The
Cleveland Bay
by Linda Yaciw
The
Cleveland Bay is the oldest established breed
of English horse and is known as an English Warmblood.
A
Breed Apart
In
1884, the Cleveland Bay Horse Society of Great
Britain published the first volume of its Stud
Book, with entries going back to 1860, containing
stallions and mares selected for purity of blood,
many of whose pedigrees traced back over a century.
Several mares were entered who had eight generations
of back breeding shown on the dam's side.
Cleveland
Bays are one of the few "pure" breeds,
with no recent outcrosses. In consequence, Cleveland
Bays stamp their get with remarkable uniformity
of size, conformation, soundness, stamina, disposition
and color.
The Cleveland Bay is unique in its carefully maintained
purity. While the warmbloods of France, Germany,
Sweden, Poland, Hungary and other European countries
have produced a number of good individuals, their
pedigrees are riddled with recent Thoroughbred,
Arabian and other outcrosses. It is interesting
to note that the Cleveland Bay was used extensively
last century to improve the European breeds! Registration
in the European warmblood studbooks carries with
it no guarantee or even probability that their
offspring will inherit their excellence with any
consistency. Currently several of the Continental
breeds, having lost their own foundation stock
by too much cross breeding, are coming to the
Cleveland to reintroduce bone and substance.
The
experience of centuries has shown that, above
all else, the value of the Cleveland Bay lies
in its prepotency. The Cleveland Bay's accomplishments
and their prepotency prompted their use as foundation
stock or improvement sires for the Oldenberg,
Hanovarian, Anglo Norman (Selle Francais), Holsteiner,
Clydesdale, and other breeds.
The
Cleveland Bay breeds true. Foals resemble very
closely their dam and sire; each foal is very
similar to each other. Breeders with a large foal
crop sometimes have problems distinguishing one
foal from another. Horses are identified on their
registration papers by their whorls.
Early
History
The
ancestors of the Cleveland Bay, known as Chapman
horses, can be traced to the selective breeding
practices by a far-sighted Abbott in the Cleveland
hills (North Yorkshire, England) in 1231, where
they were kept as a breed apart. Over the centuries
of breeding, only minimal additions of outside
blood have been allowed, this being the Barb and
some Andalusian, both from the mid 1500's to 1600's.
North
Yorkshire is also the origin of the Thoroughbred.
This county, from about 1660 to 1740, by breeding
desert-bred imported Arabian stallions to native
British race mares, the D'arcys of Sedbury, the
Darleys of Aldby, and other breeders, evolved
the race horse now known as the Thoroughbred.
Between
1707 and 1780, thirty-two of the first offspring
of the Arabian foundation sires of the Thoroughbred
(the original, oriental type) were bred to Cleveland
Bay mares.
It
is certain that after the 18th century there was
no other infusion of alien blood. By then the
Cleveland had emerged as an unmistakably fixed
type.
A
Rare Breed
The
Cleveland Bay is on the endangered species list.
In the 1950's there were only four purebred stallions
and 5 of their offspring left in the entire world.
Queen Elizabeth II intervened and purchased a
stallion, Mulgrave Supreme, who had been destined
for export to the United States. He was made available
to breeders of pure and partbred Clevelands with
enormous success. Within 15 years of his purchase,
the number of stallions in Britain had increased
to 36, sixteen of which were the progeny of Mulgrave
Supreme.
There
are approximately 500 Cleveland Bays worldwide.
In 1996 there were 53 purebreds in North America
(including five in Canada), and several thriving
studs in New Zealand, Pakistan and Australia,
and the bulk of them (350 or so) in Britain. There
are several in Japan as well: the Imperial Household
has been importing CBs for many years.
The
Clevelands Bay is known as the great improver,
or up-grader, of other breeds. They are in demand
for cross-breeding with Thoroughbreds to produce
3-day eventers (dressage, field jumping, show
jumping), jumpers and dressage horses. They are
most well-known as coach horses.
During
the war years, the Cleveland Bay was the favored
breed for war use. The British War Office offered
a premium to Cleveland Bay stallions: many Cleveland
Bays and CB partbreds were produced and were put
into war service. During the two World Wars, approximately
1.5 million horses died. (On the Western Front
alone, the Allied losses were 48,000 horses each
month of all breeds.) Many of those horses that
died were Cleveland Bays. It is interesting to
note that the British War Office only discontinued
its premiums to stallions in 1960.
Thus
the Cleveland Bay has three reasons for its decline,
two of which are directly related to the popularity
of the breed:
