It’s unfair.
They have produced and supplied over 70 winners – Lead rein, Hunter, Show and Intermediate - at both the Horse of the Year Show and the Royal International Horse Show.
For HOYS, they have qualified more ponies than anyone else
and won Supreme three times.At the Royal International they
have won Supreme three times in succession.
Their best pony was
Sionbrien, a 14 hh Show Hunter pony, bred by Margaret Higgon
of Haverfordwest, which they bought for £650 from a traveller which they thought was a “total nut case” but which went on to win no less than 26 major championships in a single year including both HOYS and the Royal International.
They have also exported more ponies than anybody else in the
country.
They should be on the front cover of Horse and Hound
at least twice a year.
They should be in the Guinness Book of
Records.
They should be honoured for their services to the art
of showing.
But, apart from the small, select world of show ponies,
they are virtually unknown in the wider horsey world.
They are
Ron and Debbie Thomas.
<< 2005 Super Champion Show Pony HOYS
Broadmore Chatterbox
Jemima Walker
Debbie, who was born in Madley, a tiny
village in Hereford was Madley in love with ponies when she was
a girl.
"I remember, I didn't come from a horse mad family. My
mother had a horse. She used to hack out. But nothing more than
that.“I think I first sat on a pony when I was three. He was
called Ember. He was dark bay. We did everything, Local shows.
The Prince Philip Cup. Everything. We won all kinds of competitions.
But local competitions. Nothing special.
I remember we used to go hunting with the South Herefordshire.
Me and some other girls, we used to nick days off school. We'd
say we had a stomach upset and then go out with the hunt."
Ron, by comparison, was pony mad from the beginning. He was
born in Pencader, Carmarthenshire. For a time he was a policeman
in Laugharne and then a milkman before he turned to horses and
ponies full-time. He hunted with the Vale of Clettwr. He was
also a keen point-to-pointer. He produced Mr Lord, a National
Hunt stallion, which 20-years ago was always being rated as one
of the top 30 in Great Britain and Ireland. He also produced
Monsignor, who still holds the two-mile record at Cheltenham
as well as the likes of others such as Hubble Bubble, a Show
stallion and Rough Lad, a famous sprinter.
2002 Chiddock Spot On.
Gemma
James >>
Ron and Debbie first
started producing Show ponies over 30 years ago.
"We used to go to local shows," says Debbie. " People
started asking me to train their ponies for them. We said, Yes.
I think we started with about four or five. About that. We did
everything. Keep them. Look after them. Train them."
Their first big success was a long time coming.
"We had our first major win at the Royal International in Birmingham.
It was the last time the Royal was there. It was with a locally
bred pony, Talacharm Wedding Chorus, a five-year-old mare. She
was ridden by Jessica Pritchard, a local girl. We later sold
her to Australia.""She was a disaster," says Ron. "No brain
box. Crazy temperament. Impossible. It happens."
Since then, from their yard at Llanddarog, just outside Carmarthen,
they have produced many hundreds of show ponies ranging in size
from 11.2 hh to 15.2 and in value from a mere £250 to over £9,000.
<< 2004 Chiddock Over the
Limit.
Nick Schofield
So what is the secret of their success?
Two things, they say.
Good clients and good ponies.
"The best clients are the clients who leave everything to us,
" says Ron. "We know what they want. In some cases, we know better than
them what they want. We've only got six or seven clients, which
is perfect. Some of them we've had going back 20 years or so.
They’re all about the same size. There’s not one big client among
them. Which, again, is a good thing."
As far as good ponies are concerned, they only deal with their
own specially-selected small group of breeders.
"Again," says Debbie, "We know them. They know us."
But what do they look for when buying a pony, especially a
potential championship pony?
“Quality. Temperament. A good temperament. Movement," says Ron.
"It's
got to have that something extra. You can't define it. It's got
to have presence. It's got to have something that sets it aside
from the rest."
"He won’t buy a pony unless he can see it going loose in
a small paddock," says Debbie. "It has to be a mover. Movement
is everything. People always under-estimate movement when they
are buying a pony."
Is Ron always right? "I'm
right about 90-per-cent of the time," he grins. "And if we both
like it then we're OK. No problem."
Price is always a factor. But, perhaps, surprisingly prices
are not as high as you might think. Debbie and Ron reckon they
pay, on average, between £3,000 and £4,000 for a potential show
champion with that something they can't define. They are also
doing more and more "shares" with breeders. The breeders
give them the ponies. They train and produce it for nothing.
When they come to sell the pony, they split the price with the
breeder. If buying a pony is not as high as some may think, looking
after it, stabling, it, feeding it, vets bills, entry fees, transportation
and everything else - a bale of top quality hay is £53 – can
cost up to £5,000 a year.
Finally, the actual training. "Debbie
is the Anky …………of the pony world," says Ron.
"The
ideal pony rider should be 5’ 10”. He/She should be small, neat.
Frankie Dettori would make a perfect jockey for a pony. You need
good co-ordination. It'd like being on stage. Sometimes we use
Nick Scholfield. He’s a National Hunt jockey. Sometimes Charlotte
Du Jardin, who rides young horses for Carl Hester. They’re both
very good. The kind of rider we don’t want is the Ruby Wax-type.
Shouting. Bad tempered. Making a lot of noise. Using the whip.
That kind of thing. Gordon Ramsey would be good because he always
wants to win.
"To ride a show pony really well, you’ve got to be a very,
very good jockey. A good jockey can make an ordinary pony look
very good. That's what it's all about when you're showing.
And appearance. "When
one of our ponies goes into the ring, people immediately know
it's one of ours. They've got to
be more than well turned out. They've got to look spectacular.
It takes time. But it's
always worth it."
What of the future of showing? "Very
bleak," says Ron."There are not many good old-fashioned
breeders left. One year you would visit them and they would be
living in a big mansion. The year after you'd visit them again
and the mansion was for sale and the breeder lived in the lodge.
Then the following year, the lodge was for sale and they lived
in a caravan. It was quite sad really. But these breeders would
breed the nicest and best ponies you could imagine. If they bred
stock that weren't correct, they'd be shot and this ensured that
only correct ponies would be used for breeding. Nowadays, it's
all changed. Some breeders, who breed foals with twisted front
legs, pay high flying vets to put their foals legs in plaster
to try to correct them. But this leads to problems and more often
than not, the twisted legs are then passed on to their progeny.
The big problem is there are not enough good stallions in the
country. The Societies should do something to keep them here.
We also need more incentives for winning. At the moment showing
is hardly viable."
Let's hope he and Debbie get the honours and
rewards they so richly deserve . Before it’s too late.