Why Shetland ponies should not be treated as pets

When Valmai Hunt rattles the chain around a gate near her four Shetland ponies they come running up the paddock. They amble around to the back of the Hunts’ home where her husband Eric, who is no longer as mobile as her, can see them.

Mention of Shetland ponies anywhere usually brings a torrent of examples of their roguish behaviour. But Valmai and Eric, who stood at the pinnacle of breeding ponies in Australia for decades, say they don’t deserve their reputation for naughtiness.

They have experienced people’s ignorance of Shetlands, even on the show circuit which the Hunts dominated for decades with their champion horses.

They succeeded Valmai’s father, Lloyd Hill, who established the Mulwaree Shetland Stud on the banks of the Mulwaree River on Goulburn’s northern edge. They once had 70 ponies.

“I always said to a person buying a pony for their child, never feed it from your hand (or) you’ll teach it to bite,” Valmai said. “We never had those problems.

“They were treated as horses, never as pets,” she said. “They were treated kindly, but not as toys.”

When the National Horse and Pony Show combined all breeds of horses for the first time in 1972, the Mulwaree Shetland Stud won, having amassed more points than any other horse. The all-breeds trophy was never awarded again.

Every inch of a front room of the Hunts’ home is covered with sashes, ribbons and trophies. Valmai has covered lounge chairs and vehicles with rugs made of ribbons and taken loads of them out to the tip, there were so many.

Years ago, on their return from six weeks in Queensland over winter the Hunts were invited to Melbourne for a parade of former champions. Valmai selected Judy, an old mare with a long winter coat for the special parade.

She usually spent a month or so grooming ponies before a show, but did not have the time for preparing Judy for Melbourne. “I thought, what the heck, we’ll take her,” she said.

In Melbourne an onlooker recoiled as Judy stepped down off the float. “Eww! Look at the hair,” they said.

“I was insulted,” Valmai said.

Her disappointment dissolved when an official introduced one of the Shetland judges, who had come from Scotland where the breed had originated on the Shetland Islands, to inspect Judy.

“Oh look at the feathers (hair around the hooves) on her,” the judge said with an expert eye and affirming smile. “You know, I never saw a pony here with feathers on her like that.”

Judy led the parade and the Scottish judge, tying a large sash around her neck, said had she been in the ring he would have awarded the old mare the winning sash. “That was very exciting to me,” Valmai said.

Valmai and Eric ran a busy auctioneering and real estate business while helping Lloyd run the stud before they took over its operation.

Of all the winners they bred, a striking-looking black stallion, Mulwaree Escort, became the undisputed king, winning supreme awards in Sydney and Melbourne among many others. “The top judges from Scotland said he was the best stallion in Australia,” Valmai said.

Eric became the long-serving president of the Australian Pony Stud Book Society and was invited to speak on his experience and knowledge of Shetlands at the Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.

Valmai will turn 97 in January and her days of accepting awards are almost over. But not quite.

Goulburn Quota honoured her earlier this month for her membership of 60 years. In 1964, when the service club was known as Quota International, two members visited the Hunts’ business to confirm Valmai was a partner having completed common law and accountancy courses for her real estate and auctioneer certificate.

“It was an honour to be invited into such a club; there was a limit of membership, two in each category (of business),” she said.

She led a Quota sub-committee to raise money for a mobile mammogram service for Goulburn. Raising $40,000 in less than 12 months, they redirected the money to cancer research when the Australian government funded the mobile service. It was yet another prizewinning effort.