Wild Exmoor Ponies in Sutton Park
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16.12.2018
This afternoon Ed and I went for a walk to see the wild Exmoor ponies in Sutton Park. I’ve lived in Birmingham for fourteen years and visit the park fairly often, but I’ve never seen the ponies before, just the cows. I just assumed the ponies were shy, and largely kept to themselves in the deepest parts of the woodland. I was hoping to see them today, but didn’t really think that we would.
The ponies in Sutton Park live and graze north of the railway line down near Bracebridge Pool. There were three ponies browsing on holly on the main road down by the restaurant on Bracebridge Pool, and we found another band in the woodland when we went for a walk around the lake. The ponies by the road were very curious and friendly, so much so that I stepped away from them on several occasions as every time I crouched down one of the mares approached me. She seemed quite calm, but it’s best to keep a distance.
All of these photos were taken with an 85mm lens and some of them were cropped to make the horses look bigger in the frame – in other words, these photos were all taken from a distance of several meters and from the main paths. Don’t be fooled by the close ups! Please, don’t try to imitate these photos with your camera phone. A camera phone has a very wide angle lens and you would need to be right next to the ponies to get a similar perspective.
Update 17th June 2021 | pony health & welfare
Last night I was up at Sutton Park for a walk and met one of the park rangers – Matthew – as he was tending to the horses. He told me that he was in the process of trying to teach the horses to be wary of humans as they have become very bold, and are venturing closer and closer to visitors in the park. Some people have been feeding them too, which is harmful to the horses’ health as food such as carrots can choke a horse or give them a painful condition called colic. Feeding the ponies also changes their behaviour and grazing patterns and puts the conservation programme under which the horses were introduced to the park in the first place at risk. It may feel like a kind thing to do, to offer a beautiful horse a carrot or crisp but, perhaps counter-intuitively, it’s not in their best interest.
I am not a horse expert, but as this post is one of the top posts that surfaces when people search for the Sutton Park ponies on Google, I feel it is only responsible to repeat this message to park visitors who might be searching for the ponies or have stumbled upon them for the first time and want to find out more about them.
It’s best to keep a respectful distance from them, keep to the paths, and zoom with your camera rather than your feet. They’re often in public areas and close to or on the main paths anyway, so you can see and photograph them easily enough without needing to get too close to them.
I was so happy to see them. They’re such beautiful animals, and it felt really special to see wild ponies so close in to the city centre as I’ve previously only ever encountered them on the hills and mountains in Shropshire and Wales.
