Aside from being the oldest of the British native ponies, it also happens to be the most primitive but at the same time the purest breed. The Exmoor not only has great physical strength, but it is resistant to most of the common equine diseases. During the often brutal weather of winter, the Exmoor grows two completely different sets of coats, an inner layer which is oily and smooth and outer coat which is a bit longer but also oily. Their tales also somewhat sticks outward, which is called "ice tail" helps to direct water away from the stomach region.
Many experts suggest that the Exmoor breed is descendant of the Celtic Pony, which migrated from North America across the prehistoric bridge that was made of land and ice. There the Celtic Pony cross-bred with the European native ponies, but only the strongest of the breed survived. Since that time, there has been very little cross breeding. This is the reason that the Exmoor Pony is considered the purest of all the breeds.
There are still many Exmoors that roam the moorlands freely, some privately owned. Every October, they are rounded up and the foals are checked out and then registered with the Exmoor Pony Society. This registration involves the horses being stamped or branded with a star and number. This is usually the only time the ponies on the moorland are handled by people, other than that they roam freely. The ones that are considered not too wild are trained and used in multiple different shows and activities.
There are somewhere between 1,200 and 2,000 Exmoor Ponies left on the planet and only somewhere around 200 of them are bred in the moorland. The Exmoor is a pony breed that has better reproduction in the wild; very little success has been met when they are handled by people. In fact, in the last 200 years, when it came to trying to improve the pony with such things as cross breeding, it led to the decline of the breed.
The Exmoor National Park has two herds within the moors and park staff take regular measure to ensure that the horses are kept in their natural environment and left alone.
World War II was a bad time for the Exmoor Ponies, the moors became a battleground, and many of them were killed. When the war was all said and done, only 50 of these ponies had survived. The local people at the time are what saved this pony. Then in the 1980s, the plight of the Exmoors caught the attention of the public and efforts to revive the breed were energized by popular concern.
In the 1972, Guinness Book of Animal Facts Feats featured the Exmoor Pony as the largest pony breed of all the British pony breeds. The Exmoor Pony is actually becoming more commonly used to comb areas that might have important wildlife, which in turn benefits them by conserving and increasing their population. They are also used to transport adults and children that may suffer from a disability, because of their strength, it is no problem for them to go all day.
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