Talk:Mountain and moorland pony breeds

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Eriskay pony[edit]

I'm wondering what to do with this... It is a native British pony, and so I think does deserve a mention here. However, is it recognised for showing? If not, how do we treat it? What about other very rare or extinct types, such as the Galloway pony? Richard New Forest (talk) 11:08, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think the person who created the article was looking to the show rules. Maybe if it's not on the "official" list for horse show breeds, you could create a section called something creative like "Other" and put in a little blurb about how there are other breeds native to the mountains and moorlands that are not recognized by whatever show association does the recognizing, but they are still "mountain and moorland" ponies based on some other verifiable source. Montanabw(talk) 19:02, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I realise the material in the article is mostly about showing rules – but the title of the article doesn't limit it to that, and nor does the lead para. (Actually, come to think of it, the title doesn't really say what it's about at all, so I've moved it to what I hope's a better one...) I think we need to do one of the following:
  • If the article is to be only about showing rules, it should be called something like Mountain and moorland pony breeds showing rules and kept only to the recognised M&M breeds.
  • If it's about the breeds themselves, it should include general material about the breeds, not be limited to showing. Showing would just be one section.
These breeds are similar in many ways, they are presumably related, and they are dealt with together in many other contexts than just showing. I suggest that the second option is the way to go. Richard New Forest (talk) 19:49, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My humble opinion is to, stylistically, do what you have to do to keep it as one article. Maybe split between breeds defined as such outside of the show ring, and then the show breeds and their rules. Can you source the Eriskay pony and others that aren't "show recognized" to some sort of source? (I don't know about the UK, but sometimes for the US-oriented horse articles, especially on western riding, it can be a booger to get sources because so much is oral tradition...). I'd say you are our resident expert on M&M ponies and such, so go for it. I'll confine myself to comment on style or things that could annoy the wikigods at some point.
Certainly no expert! The Eriskay is probably only omitted from showing lists because it lived hidden on Hebridean islands well out of the ken of horse-show types, and if anyone did see one they thought it was an undersized Highland or a very lost Section C. It's been picked up by the Rare Breed Survival Trust in recent years, so does have a good source. Similarly for the Kerry Bog Pony. Not sure about the Galloway – I suspect it went extinct long before anyone thought of M&M classes. Richard New Forest (talk) 16:27, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Closer to an expert than anyone on WPEQ! Go ahead and add something about them, maybe a section on rare or semi-feral or whatever.

Eriskays and Galloways - and all! There's more than one school of thought on these. My personal opinion is that they have as much right to be 'breeds' as the various Welsh sections are. I couldn't say the same for the Lundy poinies (yet), though that situation might change. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 07:42, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Color and common language[edit]

By "skewbald" do you really mean only skewbald and not piebald, or do you actually mean to include both, i.e. what we yanks call pinto? I ask because there are shetlands in the USA that are piebald...? Is the correct UK term for piebald and skewbalds, referenced together, "coloured?" Thanks...Montanabw(talk) 22:45, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I did consider it, but then I couldn't think of having seen a piebald (or indeed black) Shetland. The Shetland article says they do exist, so yes, it ought to say "coloured", or perhaps better "skewbald or piebald". True black is really quite unusual in UK horses, except in Shires and Coloured Cobs. Richard New Forest (talk) 17:17, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting. How about shetlands that are "bay pintos" (tricoloured skewbalds)? If you have bay, there's always a black gene hiding under the more dominant agouti. (Which makes it so odd that there is one breed out there that registers bays but not blacks, total ignorance of genetics, sigh...) We have all sort of them here, but then I think the American shetland has some other blood thrown in, possibly Welsh and even Hackney pony... Montanabw(talk) 18:59, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think lots of breeds have bays but no or very few blacks. Have you ever seen a true black Thoroughbred? I've seen very dark ones, plenty of bays and browns, but not true black. Likewise New Forests are almost never black, but bays are very common. On the other hand Shires are commonly black (or bay), and Coloured Cobs are commonly piebald (as well as chestnut/white and bay/white).
In the US, the Jockey Club does claim to register black TBs, I've honestly not paid much attention to what's on the track. Black is clearly rarer than Bay, no question, and I know in Arabians the romance of black is so doggone ridiculous that they market dark bay Arabs as "black-bay," which drives me nuts. Over here we see a lot of black welsh ponies and shetlands. Interesting. Montanabw(talk) 02:41, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The Garron thing... Don't both Highland pony and Garron say that the Garron is the mainland type? Richard New Forest (talk) 20:32, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oh yes, you are right, I thought they were mixed up, but looks like they aren't. Montanabw(talk) 02:41, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'd not looked up horse coat genetics before – very interesting. From that it looks to me as if you can have a breed with bays but no blacks: if a breed is ubiquitously homozygous at the Agouti locus for A, then surely it cannot produce black horses? A/A with black will be bay, A/A with red will be chestnut; a/a (black) is not possible if the "a" allele is not present in the population. Richard New Forest (talk) 13:49, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In theory, yes, a breed completely homozygous for Agouti could always produce bays or chestnuts. The Haflingers DO seem to have completely selected for Chestnut, but that (e/e) is a recessive, so maybe easier to weed out everything else, a heterozygous dominant is visible immediately. However, if we take the Friesian breed, which is always supposed to be black (i.e. always E with a/a), they still occasionally pop out a chestnut even though E is dominant over e. So they weeded out the Dominant A, (easy to spot because only one allele needed to appear) but somehow, a few E/e horses snuck into the gene pool and the law of statistical averages were such that they could go for generations without discovery, particularly if they were mares, where recessives can lurk for generations because they have relatively few offspring. Anyway, I guess my thinking is that it's harder to weed out heterozygousity in dominant colors than recessive ones because you can't tell who has it and who doesn't without DNA testing...so plenty of A/a horses could theoretically be in the gene pool of any predominantly bay breed. So possible, but difficult. Montanabw(talk) 02:41, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Not necessarily deliberate weeding-out. There will be a founder effect in breeds which have gone through a population bottleneck, especially where relatively few males have sired a large proportion of the population (as in Thoroughbreds). Such populations can be astonishingly homozygous – for example, there are millions of modern Holstein cattle, but these have an effective genetic population size of well under a hundred (admittedly AI has helped here).
Recessive traits are easily concealed in a population, even when occurring at quite high frequencies as heterozygotes. For example, in British White cattle most calves have black points, but about 2% have red points (red in cattle is recessive). I've calculated that this means that about 25 to 30% of the black-points must be heterozygous red/black. Richard New Forest (talk) 13:46, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, I worry about some of this in the Arabian horse. Due to assorted history in the late 1800s, modern horses trace to surprisingly few individuals. And I have a horse with a genetic recessive neurological disease...talk about a can of worms there! Montanabw(talk) 22:23, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have seen true black Shetties! Not for a while, though. I remember being bolted with by a true-black Shettie. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 07:44, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Terminology[edit]

Hey TPC, what is a "jodphur clip? No wikipedia article on it -- the term not used in the US -- are you referring to the little garters that they wear just below the knee, or are you referring to those little elastics that clip on either seam of the pantleg and run under the boot to hold the leg down? (Don't explain here, find or create an article and wikilink to it so only those who care need to click the link). ;-) Montanabw(talk) 03:17, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Who, me? Never heard of it .....lol! Pesky (talk …stalk!) 07:39, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Measurement dispute[edit]

OK, there is another round of disagreement between myself and JLAN, easily viewable by comparing diffs. In short, my understanding of the situation is that JLAN thinks the measurements in this article should ONLY be stated in the form used in the UK, because that's what their breed standards say, while I prefer to use the {{hands}} template that provides measurement in hands, metric and US measurements for the benefit of worldwide readers. We seem to be at an impasse on measuring shetland ponies, as I think the hands template is still relevant, though JLAN states that Shetlands are only measured in inches in the UK. So I'm just going to slap a cn tag on it until the issue is clarified. To be fair, I think JLAN's position is that to convert into other measurements not used by the breed standard is OR, but I'm not sure. Anyway, that's the issue and I'm sick of revert wars about it. Montanabw(talk) 21:21, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, not quite. Here's what I think: SI units are preferred in this wiki, except in special cases, such as aeroplane altitudes. Horses are a special case. They are measured in hands in a few English-speaking countries, in metric units (usually centimetres, it seems) in the rest of the world. In my opinion, whichever is used should always be converted to the other. At minimal trouble to myself and a quite considerable deal of trouble to the wizards who maintain it, I got the Convert template fixed so that it works flawlessly for hands to metric and vice versa. I believe that in order to follow WP:MOSNUM#Which_units_to_use:
  • the heights of horses, mules & ponies from UK, US and other hand-using countries should be given in hands, with conversion to metric, using Convert
  • the heights of all other horses, mules and ponies should be given in metric units, with conversion to hands using Convert
  • the height of Shetland ponies and UK/US donkeys should be given in inches, with conversion to metric using Convert
  • the height of all other donkeys should be given in metric units, with conversion to inches using Convert
The Hands template gives redundant information; inches are not used in measuring horses, hands are not used in measuring donkeys and Shetlands. The template is obsolete now that Convert has been fixed, and can be discarded. I've added a citation for the measurement of Shetlands in inches, but it really isn't needed, it's a fact that every child knows, like 'Paris is the capital of France'. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:39, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The template needs to convert everything, really. Even though we tend to measure in hands or cm, the fact that some breeds etc. are measured in inches still remains. Also ... there are still people who aren't "fluent" in centimetres, and don't know what a "hand" is! So the "inches" option is good in those circumstances, just to give them an idea what we're talking about. I vote - it has to say showing all options, really. Absolutely no benefit to taking the inches option out of it, either. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 07:20, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed this debate because Montana just now insisted on using hands in horse artillery.[1] I checked the contributions for signs of other discussions and found this.

In a general encyclopedia intended for a wide audience the use of specialist measurements like hands is definitely contrary to our purposes to be available to everyone. I don't know how Anglophone horse experts feel about the issue, but I'm extremely skeptical that anyone would be incapable of understanding height measurements that are comprehensible to the average reader. Because using hands is quite obviously only to their benefit, and simultaneously ignores non-experts and non-Anglophone horse aficionados. If we're to use hands at all, it should be in parentheses, not as the primary unit.

Peter Isotalo 09:14, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, for starters, wikipedia IS read by children, and even some of them are learning for the first time that Paris is the capital of France! I agree with Pesky that we need to use ALL conversions so anyone anywhere in the world can read and understand what is meant. This is ENGLISH wikipedia, we are writing for English readers and to the best of my knowledge the entire English speaking world uses hands as a measurement for horses. But this isn't the place to discuss the convert template, that is an issue for WPEQ. The only issue here is what we do with this article. I am for correct measurements and conversions so that anyone knows what height we are talking about. And the last edit I made sourced to what I think is the UK's main breed society, so I cannot imagine a more authoritative source, certainly more than some horse show's web site (which is better than nothing, but not as authoritative as a breed registry) Speaking as a lifelong horse person, I for one cannot visualize a horse height given in centimeters OR inches without converting it to hands, but if you say "16 hands" I know immediately how big a horse is mentioned. Montanabw(talk) 04:42, 26 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Knowing how long a hand isn't necessary to understand the article, so saying that we have to educate people about it doesn't have anything to do with making good editorial choices. I'm not a horse expert, so I'll take your word for it when you say that English-speaking horse aficionados all know it, but you're talking about a very small minority of the English-speaking readers. While WP:EQUINE is the place to discuss more general matters of the layout and content of horse-related article, the most relevant guideline here is Wikipedia:MOSNUM#Which_units_to_use. If sources use hands or not is at best a technicality; it's up to us as editors to present the content. Following sources slavishly can also lead to the rather absurd result of using different units of measurement in the same article. And how the template is formatted seems wholly irrelevant since it's not actually nor does it constitute a guideline in of itself.
Btw, I'm obviously used to the metric system, but I have at least some sense of feet and inches. However, giving height above 2 ft only in inches seems to me to be confusing. I would guess that the same would go for many US readers.
Peter Isotalo 09:44, 26 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The first sentence there makes my point precisely: "If a quantity is defined in a given set of units and is therefore exact in them, put those units first. The exclusion zone is ten nautical miles (about 11 statute miles, 18.5 km) in radius" Hands + inches is how horses are traditionally measured in the English-speaking world. Though there is movement toward use of metrics, notably in continental Europe, and in some small specialty breeds measurement in inches is seen (minis do this too), the reasonable approach is to do what will best make the article readable to EVERYONE, and conversion templates that include hands, cm, and inches are ideal for this. Montanabw(talk) 18:38, 26 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Except the place you quoted comes after general recommendations about "Familiarity" and "International scope". But I guess that will never be as important to you as writing out of the perspective of a horse expert.
Peter Isotalo 19:02, 26 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Let's just take this to your talk page, not worth arguing with you here. Montanabw(talk) 20:33, 26 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My penn'orth... I really can't see what's wrong with giving hands/in/cm for all equines. Personally I think of all equines in hands, so giving a Shetland or donkey only in inches is meaningless to me, and I'm no good at sums so I have to find a calculator to work out what it really means (for everything else I think in metric, except fish come in pounds and people in stone...). People who are not used to horses are unlikely to be familiar with hands and so metres or inches are appropriate. By giving all three we ensure that the heights are meaningful to all readers. What's the problem with that? Richard New Forest (talk) 20:50, 26 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well that's also my view, but I think the problem is that we have a personality conflict now going here that has nothing to do with the article itself. JLAN was the original person who raised the issue, so maybe Peter and I ought to just butt out and let you, Pesky, and JLAN sort it out. Montanabw(talk) 21:29, 26 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And mine, again - "hands" absolutely has to stay! It's been the 'standard unit of measurement' of horses for centuries; converting to cm has been a relatively recent change (circa 20 - 40 years ago, depending on where in the world you live). And anyone wanting to learn about horses, whether they know the firt thing about them or not, absolutely has to know that 'hands' is still the most commonly used measurement in general conversation / writing; cm measurements are far more likely to be encountered in competition rules and so on. I'm sure Montana's right about the 'do the conversion' thing - if I see a horse's height given in cm, I have to divide by 10 to get an approximation to hands before I can visualise said horse! Pesky (talk …stalk!) 04:34, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Montana, I'm commenting here because of a wider interest in the issue and since I perceive your forceful attitude in this, but since I haven't been involved in this particular article before, I've refrained from editing. Considering that pretty much applies to your relationship to horse artillery (which you've taken a sudden interest in), maybe you shouldn't be telling others to "butt out". Unless, of course, you're willing to do the same.
Peter Isotalo 05:33, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Gently, Peter! :o) The WP:EQ team, on the whole, will be in agreement about the "hands" issue. It's what all horsey people (including 8-year-old pony-mad kids who have never sat on a horse but just read books) use in Real Life. In the horsey worlds, it's only when folks actually become 'more expert' that they start addressing the cm and inches versions of horse-measurement. Kinda the opposite way about to many situations. See Horse and Hound classified ads - the 'choose height' button on the search page uses "hands". Pesky (talk …stalk!) 07:12, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
All I can say is that Montana and I have have great difficulties collaborating over articles, and I'm rather frustrated over what I feel Montana is very quick to revive those old conflicts and then acting the offended party when I vent my exasperation.
I'm a little confused about this talk about what horse ppl do or don't do. I'm not a horse person, but I also consider myself a generalist and extremely proficient in English (at least for a non-native speaker). To me hands just seems like the sort of thing you'd use if you wrote for peers. Are we writing in a horse journal or in a general, free encyclopedia? This editorial choice seems geared to conform almost entirely to the former.
Peter Isotalo 14:41, 28 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This page is for horsy people and also everyone else. I still don't understand what's wrong with having hands for horsy people and inches and metres for anyone who is not familiar with them... (In fact most English-speaking people with any familiarity whatsoever with horses will use hands anyway.) Richard New Forest (talk) 22:21, 28 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've copied this discussion to the Equine talk page, as I believe it to be important to the whole project rather than just this article; I've also requested some outside comment on the matter. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 12:54, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Spotted?[edit]

Found this hidden text in the article: "SPSBS says registered Shetlands can't be "spotted" whatever that means". I believe that what it means is that Shetlands cannot be spotted. The breed standard says they can be any other colour; obviously, that would and in practice does include pied. Where's the problem? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 13:30, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I found it in the breed standard and you deleted it during our edit spat, re-inserting "piebald and skewbald" -- and given that you sometimes want to do everything exactly as the official people say, I just popped it back in as hidden text until this all gets sorted out. Someone else said that "spotted' in the UK means leopard-spotted (like Appaloosas) whereas in the USA, "spotted" includes both Pinto and Leopard patterns, as we don't say "pied" save for the verb form of a baked good thrown into someone's face. I really don't want to make a moral issue out of this, I'm just sick of stuff being reverted by you just because, apparently, I'm the one saying it. Montanabw(talk) 18:12, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, I restored the links to piebald and skewbald because they led immediately to the explanations of those words, which the other article did not. Spotted means "with spots", the Lp gene there's been such a lot of fuss about in another article, which makes horses spotty, and which many breeds have, but Shetlands may not, I understand. Pied is probably used more often of cattle, birds and pipers than of horses, I agree, but it's a common enough word with a perfectly clear meaning. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 18:39, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have no kick with piebald and skewbald, all I'm doing is directly using the exact word ("spotted") that what I understand to be the official Stud book society (SPSBS) used on their website. Normally, you are the one insisting we do things like that, (use the exact words) so now you want to do OR and put in an uncited standard about the pinto colors? Help me out here, you're changing your game plan on me. Montanabw(talk) 16:06, 28 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
For inf, "spotted" for horses in British Isles usage only means leopard-spotted, not pied, so that is what the Shetland soc means. Pied horses are called "skewbald" or "piebald", or if referring to both together, "coloured". "Pied" is used for birds (magpie, pied crow, pied flycatcher etc), pipers and rarely for cattle, but not for horses, and in fact is not really used at all outside these fields, for which we'd generally say "black and white" (for example you'd get a funny look if you said a cat or a dog was pied). Richard New Forest (talk) 22:21, 28 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No argument with Richard or Pesky from me. Montanabw(talk) 23:42, 28 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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