Drybarrows Havana

Blessed with meeting the lovely Drybarrows Havana (b. 2022) while visiting Cumbria in 2022 while visiting the Drybarrows stud on a “Ponies and Pints Tour” with Melissa Kreuzer of Dreamhayven.

Havana is very friendly filly foal and was willing to greet me while photographing her. I have a soft spot for bays and she is a bright one. My first Fell is also a bay. They are, at times, hard(er) to find in the states being that black is the dominant color. It was a lovely farm visit. Enjoyed an adventurous mini rollercoaster ride through the hills in the trailer off the back of David’s ATV (see embedded video on this page). With the others, we were graced with the sublime presence of many lovely mares, a few stallions, foals frolicking in separate herds (stud colt gangs) and filly foals at their dam’s side.

It’s always an endless array of beauty at David & Gail’s place. Perched at the hill’s edge taking in the view above Haweswater, and chatted about ponies. It was an uncommonly hot summer for Cumbria in 2022, achieved quite the sunburn even on my ankles.

A very memorable visit and lo and behold when the Hill Bred Gems Sale appeared on my radar in fall, I promised myself I would not be bidding.

Until I saw her, oh when I saw her….. And I told myself “if” the little bay with nice conformation in the catalogue was the one I met while visiting Cumbria (at the time, I did not know that cute little bay filly’s name), maybe, just maybe, it was meant to be.

And so it was. Northwest Auctions ran the progressive online Hill Bred Gems auction of hill bred Fell ponies, including Drybarrows and Bracklinn Stud ponies. For 2023, Greenholme joined in for another “Gem” of a sale in September, 2023.

The sweet spot for me, as bidder, was to see the ponies in their natural environs and in a herd with dam at their side.

Granted I had a pre-purchase glimpse and in-person visit, the premise of this sale is different as the ponies never go to an in-person sale which can be stressful on a youngster. Buyers are free to visit the farm to preview potential prospects with both types of auctions. With the online auction, one can also peruse a web page with live updates, including photos and video, a month or two leading up to placing bids.

David was gracious enough to offer wintering on Havana’s own stomping grounds with her dam. Where a pony is raised and why this is important in relation to epigenetics, is another topic I will endeavor on another page one day.

Considering the latter, I still fully support other actions and have purchased and imported from traditional auctions sponsored by the NWA/Fell Pony Society. At the end of the day, the pony chosen and support it receives in the process is what matters. All are well-cared for.

As a model of good animal husbandry and looking to the future, what a wonderful way to import a pony from start to finish.

If curious about the auction, have a look at the catalogue.

Horse and Hound featured the Hill Bred Gem’s sale’s report. Nine ponies were purchased to transport across the pond.

I revisited Havana in the summer of 2023, and she was being kept with a delightful group of lovely yearlings (female only).

It was like no time had passed. She was very sweet, docile and the first to greet us. I was very pleased to see how she’d grown, and am very excited about the opportunity to see this prospective brood grow in my own herd over time. Love her lines, conformation, disposition, and hardiness. She will be a dynamic addition to our breeding program, if all goes as planned, to represent the best that Fells have to offer in a genetically diverse, thoughtfully procured Fell pony herd.

Havana will arrive at our farm this spring of 2024. Very excited to re-connect with her and proud to add a Drybarrows beauty like this to our family.

About Drybarrows:

The late Chris Thompson’s hill farm, Drybarrows, is farmed by his son David and daughter in law Gail. Drybarrows is a typical Cumbrian holding, with a long winding track up through the fields to the house and buildings. Whereas on a lowland farm it would be very odd to have the house at one side of the fenced land, up here it’s right where it needs to be, looking down over the ‘in-bye’ from a position tight against the fell wall. The farmstead lies central to all the work because once you’ve gone beyond the buildings and through the fell gate you’re out onto the open common with the sheep and the ponies.

It’s a fine morning in early August, with wisps of cloud and a breeze thinning the sunshine on the tops. There is grass and sedge underfoot with sheep trods winding across black turfy soil and granite boulders poking up where they were left by the last Ice Age. A silver-grey tarn lying in a hollow reflects a darting dragonfly. Pinpricks of purple show where the heather is just coming into bloom. On the lower ground a neighbour is mowing-off encroaching bracken, and up here, when our wheels crush the fronds overhanging our path, we’re assailed by the same sour green smell.

Hills and valleys unfold steeply, grey, fawn and green, and the higher we climb the more stupendous the views appear, fading paler and paler into distance, from sage and blue to an ethereal lavender. From the steep slopes above Haweswater we can see Cross Fell, the Pennines, and Wild Boar Fell above Mallerstang. If we were to climb still higher we could spot Blackpool Tower, the sands of the Solway and the hills of southern Scotland.

“On a good day,” says David, “it’s the finest office in the world. On a bad day, the worst!”

(2023). The Drybarrows Ponies - Legacy of Chris Thompson. The Fell Pony Society. https://www.fellponysociety.org.uk/PeopleAndPonyProfiles/2013_AUG_ThelateChrisThompson.htm

Drybarrows Havana is by Drybarrows Dynamic out of Drybarrows Complete. Drybarrows Dynamic resides at Halstone Fell Ponies). Drybarrows Dynamic is by Carrock I’m Yer Man (photo below, source: https://www.facebook.com/HillBredFellGems, unknown photographer). https://www.facebook.com/reel/506378854307423 - to see Drybarrows Dynamic moving, from 2022. Another short clip of a younger Dynamic from Halstone: https://fb.watch/rs6bsUnZFv/.