Welcome to Week 16 of my series of photos. The theme I have chosen for this week is DOMESTICATED ANIMALS, starting with ponies and horses.

So what is the difference between a horse and a pony? It is mainly down to height – Horses are measured in “hands”, with one hand equaling 4 inches. An equine that measures 14 hands and 2 inches tall (or more) at the withers (the ridge between their shoulder blades) is considered a horse, whereas those that are shorter are known as ponies. They can be trained and used for a wide variety of purposes.

Dartmoor and New Forest ponies belong to “Commoners” (people who have the rights to graze animals on the Common land) but are semi-wild, only being rounded up once a year. They are native to Britain and probably go back 500,000 years to the end of the last Ice Age.