The Scottish Borders has a genuinely distinctive equestrian tradition in its Common Ridings — historic mounted processions held annually in towns like Hawick, Selkirk and Langholm, marking old boundary-riding customs — which speaks to a region where horses and ponies are woven into local identity, not just recreation. Hunting is well established too, alongside good, honest hill and farmland grazing.
It borders Northumberland, and the pony culture and market on both sides of that border are similar enough that most serious buyers search both together rather than treating the national boundary as a real barrier. Towns like Kelso, Melrose and Jedburgh anchor a genuinely close-knit rural community, and ponies here tend to be sensible, native-influenced types well used to open country, with prices generally more reasonable than the Edinburgh or Glasgow conurbations.