The Carneddau Ponies are truly wild but once a year they are gathered up by the local farming communities and given a healthy check before quickly being released back into the wild. It’s an incredible sight to see and I recently got to witness the gathering as well as playing a super micro part of the process. Whilst the farmers and their families did the hard work, we all walked down the mountain in a wide line to discourage the ponies from walking back up again. Once off the mountain, the ponies are checked over and some are removed (ones that may not make the winter and some young colts are taken out to keep the numbers down), have their tails sniped to show they’ve been checked and then released back into the wild whilst the ones kept behind are given new homes courtesy of horse charities. And all in a matter of hours in the most incredible military style operation I’ve ever seen.
