It is clear that horses with substance were used for drawing chariots at the Roman invasion in the year 55 B.C., but no great development in horse-breeding took place in England till the Normans proved that warriors could fight more effectively on horseback than on foot. After this the noblemen of England appear to have set store by their horses, consequently the twelfth and thirteenth centuries may be regarded as the age in which Britain’s breed of heavy horses became firmly established.

In Sir Walter Gilbey’s book is a quotation showing that “Cart Horses fit for the dray, the plough, or the chariot” were on sale at Smithfield (London) every Friday, the extract being made from a book written about 1154, and from the same source we learn that during the reign of King John, 1199-1216, a hundred stallions “of large stature” were imported from the low countries—Flanders and Holland.

Passing from this large importation to the time of the famous Robert Bakewell of Dishley (1726-1795), we find that he too went to Flanders for stock to improve his cart horses, but instead of returning with stallions he bought mares, which he mated with his stallions, these being of the old black breed peculiar—in those days—to Leicestershire. There is no doubt that the interest taken by this great breed improver in the Old English type of cart horse had an effect far more important than it did in the case of the Longhorn breed of cattle, seeing that this has long lost its popularity, whereas that of the Shire horse has been growing and widening from that day to this.

Bakewell was the first English stockbreeder to let his stud animals for the season, and although his greatest success was achieved with the Dishley or “New Leicester” sheep, he also carried on the system with Longhorn bulls and his cart horses, which were described as “Bakewell’s Blacks.”

That his horses had a reputation is proved by the fact that in 1785 he had the honour of exhibiting a black horse before King George III. at St. James’s Palace, but another horse named “K,” said by Marshall to have died in that same year, 1785, at the age of nineteen years, was described by the writer just quoted as a better animal than that inspected by His Majesty the King. From the description given he appears to have had a commanding forehand and to have carried his head so high that his ears stood perpendicularly over his fore feet, as Bakewell held that the head of a cart horse should. It can hardly be questioned that he was a believer in weight, seeing that his horses were “thick and short in body, on very short legs.”

The highest price he is credited with getting for the hire of a stallion for a season is 150 guineas, while the service fee at home is said to have been five guineas, which looks a small amount compared with the 800 guineas obtained for the use of his ram “Two Pounder” for a season.

What is of more importance to Shire horse breeders, however, is the fact that Robert Bakewell not only improved and popularized the Shire horse of his day, but he instituted the system of letting out sires for the season, which has been the means of placing good sires before farmers, thus enabling them to assist in the improvement which has made such strides since the formation of the Shire Horse Society in 1878.

It is worth while to note that Bakewell’s horses were said to be “perfectly gentle, willing workers, and of great power.” He held that bad pullers were made so by bad management. He used two in front of a Rotherham plough, the quantity ploughed being “four acres a day.” Surely a splendid advertisement for the Shire as a plough horse.

Flemish Blood

In view of the fact that Flanders has been very much in the public eye for the past few months owing to its having been converted into a vast battlefield, it is interesting to remember that we English farmers of to-day owe at least something of the size, substance and soundness of our Shire horses to the Flemish horse breeders of bygone days. Bakewell is known to have obtained marvellous results among his cattle and sheep by means of in-breeding, therefore we may assume that he would not have gone to the Continent for an outcross for his horses unless he regarded such a step beneficial to the breed.