14 



breeding from sound animals. The head shows breeding and 

 quality and harmonises with the clean-limbed condition, as well 

 as with the thin skin and soft hair tightly fitted, especially over 

 the bones and joints of the legs. 



The Suffolk is an ideal plough horse, preferred and appreciated 

 in East Anglia, but it is also in high favour in large towns as a 

 vanner for the delivery of the lighter classes of goods, though some 

 of the best modern Suffolks compare not unfavourably with Shires 

 as regards weight ; frequently geldings in good condition weigh 

 over a ton each. The height averages about 16J hands but varies 

 from below 16 up to 17. The girth behind the shoulders is about 

 8 feet, sometimes a little more. 



Colour. The varieties of colour have been classified into seven 

 shades of chestnut The dark (at times approaching a brown- 

 black, mahogany, or liver colour), the dull dark, the light mealy, 

 the red, the golden, the lemon, and the bright chestnut. The last 

 is the most popular, being a lively shade, with a slight gradation of 

 light colour at the flanks and the extremities, and not infrequently 

 shot with white or silver hairs hereditarily distinctive of some 

 strains, and mostly associated with a star on the forehead, or a 

 thin ' reach,' ' blaze,' or ' shine ' down the face. The flaxen mane 

 and tail are usually seen on the bright chestnuts. The red, 

 generally a whole colour without variation of shade, is very 

 popular. The golden shade is often associated with a white hind 

 heel. The light mealy chestnut is not in favour, being usually 

 regarded as an indication of a weak constitution. The dark chestnut 

 is liked by many breeders, being considered a hardy colour ; it is 

 mostly a changing colour, varying with the season from almost black 

 to a dark cherry-red. Bay, which is now never seen, occurred in 

 strains which had a stain in the pedigree, and like black, white, 

 grey or dun is never mentioned among Suffolk horse colours. 



History of the Breed. How long the Suffolks have been associated 

 with the county is unknown, but they are mentioned as far back 

 as 1506 in Camden's " Brittania." In 1764 Andrew Blake 

 introduced Farmer (174) and advertised him as a Lincolnshire 

 trotting stallion. This horse was a great success as a breeder, 

 his progeny realised high prices and, by the third or fourth cross, 

 were in turn advertised as pure Suffolks. A half-bred Suffolk 

 brought from Lincolnshire, viz., Wright's Attleborough Farmer's 

 Glory (1396), "a beautiful chestnut cart horse," travelled in Suffolk 

 in the first decade of the nineteenth century. The earliest 

 individual pedigree records trace to Crisp's horse (404) of 

 Ufford, advertised as "15^ hands high; light chestnut, and 

 active ; fit to breed good stock for coach and road " ; and " every 

 animal of the breed now in existence traces its descent in the direct 

 line in one unbroken chain to Crisp's horse." A detailed descrip- 

 tion of a descendant of this horse, taken more than a century ago 

 from the lips of an old man who knew him, varied little from the 

 Suffolk horse of to-day. The blood of the Blake stock still 

 remains on the female side, but " all extraneous introductions have 

 long ago died out in the male line, and those remarkable features 

 the short legs, the round carcase, the longevity with vitality are 

 still the well-known characteristics of the Suffolk horse." 



