Clydesdale - Saving the great horse

As a total digression on this thread, do you know of any genetic issues in Highlands? PSSM, EMS, that sort of thing? Would really like to avoid that.
 
Have no idea about pssm it doesn't seem to be on the list of susceptible breeds but think it is possible EMS on the other hand I have seen some but lots of those are management problems although always could be a genetic link
 
To me Highlands don't seem as much of a rare breed as the line ups at shows up here are usually into the double figures for almost all classes! Especially mare classes!
 
Yeah, I see lots around Scotland, to be fair. Just driving along the roads in the Highlands. That's one of the reasons I've got it into my head to get one. They are cute, useful, and relatively plentiful here, whereas they are super rare elsewhere.
 
Is there a rare breed group in the UK or EU? There is one in the USA and it covers all types of livestock and lists breeds under several different categories such as recovering to critical. My dream is to win the lottery, ha, and start a rare breed breeding program.
 
GSD Woman said:
Is there a rare breed group in the UK or EU? There is one in the USA and it covers all types of livestock and lists breeds under several different categories such as recovering to critical. My dream is to win the lottery, ha, and start a rare breed breeding program.
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Do you mean the Rare Breed Survival Trust? (RBST)

They are the ones who identify and publish at risk statuses.
 
The issue of rarity in highlands is the low numbers of foals registered every year usually about 200 annually sometimes more sometimes fewer of those roughly 50% are colts mosy of which are gelded as ridden ponies Mares are more and more are purely ridden ponies which means very few procede to breeding their replacements so as the old ones die off become less likely to breed the numbers overall fall. A level of breeders falling off and stopping breeding due to old age and the cost of producing the ponies and an aging interest in preserving the breed means that they are a breed that succeeds or fails based on the younger generations coming through. All not helped much by closed shop interests in keeping stock low and prices high
 
Re. the riding having watched the pre judging ridden champs at equifeast a few years ago (yes the ground did vibrate) the shires and clydes seemed to do a much better, flashier job of it with some going very nicely indeed. The suffolks always look uncomfortably wide to me, I don't think I would manage to ride one.

Plenty of highlands showing down here too! It really surprised me having not seen many in general life, go to an NPS show and they are everywhere!
 
Caol Ila said:
It didn't really address the elephant in the room, though. How can you preserve a breed when the market for that breed is tiny? Very few people use horses to pull heavy sh1t nowadays, which is what drafts excel at. The mechanization of transport and agriculture is a pretty insurmountable problem. All the heavy drafts are in similar boats -- Shires, Belgians, Percherons, Suffolk Punch, etc. Breeders ultimately need to be able to sell horses, after all, but the horse market has increasingly turned to pets and sporthorses. Drafts aren't ideal as either. A few enthusiasts will buy Shires and Clydes as happy hackers and low level competition horses, but most of us don't actually want an 18hh draft. I sure don't. Given the horses I see at my yard and others, no one else does, either.

I want to see those breeds preserved as much as anybody, but it's going to take a lot more than some breeders hanging out at the SECC in Glasgow and importing a few horses from the US. You need to be able to breed *enough* horses to increase the gene pool. Unless someone is subsizing the breeders, someone has to be keen to buy the horses.
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I don't know about the UK but there is a scheme in Ireland where farmers can apply to get subsidies for breeding native farm animals. Horses are classed as agricultural so connies, Irish draughts and Kerry bog are included as they are native equine species. Perhaps something similar could be done for native UK horses.
 
Goldenstar said:
Exactly in Ireland they almost got into bother with the ID , when then the Irish developed the passion for using warmblood mares ,and stallions (but it was the mares that was the issue ) because that’s where the market for very expensive stock took them .
They fell a bit out of love with the traditional type of NH Tb they crossed the mares to as well for a while .
Alot of ID a and crossed TB / ID mares got parted with however being Irish they where quick enough to see the mistake and now the traditional ID cross something they market separately .
The Irish breeders where very fast to see the trap they where walking into and protected the ID and no other country has been anywhere as successful they have in doing this .
They had a head start because the ID has been a true dual purpose breed for long time .When I was a child lots of farmers still had a heavy mare in the field that they sent to the local TB stallion and there where many many heavy type traditional Tb plus all sorts about .
I have an ID crossed Clydesdale atm Blue the cob although I am not convinced there’s not some section D in there as well .
There’s no doubt he’s a nice horse and you could sell him one like him every week but few people breed these type of horses commercially any more in the UK but there would be a demand for them but would people pay a commercial rate for them I don’t know .
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There was a lot of controversy when they started crossing the warmbloods en mass and registering them as ish. Some people argued that they should be classified in a separate stud book.

There has since been an Irish warmblood studbook set up. I think there was merit in having the warmbloods in their own book from the start.

As well as the risk of losing the traditional breeding, the danger is the ish studbook may well become just an inferior version of the continental warmblood books.

Some of the international show jumpers that source horses in Ireland have said if you want to buy a warmblood, you go to Germany or Holland, you don't go to Ireland..
At least the traditional Irish horse category in the studbook will be a failsafe, if things go wrong.
 
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ester said:
Re. the riding having watched the pre judging ridden champs at equifeast a few years ago (yes the ground did vibrate) the shires and clydes seemed to do a much better, flashier job of it with some going very nicely indeed. The suffolks always look uncomfortably wide to me, I don't think I would manage to ride one.
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You get used to it after your second ride. It's the big huge movement which takes a bit longer to adjust to. The canter is worth it and the trot seems to have plenty of variation. From gentle and easy to springy and with bounce (they look the same from the floor but feel very different)

Suffolks are more 'workmanlike' in their movement so don't score as well in HH classes as the flashier shires and Clydesdales.
 
The year was 1973, yes the saddle was used on several horses and No not me riding it was my best mate in life Sadly he died very young of Hodgkins disease so all are long gone. The beach they are riding on is in Morayshire Scotland and was at the bottom of our garden. Lots of fond memories. Think it was a frosty day in March
 
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