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Konik means small horse in Polish. I recently came across some pictures of this rare breed and thought they were extremely pretty and had an interesting history. They are mouse grey in colour with dark manes and tails and zebra-type markings on their legs.

They are descended directly from the Tarpan, a wild European forest horse which survived in central Europe until the late 1800s when the last were captured in Poland, and then kept in captivity in zoos until the last died in 1910. However, around the time of World War 2, Polish scientists noticed that Tarpan-like foals called Bilgoraj Konik were being born to domestic ponies. Scientists have managed to back-breed over generations and recreate the extinct forest horse.

I read an interesting article about the 2007 FEI European Pony Championships, where each pony had to be measured before the start of the event by two vets. Out of 148 ponies, only one was determined by both vets to be over-height.

The FEI’s definition of a pony is 148cm without shoes and 149cm with shoes. However a 2cm tolerance margin was applied as the measurement took place under competition conditions, so ponies must not exceed 150cm unshod and 151cm shod in order to compete. This amount of tolerance sounds a lot to me and I wonder how much tolerance is usual for non-competition measurement.

When I competed ponies (a long time ago), there were often a number which looked to be bigger than the others even though they had certificates to the contrary. My view was that some of these were dubious - the pony must have had its feet rasped to the bone or have been standing in a hole when measured. However another explanation is that they were within similarly generous tolerance margins.