Welcome to the Dartmoor Pony Training Centre

We were set up in 2005 initially to take on ponies either left unsold at the markets, or those going for low prices to dealers.

Although we successfully re-homed 100% of our ponies we felt that there was more we could do.

Initially we were called the Dartmoor Pony Rescue Centre, but we decided to change our name and aims in February 2007. This was for a number of reasons.

We felt that as well as taking on, training and re-homing a number of ponies, we could expand the work we did to encompass more promotional work for the breed.

At the moment, the market price of Hill ponies is still relatively low – I say low, but the price has actually increased a great deal due to the hard work of other organisations.

However, when you consider that many ponies will be sold at market for around £20, and will go on to make fabulous all-round ponies, this still seems pretty low to us! Perhaps a better way of putting it would be to say that they are undervalued considering what fantastic ponies they will make!

We were also worried about using the word ‘Rescue’ in our name, and this is something that people involved in the breed were also concerned about. This concern stems from the fact that people didn’t want Dartmoor Hill Ponies to be a pity case. We could understand this, and decided that what the breed needed was for people to work together and also for us to do as much promotional work as possible.

Hence we are now the Dartmoor Pony Training Centre!

You can read our constitution for more details about us, but below is a summary of our main aims:

• To take on a number of ponies every year to train and re-home preferably doing ‘high profile’ jobs e.g. working with special needs people etc. We hope that these ponies will act as ambassadors for the breed.
• To help promote Dartmoor Hill ponies in any way possible.
• To offer advice and marketing and training support to people wanting to sell their ponies privately (we hope to be able to have an online sales list where we can help advertise any Dartmoor Hill ponies for sale.)
• To offer advice and information on suitable training methods for working with Dartmoor Hill ponies. This will include running training workshops and events, and working with other trainers – see our events page for more details.
• To compile a list of national trainers with experience working with Dartmoor Hill Ponies. This will be accessible to anyone buying a Hill pony and also pony keepers needing training support.
• To work alongside and support other organisations and bodies working with Hill Ponies to help us achieve our aims.

We hope that you enjoy reading more about us and please contact us if you have any questions at all about the work that we do.

At present we are a non-profit voluntary organisation registered with the council for Voluntary Services. It is illegal for any of our committee members to benefit in any way (financially or otherwise) from the organisation. This means that all the work we do is voluntary, and we are not allowed to be paid or receive anything in return for what we do. Please see our constitution for more details on how this works.We hope to be able to apply for Registered charity status in the near future
.

Please find below a list of our committee members:

Chairperson and trainer - Natalie Torr
Fundraising Officer and trainer - Kathryn Hulland
Secretary - Joe Canti
Treasurer - Ted Torr
Fundraising Officer - Kate Evans

Membership
Membership to our organisation currently costs £5 and this will mean you will be invited to all of our AGM’s and receive our newsletters. Please call us on 01364 654609, or email: dartmoorponytrainingcentre@yahoo.co.uk for more details.