Clydesdale horses……. What I think of when I hear the name Clydesdale is big horses pulling a sleigh, the Budweiser horses in all of the football commercials and the big show horses at the eastern Idaho state fair. I thought due to the time of the year with the snow getting ready to fly this would be a good time to study and learn more about this breed.
A little history that I have found of this breed pulled from the web site Horses and Horses Information.
History of the Clydesdale Horse
Unlike some of its equine ancestors that left their mark on ancient medieval history as the “Great Warhorses” that carried heavily armored knights onto the field of battle, the Clydesdale is a relative newcomer to the family of draft horses. Then again, although its traceable lineage goes back only around 170 years, give or take a few years, the Clydesdale is probably the most well-known and, in many ways, most successful of the heavy breeds, mainly because of its prevalence in television commercials. (World Book, 1997)
According to Elwyn Hartley Edwards, author of The Ultimate Horse Book (1991), the Clydesdale was strongly influenced by the Shire, another heavy breed, and some breeders contend the two are but branches of a single breed. Moreover, the Clydesdale’s lineage has been traced back to the Flemish Horses that were imported into the Clyde Valley in Lancashire, England in the eighteenth century. Today, however, the breed is found in countries around the globe, including the United States, Australia, Canada, Germany, South Africa, Japan, and New Zealand.
Characteristics of the Clydesdale Horse
- Average height is around 16.2 hands at the shoulder, although stallions are often taller, with some measuring over 17 hands.
- Legs are usually long, and girth deep.
- Hind legs are positioned close together, and although “cow hocks” are considered a conformational fault in other breeds, they’re characteristic and, therefore, desirable in the Clydesdale.
- Pasterns (lower legs, just above the hooves) are adorned with heavy, silky hair.
- Coat colors are predominantly bay or brown, but can also be black, red roan, or blue roan.
- Face and legs are usually white, and some animals have white undersides.
- Shoulders are sloped and withers sharply defined.
- Hooves are somewhat flat but shapely, well formed, and hard.
- Head is refined and more elegant than most heavy breeds, and the profile is straight, not convex like that of the Shire.
- Temperament tends to be tractable and easy-going. (Hartley, 1991)
