Shire horse

The Shire is a British breed of draught horse. It is usually black, bay, or grey. It is a tall breed, and Shires have at various times held world records both for the largest horse and for the tallest horse. The Shire has a great capacity for weight-pulling; it was used for farm work, to tow barges at a time when the canal system was the principal means of goods transport, and as a cart-horse for road transport. One traditional use was for pulling brewer's drays for delivery of beer, and some are still used in this way; others are used for forestry, for riding and for commercial promotion. The Shire breed was established in the mid-eighteenth century, although its origins are much older. A breed society was formed in 1876, and in 1878 the first stud-book was published. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there were large numbers of Shires, and many were exported to the United States. With the progressive mechanisation of agriculture and of transport, the need for draught horses decreased rapidly and by the 1960s numbers had fallen from a million or more to a few thousand. Numbers began to increase again from the 1970s, but the breed is still considered "at risk" by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust. Outside the United Kingdom, there are stud-books and breed associations in Australia, the United States, and Canada. Though oxen were used for most farm work into the eighteenth century, horses "fit for the dray, the plough, or the chariot" were on sale at Smithfield Market in London as early as 1145. The English Great Horse was valued during the reign of Henry VIII, when stallions measuring less than "fifteen handfuls" could not be kept, but the increasing role of gunpowder brought an end to the use of heavy horses in battle. Oliver Cromwell's cavalry favoured lighter, faster mounts and the big horses began to be used for draught work instead. During the sixteenth century, Dutch engineers brought Friesian horses with them when they came to England to drain the fens, and these horses may have had an influence on what became the Shire breed.