Were Shetland ponies a circus act for Romans?
IN the 1959 epic Ben-Hur, the chariot racing was fast and furious, the horses were pure-bred stallions and the charioteers were musclebound heroes.
As with all sports, however, there must have been less glamorous lower leagues.
Which may explain why archaeologists excavating Britain’s only chariot racing site have unearthed what is thought to be a bone from a Shetland pony.
The find was made at a site in Essex, where the Colchester Archaeological Trust (CAT) has been excavating since 2004.
Now archaeologists want a Shetland pony owner to volunteer their animals to prove it is possible they could pull a chariot.
Experts have been examining the bone – a hoof which appears to be like that of a large female Shetland pony which they believe was used for chariot racing.
Philip Crummy, CAT director, said: “There has been a long-running debate about the size of the horses used to race the chariots and this discovery suggests they would have been quite small. “This is our most interesting find for a long time at the Roman circus in Colchester.
“Also, as the bone of a Roman horse from the site of a Roman circus, it is very rare.
“We think it was around nine hands high – about the size of Shetland ponies or similar small breeds. What we would like is a team of four Shetlands to come down here and pull our chariot to prove it was possible.
“It would be a very interesting experiment and one we would be keen to do.”
The hoof bone is 6cm wide, 3.5cm high and 4.2 cm deep. It is the “coffin bone” and would have been encased by the hoof “capsule” – the main bone of the horse’s foot.
The Roman circus in Colchester consisted of a long, narrow U-shaped arena and would have housed thousands of spectators.
The trust has excavated the remains of horses from 22 other sites within the old Colchester garrison in the past 20 years, most of them near the Roman circus.
From the age of five, horses would have been trained and raced until they were as old as 20.
Small horses have been kept on the Shetland Islands since the Bronze Age.
During the Industrial Revolution, thousands were taken to mainland Britain to become pit ponies, used underground to haul coal.