By Casey Neill
Alex Morgan has been a Dandenong Show fixture for more than 60 years, and is known to those involved with the annual event as “grandpa”.
But his great-grandchildren and a herd of ponies are threatening to steal his limelight.
The Journal met his daughter Lisa Wanless, granddaughter Amy Matthey, and six of his great-grandchildren ahead of this year’s show, on Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 November.
“My mother (Janice) got her first Shetland, which became my Shetland, when I was two,” Lisa said.
“Fifty-one years ago we started breeding and showing Shetlands, which then turned into miniatures as well.
“I have 13 grandchildren at the moment, and two on the way.
“They all want to be involved.”
Lisa’s sister, Jayne Stuchbery, is also part of the pony world.
“I think mother and my sister will be judging and stewarding at the show this year,” Lisa said.
“It depends on what they need.”
Lisa has eight horses on her Pakenham property, a combination of miniatures and Shetlands, and Janice keeps one miniature at her Narre Warren North home.
“She’s a life member of the miniature ponies,” Lisa said.
“We’d always had ponies and horses as kids growing up.
“For some reason she wanted to show for herself but, of course, the Shetlands and the miniatures are small and easy for her to handle.
“She’s had a lot of success breeding and showing over the years, winning numerous prizes at the Royal as well as at Dandenong Show.”
Asked what made a good show pony, Lisa pointed out one of her Shetlands as “very typical of an English Shetland, where it’s got very heavy legs”.
“She’s quite stocky in her build,” she said.
“That red and white one, she’s got finer legs more like a pony legs.
“I go more for the heavy legs because that’s what a Shetland should be, like what was in the Shetland Isles, whereas the finer ones are more how they’ve bred them here because people want them more like ponies.
“These were originally bred to go down in the mines in Ireland and Scotland.
“Out in the wild, on the Shetland Isles, they roam around and they’ve got to be very sturdy because it’s all rocky there.”
Lisa’s grandkids ride and help to prepare the ponies for showing.
“I personally stay in it now more for the grandkids, because what little girl doesn’t want a pony? And little boy,” Lisa said.
“So many kids don’t get that interaction now and they’ve only got a little back yard.
“They just have a ball here.”
She said the Dandenong Show was also a great opportunity for kids to interact with farm animals.
“It always amazes me when little kids, you ask them where milk comes from and they say ‘the carton’ or the ‘milk bar’,” she said.
“They’ll have a bit of sheering going on or milking of cows and they have the animal nursery.”
