One of only 30 in the world

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Rollin

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This is the photo Horse and Hound put on their Facebook page last year. Only the second pure bred Cleveland Bay filly to be born in France and one of fewer than 30 born world wide last year.

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And another at 3 weeks of age

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Here is a photo of Duchess taken this morning. She is 15 months old and should make 17hh. Straight limbed, lovely action, great feet and a sweet temperament.

So why is the Cleveland Bay on the RBST critical list?

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Her full sister, the first pure bred filly born in France.

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So beautiful!

Just the sort of horse that should be in demand for leisure and lower level competition riders too (and I mean that in a positive way).
 
I am convinced! I have warmbloods but have decided that I will breed no more and will seriously look in to acquiring a nice mare for me. Who has these horses in UK?
 
What a beautiful yearling. I wish there were more CBs around, unfortunately as the numbers have got so low they just aren't available for the market they would be perfect for.

Out of interest, I know that there is a small but dedicated breeding programme for CBs, are they using any other breeds to help boost numbers? I know that obviously purity is desirable but is there a willingness to use certain other very similar horses?
 
Kat said:
So beautiful!

Just the sort of horse that should be in demand for leisure and lower level competition riders too (and I mean that in a positive way).
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Thank you. I accept your post is positive - I agree. This is a great horse for riding club activities and leisure. Since moving to France we have become very interested in endurance, two pure bred mares in the UK have competed at 80 miles and a part-bred completed the Golden Horsehoe.

Last year the top East Coast Trail Horse in USA was a CBxTB.

And of course HM keeps them as carriage horses in the Royal Mews.
 
Toraylac said:
I am convinced! I have warmbloods but have decided that I will breed no more and will seriously look in to acquiring a nice mare for me. Who has these horses in UK?
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Great Britain has had a wamblood for years, Harvey Smith took one the Olympic Games in Mexico and another won Burleigh - it was called a CBxTB!!!

There is a breeders list on the website of the Cleveland Bay Horse Society. Are you in search of a youngster or a ready backed horse. If you are happy to start with an unbacked horse please pm me and I will put you in contact with someone not far from you.
 
Out of interest, why do you think that their numbers have declined so much? Surely the demand isn't there for a reason.

Or is it because they have been used for crossing with TB's mainly?
 
webble said:
Is there really that few? I used to part loan two, both owned by the same person! They were gorgeous horses but very stubborn when they wanted to be
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I think the perception that they are ALL stubborn has done the breed a great diservice. The first two we purchased were NEVER stubborn both great riding horses. Currently of my two five year olds one is much more confident than the other and hacks out alone every morning. The more nervous of the two might be thought 'stubborn' but we know she just needs to be brought on gently.

I have just done a count for 2013 and actually there were 23 pure breds born in the UK and 9 overseas which includes our own.
 
Apercrumbie said:
What a beautiful yearling. I wish there were more CBs around, unfortunately as the numbers have got so low they just aren't available for the market they would be perfect for.

Out of interest, I know that there is a small but dedicated breeding programme for CBs, are they using any other breeds to help boost numbers? I know that obviously purity is desirable but is there a willingness to use certain other very similar horses?
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Dr. Andy Dell conducted a large DNA study of the Cleveland Bay a few years ago and was given an award by the RBST, presented by HRH the Price of Wales. He developed a computer programme of selective mating, which is available to all breeders. We aim to mate mares and stallions to reduce in-breeding or some of us do.

I have three mares who are good mates for my stallion and frozen semen stored at West Kington suitable for my stallion's daughter.

CBHS receives grant money from the Horse Betting Levy Board to encourage pure bred breeding, for example if my filly had been born in the UK I would have received £500. Overseas breeders receive no grant, which shows that there are breeders who will breed 'pure' for the love of the breed.

There has been much debate about introducing non-CB blood into the stud book, but the RBST have pointed out, there can be no going back once you change the stud book. We do have a grading register in which small amounts of non CB blood can be introduced over several generations but this takes years.

Many of our pure bred breeders also breed part breds, including myself.

There is a great temptation to use CB mares to produce sport horses from hot blooded horses or warmbloods. Somebody needs to breed pure bred mares in the first place.

As far as I am concerned the best way forward for the Cleveland Bay is for more to compete in jumping and dressage.

The top performing horse on the junior dressage team in the UK Spring Pascall is by a Hannoverian stallion out of a CB mare.
 
LJR said:
Out of interest, why do you think that their numbers have declined so much? Surely the demand isn't there for a reason.

Or is it because they have been used for crossing with TB's mainly?
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I think the CB has been labelled as a stubborn horse. There is a mis-conception that they are all 17hh giants, my first two stood at 15.2hh and 15.3hh.

They are slow maturing and I have found they don't like 'schooling' this was confirmed by another breeder and a trainer. We back and hack then send them back to school. We give them plenty of variety and plenty of time. The oldest horse on my yard is 35, still working and has never given me a vet bill, we are sure he is a part-bred CB.

It is true that most part-breds are TB crosses. We are crossing with Shagya Arabs (breed standard 15.2hh-16hh). I think it will make a better sport horse but time will tell.

I don't know all the answers. After we bought our first two,, everyone we met, farrier, vet nurse, show organiser, neighbour said "You have a CB. The best horse I ever had was a Cleveland Bay".
 
Thank you for sharing such lovely photo's. If I thought I could find one in my budget in a few months or maybe next spring, I would pick a CB over pretty much any other breed if it moved well. I used to train one many years ago and she had the most wonderful temperament.
 
I think half there trouble is they are bay!
We have PC Camp here every year and 15 odd years ago most ponies were bay or grey. now they are every colour under the sun but bay is a minority.
She is gorgeous, good luck with her.
 
Clodagh said:
I think half there trouble is they are bay!
We have PC Camp here every year and 15 odd years ago most ponies were bay or grey. now they are every colour under the sun but bay is a minority.
She is gorgeous, good luck with her.
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Ha Ha (can't do those smiley faces)..I love my grey Shagya's but if you want to polish up for a photo there is nothing like a CB coat. The filly in the picture has been living out with a shelter and we gave her 5 mins with a dandy brush!!
 
Beautiful girls. The CB is very under-rated. I have one and she is a really genuine horse, a little quirky sometimes due to her separation anxiety but never under saddle. Not stubborn at all. When I next need to buy a horse it will be another CB.

I was talking to the farrier yesterday about the breed status and the £500 grant but as he pointed out, there is serious overproduction at all levels of the market so how could CB's compete? Warmbloods are everywhere and TB's are cheap as chips. I agree with Rollin that the purebred mares are key for producing sport horses but since there are so many sport horses around is it ethical to keep churning them out into a flooded market? I would love to breed a CB foal or two but I would never feel confident of their future in the current climate. I am not directing that at Rollin by the way, I am thinking about people like myself who don't have the background (if that makes sense!).

Perhaps if the wider issues around overproduction were dealt with, the CB might stand more of a chance?
 
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Nudibranch,

Struggling to get back on the forum!!!

Carriage Driving Magazine produced a long article on the CB last year and opened with exactly your argument. How do rare breeds survive when we are asked to breed fewer horses? My Shagya's are also rare breeds but the breed society in France from starting with fewer than 10 pure bred horses now breed 70-80 foals each year. It can be done.

The £500 I mentioned would only have been paid to me if the filly had been born in the UK - we don't qualify. When we purchased this farm in France in 2005, the Cleveland Bay was not recognised as a pedigree horse and so excluded from many competitions it also made it impossible to breed CB's.

More than three years later after many letters to CBHS and DEFRA the CB was still not recognised so I wrote to the French Prime Minister, 10 days later a phone call from his office in Paris and 6 weeks to get it all sorted.

I have the ONLY pure bred CB stallion standing in the whole of continental europe. Here in France the market for leisure horses is huge - Le Trec, Pleasure Rides and Endurance plus lots of Club dressage and Jumping.

We are only just in a position to get our first youngsters out and about in competition.

British riders import horses bred in France, Germany and Holland in their thousands. All of these countries have state run studs and equestrian organisations which support breeders.

The UK has a ministry of agriculture - a joke when you consider that other EU member states regard horse breeding as 'agriculture' and the UK still seem to think that keeping horses is for the idle rich.

We live close to the National Stud at Lion D'Angers, apart from the famous annual 3 day event for 6 and 7 year old horses, there are events all year round. Dressage, SJ, side saddle, race meetings which are always packed out. We also have access to a whole range of stud management training courses and AI technicians.

It is very difficult to find yards or trainers who can stand stallions. ALL of the local trainers I use in France are set up to take stallions and to train them.

It is a different world.

British riders should look first at what is available in the UK. Look at what the Food and Farming Awards and River Cottage have done to encourage British shoppers to buy their local produce.

We have no dormitory villages here, within 3kms of our house, three local villages provide us with 4 bakers, 3 butchers, 2 pork butchers, 3 grocers, 2 street markets, 2 PO's and 2 banks.

You don't know what you have till its gone!!
 
DearGG and Rightmove,

Thank you for sharing your very nice and positive experiences with Cleveland Bays.

A lady I used to speak to on another forum was a keen dressage rider and it was a part-bred CB mare who got her hooked - again she told me the mare 'was lovely'.
 
Rollin, your thread title explains the problem, neatly. As with all breeds which are rare or reduced, there is going to be a reduced gene pool. That stands to reason, doesn't it? With a reduced gene pool, then there are going to be the undoubted raft of heritable problems. That also makes sense, doesn't it?

The problem with horses which have a reduced human interest, is that they have, or are, standing still. They have ceased to evolve. Though in far greater numerical numbers, the Irish Draft, is heading in exactly the same direction. The C/B is a more advanced version of the I/D. 'Advanced' in as much as there has been no progress beyond the horse fitting in to a type which a judge believes fits the breed description. C/Bs are no longer used to any extent for carriage work, and the I/D no longer pulls a plough. In other words, it's very rare today for either breed to fill the role of its ancestors.

Now before the devotees have an attack of the vapours, just think about what I'm saying, and then ask yourselves what improvements in the individual breeds have been evident. Over the last 40 years, I'd suggest that 'Very few' is the answer.

We don't really hunt, anymore, and the traditional Hunter is in decline. Which breeds, or sport specific types are improving? Show Jumpers, Dressage Horses and Race Horses, and do we accept that with demand, so improvement will follow?

I have the greatest sympathy for those who champion the lesser breeds, truly I do, but they have stopped evolving as horses, and until they find a fresh or a renewed purpose, so the decline will continue.

I admire your drive, and your quest for improvement, really I do, but ...... The very same problems are evident in the rare breeds of cattle and sheep, and the problem is that the world has left them behind, because they have become archaic.

Alec.
 
Rollin, Your girls are stunning! Oh, if only I were 15 years younger. Between your Shagyar Arabs and your CBs...sigh.

Many, many years ago, well before I came to live in the UK, I was at one of my first Royal Shows. I saw breeds there that I had only ever seen in books. I was captivated when I found myself at the CB ring, and saw a mare and foal I have never forgotten. The foal took my breath away. It happened that they belonged to the Queen.

I'm curious...with the reduced numbers in the CB breed, is there the problem of a lack of genetic diversity? Is there a grading up registry? I ask because I own 2 fully registered Baudet du Poitou anesses. The breed was in dire straits back in 1977, when it was discovered that there were only 44 purebreds worldwide. A group of committed, determined breeders, along with the Haras Nationaux, set out to save the breed from extinction. They used the Portuguese Miranda do Doura donkey (very similar in phenotype) and were very careful to prevent inbreeding. There are six families of Poitou donkeys that are recognised and are alternated to avoid doubling up in the first four or five generations. There are now approximately 600 Livre A (purebred) Poitous worldwide. Those that are partbred are Livre B.
 
Just like to clear up some misconceptions. Firstly, 30 in the world - here we are talking purebred foals born in a single year. Secondly - gene pool and inheritance, we have SPARKS monitoring inbreeding. Thirdly - CB role of purebred is as an all-rounder. Lots of "highly bred" horses are produced that the average person cannot ride. The CB part-breds are Grand Prix dressage horses, 4* Eventers, Showjumpers, County winning show horses, high scoring Futurity foals. If you don't know the bloodlines you wont know who they are. The pures are still delivering diplomatic mail twice a day in the middle of London.
 
One of my all time greats was a CB, she was fabulous and jumped the moon. I had absolutely no trouble with her, lovely horse yet other people did get in a pickle with her and found her so strong (I think they held on to her). They are a great improver breed on a first cross, such quality.

Note to self - take more notice of Cleveland Bays
 
Adina said:
Just like to clear up some misconceptions. Firstly, 30 in the world - here we are talking purebred foals born in a single year. Secondly - gene pool and inheritance, we have SPARKS monitoring inbreeding. Thirdly - CB role of purebred is as an all-rounder. Lots of "highly bred" horses are produced that the average person cannot ride. The CB part-breds are Grand Prix dressage horses, 4* Eventers, Showjumpers, County winning show horses, high scoring Futurity foals. If you don't know the bloodlines you wont know who they are. The pures are still delivering diplomatic mail twice a day in the middle of London.
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Alec and Rutland, you raise some similar points which I will answer later, I need to look up some information.

Adina, I did make it clear that this was last year's no of pure bred foals, Duchess is a yearling. I also explained the SPARKS programme which we use.

I also agreed with another post that the CB is an ideal Riding Club Horse.
 
Rutland and Alec,

I wanted to look up some facts and figures. The fact that we bred only 32 pure bred CB's worldwide last year and about 25 the year before does not mean the end of the breed.

Rutland confirms what I have already said about the importance of National Stud support for Rare Breeds. In fact there was virtually no presence for the Shagya in France in 1989 when the stallion Shogun was imported from Switzerland. By 2006 56% of Shagya's in France were descended from him - but we don't speak of in breeding. Now the French breeders breed 70-80 foals per annum and have the support of the Director of the French National Stud.

The National Stud also supported a campaign to increase number of Merens when their future was at risk...we have DEFRA.

As far as in-breeding is concerned, Dr. Dell's thesis states that a genetic bottleneck occurred 75-1000 years ago and was already present at the time of the inception of the stud book in 1884. Here is a link if you would like to read more http://www.southernclevelandbayclub.co.uk/#/cw1202-dell-abstract/4559997748

CBHS has been divided on Grading Up, there already exists a GR which has been little used. I now have two ShGxCB fillies and a CBxShG expected in 2015. I suppose I could start the process of grading up with my fillies but I am an OAP and will likely have my telegram from the Queen before we have a stud book entry!!! Why would I do that?

Health consequences of in-breeding. Search though I might, I cannot find any particular health problems associated with in-breeding. I was told that CB's have poor hocks - so have a collection of 'hock' x-rays it is a myth.

I am told that in-breeding causes fertility problems and one of my mares who IS in bred (by accident) proved difficult to put in foal. My Shagya stallion did the job after one covering.

Here is the result.

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Alec you speak of Carriage Horses and Hunting as two sport in decline. However, both require horses with 'endurance' the French word for stamina and for the British Hunt field a horse also needs the ability to jump solid obstacles out of deep ground.

The Shagya was bred to be a Cavalry Horse for the Imperial Cavalry of the Hapsburgs of my two foundation mares, purchased from the Hungarian National Stud, one is a carriage horse, she worked as a wheeler or leader and in a pic-axe. You won't hear anyone in France or Germany say that the Shagya does not have a place in the modern world. My stallion's sire was an eventer and his dam sire an M level dressage horse in Germany. Like CB's they can do it all.

I would suggest that all horses we ride today owe their origins to transport, warfare, work on the land and the recreation of the wealthy.

To return to the Cleveland Bay, our stallions are given a licence on the basis of a five stage vetting so unless the owner asks for an inspection and grading there is no way of knowing if this horse meets 'breed standard'.

We have no stallion grading system which involves any sort of performance not even loose jumping.

Most CB competitions are showing classes, ridden or in hand.

So unless someone like me, starts a long thread like this with lots of lovely contributions form other Forum members, the equestrian world will have no idea about a Cleveland Bay and may think they just pull carriages!! (smiley face)
 
Rollin said:
Alec and Rutland, you raise some similar points which I will answer later, I need to look up some information.

Adina, I did make it clear that this was last year's no of pure bred foals, Duchess is a yearling. I also explained the SPARKS programme which we use.

I also agreed with another post that the CB is an ideal Riding Club Horse.
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I have to agree with Alec. I am afraid if the CB was an ideal horse it would not be in the position it is in now. Peoples perceptions are belied by the facts. It never moved on when it should have done. I knew several people who bred them 30+ years ago however they could not sell the youngstock as people did not want pure breds. Once a breed is only viable as a part bred thats the end for it.
Where do you find a pure bred horse nowadays within any competitive discipline apart from racing. Nearly all continental production is based on type rather than closed studbooks.
This may sound hard as I personally used to love driving them and woul;d hate to see them gone but conversly I am not going out of my way to own one again.
 
popsdosh said:
I have to agree with Alec. I am afraid if the CB was an ideal horse it would not be in the position it is in now. Peoples perceptions are belied by the facts. It never moved on when it should have done. I knew several people who bred them 30+ years ago however they could not sell the youngstock as people did not want pure breds. Once a breed is only viable as a part bred thats the end for it.
Where do you find a pure bred horse nowadays within any competitive discipline apart from racing. Nearly all continental production is based on type rather than closed studbooks.
This may sound hard as I personally used to love driving them and woul;d hate to see them gone but conversly I am not going out of my way to own one again.
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Well as long as CBHS don't have 'proper' stallion grading schemes or 'proper' performance that will be the case.

When you have the huge financial backing of a National Stud and turn out thousands of horses SOME will make it to the top.

When you are on the RBST critical list with no National Stud to support - the fact that a few make it to the top is indicative of TRUE quality.

If you are searching for a pure bred of true quality from a closed stud book, can I direct you to the SHGB website and the top stallion at their Spring Grading who is a Shagya!!

If this pure bred CB had not suffered trauma* in his early years, he too would be competing with the best. (*untreated and badly healed fractures)

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