J. Albert Frost

“ For many years Hertfordshire has provided a string of winners, yet no judge has hailed from that county, or from Surrey, which contains quite a number of breeders of Shire horses. No fault whatever is being found with the way the judging has been carried out. It is no light task, and nobody but an expert could, or should, undertake it; but it is only fair to point out that high-class Shires are, and have been, bred in Cornwall, and Devonshire, Kent, and every other county, while the entries at the show of 1914 included a stallion bred in the Isle of Man. ”

“ Since my very youthful days I have always been accustomed to putting cart colts into the team at two years old, a system which cannot be too strongly advocated at the present time, when every worker in the shape of a horse is needed.
There are numbers of high-class Shires living a life of luxurious idleness to-day, for the only reason that they were never trained to work, yet they would be quite as well in health, and more likely to breed, if they were helping to do ploughing or almost any kind of farm work when not actually nursing a foal or being prepared for any important show. ”

“ A farmer saves a yearling colt because he “likes the look of it.” At two years old he uses him on his own mares and invites his neighbours to send theirs, the terms being something like £1 each mare, or, perhaps, “No colt, no pay,” and £1 10s. if the mare proves to be in foal.
Such a system of breeding may help to increase the horse population, and those bred in this haphazard fashion may find a ready market while a great war is in progress, but it is not Shire breeding in the true sense ”

“ It is certainly worth while to take pains to train a young Shire, which is worth rearing at all, to lead from its foalhood days so that it is always approachable if required for show or sale, and these early lessons prepare it for the time when it is old enough to put its shoulders into the collar, this being done with far less risk than it is in the case of youngsters which have been turned away and neglected till they are three years old. ”

“ When a Shire mare can be sold as “a good worker,” a buyer feels that he is getting something for his money, even if she fails to breed, so that there is much to be said in favour of putting fillies into the team, and [Pg 24] nothing against, so far as I know, unless they are over-worked, strained, or stunted.
A non-breeding mare which will not work is an impossible, or useless, sort of animal on a farm, where mere ornaments are not required, whereas if she is a worker in all gears she is “anybody’s mare”; on the other hand, she is nobody’s if she refuses either to work or to breed. ”

“ There is no part of a Shire to which more attention should be paid than the feet, and it is safe to say that the foot of the present-day cart-horse is infinitely better than were those of his ancestors of forty, or even twenty, years ago. The shape as well as the size has been improved till the donkey-shaped hoof is rarely met with, at least in show animals of this breed. ”

“ Geldings for haulage purposes are always in demand, but big powerful mares are equally useful for the same purpose, and it is much better to sell a non-breeder for the lorry than to sell her for another breeder to meet with disappointment. It is obvious that there will be a great scarcity of weighty working horses when the countries now involved in war settle down to peaceful trades and occupations, and there is no country which stands to benefit more than Great Britain, which is the best of all breeding grounds for draught horses. ”

“ How to Show a Shire
A few remarks on the above subject will not come amiss, at least to the uninitiated, for it is tolerably certain that, other things being equal, the candidate for honours which makes the best show when it is actually before the judges stands the first chance of securing the honours.
It must not be expected that a colt can be fetched out of a grass field one day and trained well enough to show himself off creditably in the ring the next; and a rough raw colt makes both itself and its groom look small. ”

“ A little more than twenty years ago there was an outcry against show condition in Shires, and this is what a very eminent breeder of those days said on the subject of fat—
“It is a matter of no consequence to any one, save their owners, when second or third-class horses are laden with blubber; but it is a national calamity when the best animals—those that ought to be the proud sires and dams of an ever-improving race—are stuffed with treacle and drugged with poisons in order to compete successfully with their inferiors. ”

“ For the production of geldings, fashionable blood is not essential, but it sometimes happens that a foal of outstanding merit is bred by quite a small farmer, and if such an one is by a well-known sire of prize-winning stock, a real good price may be obtained, if the dam is only registered, so there is much to be said in favour of using the highest type of Shire stallion, even by owners of one or two mares. ”

“ The motor-mad mechanic may think that his chance has come, but generals who have to lead an army over water-logged plains, or snow-covered mountains, will demand horses, hitherto—and henceforth—indispensable for mounting soldiers on, rushing their guns quickly into position, or drawing their food supplies and munitions of war after them.
When the mechanic has provided horseless vehicles to do all this, horse breeding can be ignored by fighting men—not before. But horses, particularly draft horses, are needed for commercial use. ”

“ The best average of the nineteenth century was that made at its close by the late Lord Llangattock, who had given a very high price privately for Prince Harold, by Harold, which, like his sire, was a very successful stock horse, his progeny making a splendid average at this celebrated sale. A spirited bidder at all of the important sales and a very successful exhibitor, Lord Llangattock did not succeed in winning either of the London Championships. ”

“ There is no doubt that a set of good feet often places an otherwise moderate Shire above one which has other good points but lacks this essential; therefore all breeders of Shires should devote time and attention to the production of sound and saleable bottoms, remembering the oft-quoted line, “The top may come, the bottom never.” In diseases of the feet it is those in front which are the most certain to go wrong, and it is these which judges and buyers notice more particularly. ”

“ For six months England has been engaged in war, the most awful yet waged for the reason that half the world is involved in it. It naturally follows that little is read but war news. Consequently these pages will be regarded as dull and uninteresting by those who have become accustomed to thrilling stories from battlefields, seas, or skies. ”

“ A mare which breeds from the age of three till she is fifteen is a great help in the way of production, even if she only averages one foal in two years, which is, perhaps, as [Pg 20] many as it is safe to reckon on for rearing to maturity, although, of course, there are plenty of mares which have produced a good foal for ten or eleven years in succession. They will breed till they are twenty-five, to the writer’s knowledge, but the average age at which Shire mares breed their last foal must be put somewhere round fifteen. ”

“ It is noteworthy that few, if any, of the high prices obtained for Shires at public sales have come from exporters or buyers from abroad, but from lovers of the heavy breed in England, who have been either forming or replenishing studs, therefore, ‘the almighty dollar’ has not been responsible for the figures above quoted. Still it is probable that with the opening up of the agricultural industry in Western Canada, South Africa, and elsewhere, Shire stallions will be needed to help the Colonial settlers to build up a breed of horses which will be useful for both tillage and haulage purposes. ”

“ In the absence of a second foal a donkey is sometimes used as a companion to a single one, but he is a somewhat unsatisfactory playfellow, therefore the farmer with only one had far better sell it straight from the teat, or if he has suitable accommodation he should buy another to lie with it and rear the two together. Of course, two will need more food than one, but no more journeys will be required to carry it to the manger. Care should be taken, however, to buy one quite as good, and if possible better, than the home-bred one. ”

“ As this little book is intended for farmers more than for stud owners, a better heading for this chapter would have been “Selecting the Dams,” for without sound, useful mares no breeder can hope to achieve success with the horses he breeds.
It has been possible to grade up one’s old stock of mares by using registered stallions until they were eligible for the Stud Book; but this is too tedious a course to recommend in these days; moreover, the demand for draught mares is now so keen that the difference in the price of a pedigree and a common non-pedigree mare is scarcely worth considering. ”

“ The Shire breeding farmer ought to be able to go into his field and put a halter on any animal required, from a foal to an old horse, and he can do this if they have been treated with kindness and handled from their early days.
This is a matter to which many farmers [Pg 29] should give more attention than they do, seeing that an ill-trained show animal may lose a prize for no other reason than that its show manners are faulty, whereas those of the nearest rival are perfect. ”

“ There is no doubt that we have learned much in horse management since shows have become so popular, although it may be that high feeding for show purposes has been—and is—the cause of a lower percentage of foals among high class show animals of both sexes.
To prepare fillies for mating at two years old may be compared to feeding for early maturity in cattle and sheep, except that many of the latter are only grown and fattened to be killed, whereas Shires are meant to live a long and useful life. ”

“ Under such circumstances Shire breeders may serve their own interests by mating their fillies with a good young sire at two years old and keeping them in good condition for producing a strong vigorous foal. Very few of Robert Bakewell’s remarks are recorded, but this one is, “The only way to be sure of good offspring is to have good cows as well as good bulls,” and this applies with equal, if not greater, force in the business of horse-breeding; the sire cannot effect the whole of the improvement. ”

“ So far, coal merchants are horse users, while brewers, millers, and other lorry users have not altogether discarded the horse-drawn vehicle.
For taking loads to and from the landing stage at Liverpool heavy horses will be in great demand after the war—perhaps greater than they have ever been. The railways will continue to exist, and, while they do, powerful Shire geldings must be employed; no other can put the necessary weight into the collar for shunting loaded trucks. ”