Talk:Shire horse

Have changed "draft" to "draught" which I think is the British spelling - the article seems to suggest that the Shire horse is a British breed (at least originally) so this spelling to probably to be preferred (unless there are general Wikipedia rules to the contrary). MightyWarrior 14:58, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Ancestry

There is some doubt that the Shire was descended from the Medieval great horse, so the wording should perhaps be changed to reflect that. See Horses in the Middle Ages#Breeding of medieval horses for a presentation of the debate. Gwinva 18:38, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Ancestry II

G, you've got the research, go ahead and fix the ancestry bits with excruciatingly careful NPOV. Basically use a form of "some people (source) say this, but there is some controversy to this claim because other people (source) say that..." Try to do it in a way not to tick off the Shire breeders too much. <grin> Montanabw 02:13, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Not wanting to step on anyone's toes, I left the above message, so someone else could do it!! But you're right...I've got the refs. Some time...Gwinva 09:17, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Attention other editors: If you want to do this, or have time to do this, contact me or Gwinva for source materials and ideas! Montanabw 03:45, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Biggest?

There are some bigger horses. http://www.ruralheritage.com/horse_paddock/horse_large.htm —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 148.81.137.4 (talk • contribs) 14:54, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

This link supports the information given! Owain.davies 13:29, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Merge

What's the rationale for the proposed merge? I'd like to see them kept as separate articles. Even if it has a place in Shire history, the Black is an extinct breed. A small reference could be made here if necessary, linking to the Black article. James (talk) 12:44, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Oppose - As James said, it is clearly a separate breed. OwainDavies ^(about)_(talk) edited at 20:49, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, all sources we have found indicate that the Black horse IS basically one of the ancestors of the Shire Horse and has no descendants in any other breed. The article on it, if you read it, also is short (about one paragraph) and unsourced. I am thinking that it could be moved over here almost in its entirety and made a part of the breed history of the Shire. I'm moving over the discussion that is on my talk page about it: We can discuss in more detail here (also was cluttering up my talk page) Montanabw^(talk) 04:17, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Black horse

Saw this: Old English Black, seems to be a type that developed mostly in the UK, and is definitely claimed as an ancestor of the Shire horse (you know, the great big huge things that claim descent from the Destrier. Also does not appear to be the Forest Horse nor the Black Forest Horse (but those are cool looking critters!) Anyway, thought you might want to eyeball it and see if any of your sources say anything about it. The article is crap, but I have run across many references to the "Black horse" or "Great Black Horse" in various horse breed and history articles. Be nice to clear this up. From the article, it isn't the Destrier, nor was it necessarily a Black (horse). But anyway, if you can add anything to the article, that would be cool. Thanks much! Montanabw^(talk) 05:14, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

It isn't a made up theory, I've come across it in passing in a number of places, but like our original discussion over the Destrier, there are assumptions that may not be necessarily so. Hence, why I call upon you. While the article is unreferenced, I don't think the article is too far off base from what passes for "common knowledge" (in fact, I wonder if it was an import from the public domain Britannica), just unsourced and not well-written. The Shire horse people defnitely claim it as an ancestor. Possibly it was a 17th or 18th century critter, maybe even 19th. Just hard to find anything. Am discovering that many "world horse breeds" books out there are unsourced and generally, well, suck. Montanabw^(talk) 00:02, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

There seemed little mention of breeds when I looked through my references initially, but I'll see what I can come up with. interesting, anyway. No sources at all on the page...so don't know where it comes from..someone's pet theory? Gwinva (talk) 19:55, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

how exciting: a subpage of my very own in your userspace! :-) Didn't realise I'd talked so much... Gwinva (talk) 03:00, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

it's a bit of a problem, actually. Hyland and others I have on my shelf make no mention of the Old Black (although discuss other breeds), and most of the stuff on the internet is equally unreferenced or self-referenced. You wouldn't believe the number of breed sites, local-show, local-history sites which regurgitate the same text most of which originated at Wikipedia. Soon, WP will have to stop allowing internet cites, since most of them take info from here. (Note to self: have a viewpoint to push? Original research? Hide it in an unreferenced Wikipedia article, wait six months, then google it: someone else will then have it on their web page). I couldn't be bothered trawling through all x-thousand of the references, but the first few dozen were enough to show they all reference each other (often using the same text). Google books also perpetuate the same: the story of the Old Black seems to have originated with a Henry Child Merwin in 1892 who, in the snippet available for view, says "authorities consider".... What we need is something that goes back to primary sources...like Hyland, who doesn't mention it. Ah-ugh! We can reference it...but whether that is reliable or "true" is another matter. Who knows? Gwinva (talk) 04:17, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok. Another way to look at it: the full OED (of which ann Hyland is a consultant on equestrian matters, incidentally). No entry for "Old Black", but under "Shire horse":

A horse of a heavy powerful breed, used for draught, chiefly bred in the midland counties of England. Also known as the Old English Black Horse.

1875 S. SIDNEY Bk. Horse xii. 268 The Shire Horse. 1877 Field 14 Apr. 447/3 The Shires or Old English Cart Horse. Ibid., Influential breeders of the Shires horse should combine together and [etc.]. [1888 SIR W. GILBEY Great Horse (1899) 52 Arthur Young, in the latter part of the last century,..mentions only two varieties of Cart Horse as deserving attention, namely, the Large Black Old English Horse, ‘the produce principally of the Shire counties in the heart of England and the Sorrel-coloured Suffolk Punch’.] 1891 Spectator 7 Mar. 340/1 The show of ‘Shire horses’, as the old breed of the English cart-horse is now generally called. attrib. 1877 Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc. 532 Those confined to the ‘Shire’ horse classes. 1887 Leamington Spa Courier 30 Apr. 1/6, 8 grand Shire Horse Colts and Fillies.

Note, the OED quotes the EARLIEST use of the word in English. So..nothing about the Shire before 1875. Searching for black horse (not a separate entry, but in other quotes) most are obviously adjectival uses, (ie the horse was simply black) but we have these: "1675 W. DUGDALE Baronage Eng. I. 186/2 Bequeathed..to her Sister, the Countess of Oxford, a Black Horse and a Nouch." (Nouch is a clasp). A breed or just a description? or: "1781 R. Georgia Gaz. 8 Mar. 4/2 (Advt.), A Black Horse, about 13 and an half hands high, half roach main [etc.]." But who knows if they refer to breed? The medieval books all state that horses were usually refered to by colour rather than breeding, anyway. So who knows. Gwinva (talk) 04:52, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

The "horse" of only 13.2 hh in that ad doesn't sound much like a Shire. It could almost walk beneath...--Richard New Forest (talk) 21:12, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. This makes me wonder if the Shire horse breed IS the Old English Black Horse. If you note the discussion I am having about the European Warmblood breeds above, there is a lot of "geographical location gives birth to breed names" even if the new "breed" is basically of the same genetic stock as the old breed, just maybe a different political faction taking charge of the stud book. Maybe I'll dig a bit into the history of the Shire horse. Montanabw^(talk) 17:34, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi. My understanding is that the Black Horse is indeed the original name for what became the Shire. It's certainly true that genuine black horses of other British breeds are rare, and if found in other breeds (most commonly piebald cobs) there's often some sign of Shire influence. I saw an ordinary New Forest mare the other day (out on her native habitat, of course) – she was a good black, and so was her foal, but even she had the very wide and rather asymmetrical blaze quite often seen in Shires (black is unusual in adult NFs, though greys are often born black). The Black Horse is a common pub name in the UK, though nowadays usually illustrated with a hot-blood type (but then Jolly Farmer signs always show a fat happy chap, not the more typical miserable one the name ironically refers to...). I can't remember at the moment how I know about the Black Horse/Shire thing, so I'll have to have a think. I've a couple of books which might have it in.--Richard New Forest (talk) 18:21, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Richard. I am going to put a merge tag on the articles, if you think they are the same breed, but wait for some sources to be sure we are not looking at a predecessor that was actually geneticially distinct (i.e. that the Shire as we know it today had additional blood added that dramatically changed the basic animal, for example, the Thoroughbred and the assorted warmblood breeds are most definitely NOT the same breed, though the Thoroughbred is an ancestor of all the warmbloods...). Let me know what you find, thanks. Montanabw^(talk) 02:11, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Here is one book: Stephen J G Hall and Juliet Clutton-Brock, Two Hundred Years of British Livestock, British Museum (Natural History), 1989, ISBN 0-56501077-8. Chapter 18: Heavy draught horses.

Page 225 (from chapter introduction):

Youatt in 1843 described three breeds, the Suffolk Punch, the Clydesdale, and the Heavy Black Horse, now known as the Shire.

(This secondary ref, not given in the otherwise very extensive bibliography, is presumably: William Youatt, The Horse, J S Skinner ed, New York: Leavitt and Allen Publishing, 1843.)

Page 226, opening para of Shire section:

In contrast to the well-established Suffolk breed, the work horses of the rest of England two hundred years ago did not conform to any type, except that black was a common colour and large size a feature. Robert Bakewell was one of several breeders whose development of the Black Horse of Leicestershire contributed to the new efficient Midlands type of Shire horse. Imports of big strong horses from the Low Countries brought about much of this improvement andit was the race with the easiest access to these stocks, the fenland type, which was early on noted for its great size. By 1800, using a combinnation of Bakewell's methods and imported stock, breeders had upgraded the horse of the Middle Ages to a competent work animal, which was, however, not named the Shire horse until quite late in the nineteenth century.

Same page, legend to illustration (the first part must be a quote from the painting label):

'The Old English Black Horse, Stallion, by Old Blacklegs, from a mare of the Dishley Breed; bred by Mr Broomes, at Ormiston, Derby.' This black stallion, painted by Shiels, was presumably descended from Bakewell's stock of black Leicester horses...

Irritatingly there is no source or date given for this particular painting (unlike for the many other pictures in the book). However, this site: [1] has a copy of it, showing it is a plate from a book published in 1842, and is actually by William Nicholson, after Shiels. Interestingly, this site: [2] has a slightly different version of the painting (the original?), attributed "'The Old English Black Horse', William Shiels c 1840". The latter painting is certainly the same horse, in an identical view but laterally flipped with a different sky. Looks like a Shire to me...

The Black Horse must indeed be the same thing as the Shire, and it looks as if it had developed from a landrace into a more formal breed before the name change. I'll see if I can find any other refs. --Richard New Forest (talk) 12:17, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Butting in here, I have a copy of Youatt, printed in the US in 1850, and on page 39 the editor (who is not Youatt, as this is a copy of Youatt's work that's been edited for publication in the US) describes the "Dray Horse" (that's the subtitle of the section) like this

Of the Heavy Black Dray Horse, but few have been imported into this country, and they do not seem likely to become favorites here. Mr. Youatt says of them: "The Heavy Black Horse is the last variety it may be necessary to notice. It is bred chiefly in the midland counties from Lincolnshire to Staffordshire. Many are brought up by the Surrey and Berkshire farmers at two years old -- and being worked moderately until they are four, earning their keep all the while, they are then sent to the London market and sold at a profit of ten or twelve percent."

From Types and Breeds of Farm Animals by Charles S. Plumb, a "professor of animal husbandry in the college of agriculture of the ohio state university", published in 1906. p. 124

During the past history it has been known in England as the "Great Horse", the "War Horse" , the "Cart Horse", "Old English Black Horse" "Giant Lincolnshire" and "Shire." The name "Large Black Old English Horse" was in use from the time of Oliver Cromwell to modern times.

Hope this helps. Ealdgyth | Talk 14:57, 18 January 2008 (UTC)