24 STABLE MANUAL AND HORSE DOCTOR 



This powerful and active breed have, by many writers, 

 been considered as owing their valuable properties to early 

 crosses with the race-horse of those times ; it is probable 

 that those qualities marked the indigenous Yorkshire horse. 

 The large London carriage horses are of this stock, though 

 the demand for a harness horse of lofty size has much 

 decreased; other qualities, which are to be had combined with 

 more grace, lighter action, and less of the " farm " horse 

 stamp, being now in request. A century ago, however, the 

 carriage horse had not even the form of the Cleveland 

 — he was a round-barrelled, hollow-backed, clod-shouldered, 

 thick-legged brute, with long tail, full mane, and hairy 

 fetlocks, something between a hearse horse and a dray- 

 horse, full of flesh, pride and pawing, and capable of six 

 miles an hour for three hours three times a week — not that 

 he ever got half of it. The later coach-horse, though too 

 large, was a great improvement on this Netherlandish 

 animal. The points of a good coach-horse are : depth in the 

 body, good bone under the knee, moderately long pasterns, 

 and sound, tough feet, well open at the bars. 



It is the progressive mixture of the blood of horses of 

 higher breeding with those of the common race, that has 

 produced the variety of coach-horse usually termed the 

 Cleveland bay, so called from its colour, and the fertile 

 district of that name in the North Riding of Yorkshire, on 

 the banks of the Tees. About the middle of the last century^ 

 this district became known for the breeding of a superior 

 class of powerful horses, which, with the gradual disuse of 

 the heavy old coach-horse, became in request for coaches, 

 chariots, and similar carriages. The breed, however, is not 

 confined to Cleveland, but is cultivated through all the great 

 breeding district of this part of England. It has been 

 formed by the progressive mixture of the blood of the 

 race-horse with the original breeds of the country. To 

 rear this class of horses, the same principles of breeding 

 should be applied as to the rearing of the race-horse 

 himself. A class of mares, as well as stallions, should also 

 be used, having the properties sought for. The district of 

 Cleveland owes its superiority in the production of this 

 beautiful race of horses to the possession of a definite breed, 

 formed not by accidental mixture, but by continued 

 cultivation. 



Although the Cleveland bay appears to unite the blood 



