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The Cleveland Bay
Driving down a country road one summer day, you pass a small herd of big bay horses grazing in a field. The smallest of them stands around 16 hands high while the larger ones, you estimate, might reach 18 hands. A few will have small, white stars on their foreheads but no white anywhere else. And if you stop the car to take a better look, one might come close enough to the fence for you to see that its well-balanced feet are almost blue in color. Every horse in the herd has good bone and substance, with strong, draft-influenced heads. Oh, and they’ll all have big ears.
“I find that adorable,” says Cleveland Bay trainer and stud manager Stephanie Smith of Peters Creek Farm in Madison, Georgia (http://www.peterscreekfarm.com/). “They’re very expressive.”
The part you won’t see while the
Cleveland Bays are grazing is their jumping ability, which is what they’re
most prized for today. Their powerful hindquarters are almost always passed
onto their offspring, regardless of whether they’re full- or part-bred.
Cleveland Bay lines have been traced back as far as the 16th
century and while some Barb blood is believed to have added in the 17th
and 18th centuries, once the stud book was published in 1884, no
more outside blood was allowed. Which could account for why they stamp
their get so strongly.
“I was at a Cleveland Bay show recently,” Smith recalls, “and in the part-bred in-hand class there were some thoroughbred and quarter horse mixes, some three-quarters, others half. And they all looked identical.”
The Cleveland Bay is one of Britain’s oldest pulling horses. Originally known as the Chapman horse, it hauled carts for itinerant peddlers and packmen known as “chapmen” who plied their trades around the Cleveland area of Yorkshire. The strong, steady horse was particularly valued for its sure-footedness along the early, rough roads. But when roads improved, faster horses became more popular, and the Cleveland Bay experienced its first fall from favor. And its first breed rescue. An 1823 article in Farmers Magazine bemoans how the Cleveland Bay was falling out of fashion to lighter carriage horses but that “its excellence for agricultural purposes was noticed by some practical farmers in the North of England who for several years back have been exerting themselves to revive the breed.”
One hundred and fifty years later, however, their plight was so dire that royal intervention was called upon to keep the big bay horses from sliding completely off the map. By 1962, their numbers had dwindled so drastically that only four stallions stood in Britain. One of them was Mulgrave Supreme. Owned by the British Royal family, he became an important force in the breed’s revival.
Today, there are five to six hundred pure-bred Cleveland Bays in the registry and to keep the stock as healthy as possible, the UK Cleveland Bay Horse Society adopted a program developed for breeding endangered animals. The Sparks Program compiles an annual list of stallions and mares that can safely be bred to one another. That way, not only are rare bloodlines unlikely to be lost but inbreeding is less of a concern. “We have two mares that are Sparks’ compliant with our stallion, Senator Braithwaite,” says Smith. “Our other three mares have to be bred to outside stallions.”
All stallions must be inspected before
receiving a breeding license. Inspectors are looking for a bay horse with
black points, and strong, heavy bone with cannons at least 8½ inches
around. Heads are relatively large, either straight or convex in profile,
and set on the end of a longish neck. Their backs may be slightly long,
though their thighs and hindquarters are always powerful. Their feet, which
are often blue in color, have to be good, with shallow or narrow feet
undesirable. Action is usually long-striding, though rarely extravagant;
high action is uncharacteristic of the breed. Some have movement for
dressage, and almost all have the power and boldness for jumping. Which may
be why many European breeds, particularly the Gelderlander, Oldenburg,
Holstein and Hanoverians, chose to introduce Cleveland Bay blood when
building up those breeds.
Temperament is important as well. Cleveland Bays are said to be an intelligent horse with a sensible mind. Though they can, if not handled properly, become spoiled. “They have a strong sense of themselves, is how I would put it,” says Smith. “Queen, who we imported as a four-year-old, will tell me when she feels I’m not being fair. So I have to re-evaluate myself as a rider and a trainer to see whether what I’m asking is clear and fair. But as long as you build a fair relationship, they’ll do everything for you and go all day long.
For Stephanie Smith and others who work to improve the numbers of Cleveland Bays in the world, there is no better horse out there. “After spending my whole life with horses, I absolutely adore this breed. They have every quality that I expect in a horse. Trainability, rideability, athleticism. And they’re long-lived, and so they’ll be your partner for a long time.”
By Joanne Braithwaite
Links:
http://www.clevelandbay.com/ Cleveland Bay Horse Society, UK
www.clevelandbay.org Cleveland Bay Horse Society, North America