116 T'ke Ilorse-hreeding Industry in Yorkshire. 



Stokesley district. But tliough sires of the last nientiouetl 

 l^reetl are still travelled in North Yorkshire, they no longer 

 hold the sway here they did in former times. At one period, 

 such stallions enjoyed a high degree of favour with cart-horsie 

 Ijreeders, and were freely used in the county. Lord Middleton 

 originally had a Clydesdale sire, by the noted Prince of Wales, 

 but soon gave up that l)reed, and decided wholly in favour of the 

 Shire. Some Clydesdale stallions, too, genei-ally stood at the 

 Bramhope stud in the nineties, alongside of the Shires, and Mr. 

 Frederick Reynard, of Sunderlandwick, has occasionally hired 

 one from Scotland for use in his district. The Scotch breed did 

 not, however, in the end, successfully contest the supremacy of 

 the heavier Shire, the call being all for cart sires of the most 

 weighty type to breed a saleable draught gelding, and so the 

 latter has in the course of the last two decades almost entirely 

 superseded the one-time popular Clydesdale. 



A comparatively light and very active stamp of Shire-bred 

 cart-horse is bred by the farmers in the Wold country, which 

 represents a most useful agricultural draught type, biit here, as 

 also elsewhere in the county, there still remain in evidence 

 horses embodying the characteristics of the old-fashioned black 

 cart-horse breed which prevailed in East Yorkshire and the 

 West Riding in former times, before the fashion of crossing up 

 the stock with Shire and Clydesdale blood set in. The represen- 

 tatives of this old indigenous breed are tall black horses, rather 

 coarse of shape, and comparatively clean legged. Having been 

 a prevalent colour among the farm horses at an earlier period, 

 black continues to be considerably favoured, and there are yet 

 farmers who for this reason prefer, in mating their mares, to 

 use a black or dark brown Shire stallion rather than a bay one. 



The breeding of Ponies is not a specially notable feature 

 in Yorkshire, but some good Hackney-bred harness ponies 

 are l)red here, chiefly by Hackney breeders, though farmers 

 also occasionally breed a stylish pony of this kind from an 

 ordinary pony mare put to a Hackney sire. 



The number of polo ponies raised in the county is only 

 small, there being very few who bi-eed them. The principal 

 polo pony breeder is Mr. Howard Taylor, of Hampole Priorj-, 

 near Doncaster, who owns a nice stud ; and Admiral Bridgeman 

 breeds a few at Co})grove Hall, near Leeds. 



Lord Middleton has some good ponies of the Highland 

 breed at Birdsal), introduced from Scotlantl, and the mares 

 have in some cases been very successfully crossed with the 

 thoroughbred. A typical Highland pony stallion stands at stud 

 here, to wit, the grey ComaroirJi by BorodaJe. 



Henry E. Fawcus. 



3 Wcstfield lloud, Surbiton. 



