- The Guardian,
- Wednesday June 27 2001
Whatever its name, the arrival of the strange beast has been hailed as a godsend by the owners of the Eden Ostrich Farm near Penrith, which has been closed for three months by the foot-and-mouth crisis.
"Shetlands are awfully small," spluttered a spokeswoman for the British Horse Society. "My first thought was 'poor shetland'."
The tan and black boldly-striped foal is the result of an unusual coupling between a lonely mare called Tilly and a male circus performer called Bijou. They were left together in a field last winter and no-one expected that nature would take its course.
So when the female was born nine days ago, staff were delighted, as the farm visitor centre at Langwathby in Cumbria is due to re-open to the public on Monday.
The as-yet unnamed foal has a horse-like head and equine body, though her ears are longer than a horse's. She will have a "qua-ha" call like her father and it will be difficult to fit a saddle and ride her.
Tilly the pony was given to the centre by a nearby wildlife park,who were unaware of the pregnancy. Bijou, who was wintering there, has since returned to Mary Chipperfield's touring circus.
Such hybrids are extremely rare because a horse has 64 chromosomes and a zebra has only 44. The pregnancy could not have happened if Tilly had been male and Bijou female.
The British Horse Society said it wouldn't recommend creating such a hybrid, unless you wanted a striped shetland with huge ears and a vile temper.
Colchester Zoo has housed three zebra and black ass hybrids, but their birth was an accident.
Karen Peet, the co-owner of Eden Ostrich Park, said: "It never struck us to wonder who - or what - the father was because we assumed it was another shetland pony."
She said as the foal got older her stripes became bolder. They realised what had happened when they discovered that Tilly had shared a field with a zebra.
