is Llewellyn, although as yet he doesn’t have a prefix or a pedigree. Watch out here for a further post when I get him sorted out.

There is, however, an unexpected and exciting post-script to this story. A couple of years after Helen’s death, her mother Ann offered me another of her horses. Many people will remember PR Penrhyn Golden Arrow, a BFA customised by Margaret Hallam – he was Helen’s pride and joy, and probably her most successful model. Ann had kept him for a while, but after reading an article of mine on how models can be ‘reincarnated’ as their sons or daughters, she asked me to take Golden Arrow and do the same with him. She wanted him to have a ‘forever home’ where he would be shown, as a son of Golden Arrow, and asked me to use either ‘Golden’ or ‘Arrow’ as part of his name.

Naturally I was honoured and delighted to do this, and almost immediately his name and pedigree came to me. What better than to make him by Golden Arrow out of my mare Firebird, and to call him Golden Phoenix, as with this new identity he is metaphorically ‘rising from the ashes’? I’m sure you’ll see him around at the shows and I hope that he continues to do as well as he always did.

Thus, then, my little Welsh cob herd is doing well, and I’m sure will feature again here in future.