THE CLYDESDALE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 58, Issue 85, 20 January 1938, Page 8

THE CLYDESDALE.

CONTROVERSY AS TO HOME. The home of the Clydesdale breed of heavy horse is in the valley of the Clyde, the chief river of Lanarkshire, Scotland, and one of the world’s greatest commercial waterways. Like fiiost of tiie well-known breeds of live stock the Clydesdale is the result of the successful union of selected specimens from other breeds, none of which possessed the good qualities in the same degree of are now common among well-bred Clydesdales. There is no authentic data regarding the early origin of the bl-eed. It is stated that there was more or less interchange of draught horse blood between Scotland and England. After the unions of the crowns of England and Scotland in IGOfi, important trade relations sprang up between the two countries, and Scotch cattle-dealers driving herds into England returned with English mares, which were bred to stallions in Scotland. This has been a subject of controversy for a long period of time, and the most rational view to take of the matter, after setting aside all narrow prejudices of nation' or breed, is to regard the heavy draught horses of England and of Scotland to be different types of the same breed. Although many of the best Clydesdales of the day are probably heavier than the corresponding animals at any previous period in the history of the breed, still there is a tendency to diminished size in the “fashionable” type, viz., that derived from the Da.rnley mares and the descendants of the Prince of AVa-les, the two famous founders of the present-day . Clydesdale. With symmetry, activity, strength and endurance, the Clydesdale associates a good temper and willing disposition and is easily broken to harness. The “feathering”—that is the development of silky hair on ,the . backs of the legs—is a point to which Clydesdale breeders attach much importance, it being regarded as an indication of strong, healthy bone. The bones of the legs should be flat, clean and hard. The principal Clydesdale-breeding State is Victoria, where the best horses of the breed in the Commonwealth are raised (states the “Australasian”). Studmasters, particularly in the Wimmera and Goulburn Valley, have shown commendable enterprise by importing the most prepotent blood obtainable in Scotland.