Pony grooming

The theme of grooming and dressing a horse is continued in this photo of a light horse being clipped by a remarkable contrivance.  In spite of the mechanical assistance the job was clearly highly labour-intensive.  The location is unknown.  Sadly the pony receiving attention is not of the long vanished native breed of Galloway horses mentioned in Shakespeare's King Henry IV, Part II: Know we not Galloway Nags?  These were small, sturdy animals, brown in colour with black legs, having small heads.  Competing theories trace their origins wither to Scandinavian ponies brought by the Vikings or to Spanish ponies rescued from a wrecked ship of the Armada.  Some genuine Galloway horses may have survived in Sorbie parish until the late eighteenth century but their build made them unsuitable as draught animals for agriculture and brought about their demise.