Shetland: Shetland Ponies
No visit to the Shetland Islands is complete without seeing the famous Shetland ponies. While I expected to see them everywhere, this wasn’t the case at all, and only after a lot of driving on narrow middle-of-nowhere road, did I come across several of them, including a baby pony. The Shetland pony breed is unique to Shetlands and probably evolved here during prehistoric times, the Bronze Age. The horses are small, with short legs, and very muscular and stocky built. They were mostly used to haul carts with cargo, peat in particular, in the environment of harsh Shetland climate. Shetland Ponies are able to withstand brutal Shetland’s winter and find enough food in the boggy heaths and rocky hills. Shetland ponies is the smallest horse breed in the world!
