The Australian Draught Horse of the Future.

Otago Witness, Issue 1950, 4 April 1889, Page 7

The Australian Draught Horse of the Future.

The heavy English Shire horse has never been a general favourite in Australia, although he has many admirers. The Clydesdale, on the other hand, has long been an intense favourite, more particularly in Victoria and Queensland. The modern Clydesdale, however, is but a Scotch adaptation of the Lincoln dray horse ; a heavy showy animal well suited for a brewer's dray, but ill adapted to the faster work of the street lorry, which is gradually superseding the dray in almost every city ; and certainly not adapted to the work of the farm in a climate such as that of Australia. The Suffolk Punch, a clean-legged, strong, active horse, bred for more than 150 years without any admixture of extraneous blood, is par excellence the heavy draught horse for Queensland, and the wonder is that it has not been imported in targe numbers. On the question of purity of blood the Suffolk pan offer, perhaps, stronger evidence than any other English breed of horse, in the fact that all of the breed are cf a uniform chestnut colour. Its hardiness is undoubted, and no horse of equal weight will do so much work on such a small ration. It is hereditarily staunch in the collar ; while for activity it will compare most favourably with any heavy draught breed in existence. It is no uncommon occurrence for a Suffolk gelding or mare to draw a heavily-laden grain cart at the rate of three and a-half miles an hour. It was said, and with a good deal of truth, that no other breed of horse could compare with the Clydesdale as a plough horse. This, however, was in the days when the Clydesdale never exceeded, and seldom came up to, 16 hands in height ; when he was described by Sir John Sinclair as a " huge Arab." The showyard Clyde3dale of to-day is a very different animal, and by no stretch of imagination can he be deemed a model horse for the light draughft farm implements now in use. The only thing that can be urged against the Suffolks is their colour. An impression at one time prevailed that chestnuts were "soft." This impression prevailed even among breeders of thoroughbred horses, until dispelled by the phenomenal success of Stockwell as a sire. Even now, when the idea that colour has any effect on constitution has been exploded, there is still a deep-rocted aversion to chestnut colour in draught horses; and it' must be admitted that the light chestnut colour of the Suffolk Punch is anything but attractive. Were it is not for this the Suffolk would be much more largely used than it has been in crossing with the thoroughbred in the production of upstanding light harness horses. Its very prepotenoy comes in as an objection to it for that purpose in consequence of its always reproducing the objectionable colour. In crossing a heavy with a light breed of horse the rule generally followed with the greatest success has been to mate the light male with the heavymare; but in the case of the Suffolk Punch a reversal of this rule has been followed with most satisfactory results. This is accounted for by the fact that the Suffolk has been for so many generations bred strictly within itself, and it may with safety be said in no other breed of horse has the type been so firmly fixed. Some excellent hunters have resulted from a first cross between a Suffolk stallion and a thoroughbred mare, and we have it on the authority of one of the most skilful horsebreeders in the Clarence district that this cross produces a model stock horse. One could scarcely imagine a stamp of horse better adapted for the heavy work of our street trams than a Suffolk on thoroughbred. Whether it would be possible to, in course of time, "breed out" the cchestnutt t colour in a fixed type, midway between the< Suffolk and thoroughbred, and at the same time maintain the qualities of the amalgamation, it is hard to say, but as fixity of colour has been so successfully established in other breeds of live stock — notably in cattle — there seem ft little reason to doubt that it could be ucco mplished. Old colonists will remember the mischief that was wrought among the horse stock of New South Wales and Victoria after the discovery of gold. Prior -to that date Australia possessed a breed of saddle and light harness horses unequalled perhaps in any other country, both for activity and endurance. The revulsion attending the breaking out of the goldfields caused a large and unexpected demand for draught horses, and any horse with any pretensions to draught sold at an exorbitant price. The consequence was that heavy draught sires (the heavier the better), prin- j cipally of the Clydesdale breed, were imported in numbers and put to the light mares then in the country ; and the result of this sudden cross was the sudden disappearance of the hardy, active description of horse for I which the colony had long been celebrated, j and in its place appeared a mongrel description of animal that has more or less prevailed ever sjnee. With our present knowledge of the •'Suffolk Punch, we are safe in assuming that if it had been selected, instead of the Clydesdale and Shire horse, to give weight and strength to the then prevailing breed we should now have had throughout Australia a general-purpose horse of far greater utility and much better suited to our climate than we have at the present time.—JuMBUOK, in the Queenslander.