Shire Horse

Summary

The Shire horse is well-known for being one of the tallest breeds of horse in the world. The Shire horse is a draught horse and falls in to the group of cold blooded horses.

The modern day Shire horse uses include showing and pleasure riding. The Shire horse is also used in the Household Cavalry; they are “Drum horses”, due to the Shire horse’s enormous size and great strength the Shire horse lends itself perfectly to job as it is an excellent weight carrier.

Characteristics

The shire horses can stand from 16 hands, some stallions can exceed 18 hands, they are usually grey, bay, black, brown and sometimes rone. The Shire horse has a large frame and a heavily muscled body.The Shire horse is an extreamly strong breed of horse, which makes them good weight carriers. The Shire horse has a docile nature and despite of its large stature the Shire horse is a very gentle breed of horse.The Shire horse is renowned for its heavily feathered legs.

History

The origins of the Shire horse can be traced back to the medieval “Great horse”. The Great horse was brought over from Europe when England was invaded by William the conqueror in the year 1066 - The Battle of Hastings.

The medieval “Great horse” was bred with the native horses to develop the “Old English black”, the name points to a black coloured horse, but in fact the horse was not a colour breed. Old English black horses where more often bay than black.

This horse was then developed by a farmer named Robert Bakewell who was ground breaking in the field of selective breeding, consequently the horse was  renamed the “Bakewell black”.

The “Bakewell black” was renamed the “English cart horse” when pedigree society was formed in 1878. The horses name was changed once again to what the horse is known as today, the “Shire horse”.

The Shire horse was used for general agricultural work. The Shire horse is famous for drawing  carts laden with ale from the breweries to public houses, but as time went on the Shire horses were replaced by mechanisation.