THE SHIRE DRAFT HORSE 201 



Robert Bakewell improved the Shire draft horse. — 



Bakewell, often termed the father of improved live stock 

 husbandry, because of his methods of breeding, was born 

 in 1726, at Dishley Hall, near Loughborough, in Leices- 

 tershire, and died in 1795. He was one of the earliest 

 important improvers of the Shire draft horse, though it 

 was then known as the Leicestershire Cart Horse. His 

 belief that the familiar maxim, "Like begets like," was not 

 limited to a general similarity of the offspring and the 

 parent, but extended to the minutest details of the or- 

 ganization, led him to adopt for his guidance a definite 

 standard of excellence representing the form and internal 

 qualities that were best adapted to the highest develop- 

 ment of the horse for a specific purpose. Thus, Marshall, 

 who lived in Bakewell's time, stated that he kept four 

 points in view — the breed, the utility of form, the quality, 

 and a propensity to fleshen, the three latter depending 

 on the first. 



From Holland Bakewell imported large mares and 

 used them in systematic crossing with English stallions. 

 A. well-trained eye enabled him to detect the slightest 

 variations from the standard and a good judgment, which 

 was not biased by non-essential conditions or fanciful 

 theories, enabled him to mate his animals so as to add 

 materially to the value of the breed. Descendants of his 

 noted stallion, Bakewell's Gee, through a grandson, Burn- 

 ing's Gee, of Stanley Gate, were well known in the 

 vicinity of Liverpool for fully three-quarters of a centurj^. 

 The use of armor having become obsolete, on account of 

 the invention of gunpowder, much attention was given 

 to breeding horses for draft and farming purposes. With 

 the improvement of the public roads and the use of 

 coaches the draft horse came into special demand and 

 improvement was stimulated by the liberal awarding of 

 prizes at horse shows. 



Early types of the Shire draft horse. — In the first 



