HORSE AND PONY BREEDS

Text | Christie Wolhuter

10. DOSANKO PONY

We move our world tour of the pony over to a different set of islands, far across the seas, in Japan. On a small island known as Hokkaido lives a pony called the Dosanko, or Hokkaido Pony. The Dosanko’s official name in Japanese is ‘Hokkaido Washuba’.

The Dosanko

The Dosanko is one of the rare species that is native to Japan. This willing, gentle pony is found mostly in roan colours, but other solid coloured ponies do exist. The breed is exceptionally strong for its size and in modern times, the ponies are used in the mountains where trucks and other equipment cannot easily travel. The ponies are also used by locals as tour guides to show tourists the local terrain.

DID YOU KNOW?

Not one of the native breeds currently living in Japan is bigger than a pony.

The history

It was thought the ponies were brought over to the island between 1603-1868 by fisherman from the Honshu region. On the island, they were used for transportation and to help carry the herring fish loads. The ponies then had to survive on their own when the fisherman left the island every year in Autumn. This meant they had to survive extreme winter weather conditions on their own, with very little grazing. Only the toughest ones survived to breed, so the ponies today are the ancestors of these very tough first ponies. Even today, the Dosanko feed mostly on bamboo grass in the mountain regions and are left for six months to fend for themselves. They apparently return to the ranches on their own in the spring to escape the bears that emerge from hibernation!

Imagine your pony only got ridden for half of the year, and was expected to pick up his job after surviving alone in the snow for half of the year? The fantastic temperament and hardy nature of the Hokkaido pony seems to be one of his greatest assets and allows him to survive this challenging existence.

Origins

The Hokkaido pony is thought to be a descendant of the Nanbu horse, a breed that resided in the Tohoku region of Honshu. Due to the fact that the history of the Nanbu is not definitive and the animals are now extinct, the exact origins of the Hokkaido’s ancestors are not known. The Nanbu horse was said to be a prized military horse and because larger military horses were needed in the 16th Century, they were ultimately cross-bred with larger breeds. However, the ponies that were sent to Hokkaido Island with the fishermen were not cross-bred (at least to the same degree), and thus they likely have remained close in heritage to the Nanbu.

Today

A breed registry was formed in 1979 and today it is thought that there are around 2000 ponies on the island. A research grant has been given to the Hokkaido University in order to develop conservation efforts for the breed.