# Talk:Shire horse

There is some doubt that the Shire was descended from the Medieval great horse, so the wording should perhaps be changed to reflect that.  See Horses in the Middle Ages#Breeding of medieval horses for a presentation of the debate. Gwinva 18:38, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
I've never read or seen any actual evidence that the Medieval "great horse" resembled the modern Shire horse. It seems to be an assumption, but there is no bloodline or contemporary artwork to support it. "Great" just meant "the big one not the small one" among the knight's personal horses. If anyone knows of any contemporary material, it should be included here (please). 212.159.59.41 (talk) 21:57, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

The article does not claim resemblance, only a possible/probable hypothesis that ancestral stock may have in part been these horses.  And it is sourced to a reliable source.  If you think it needs to be changed, I suggest looking for studies saying otherwise.  Indeed.  Montanabw(talk) 00:15, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

I remember reading on an information board at Wimpole Home Farm that the reason shires are often referred to as "gentle giants" was that after mechanisation, only the well-tempered ones probably survived to be bred from. Is there any truth in that? Bob talk 20:02, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

I doubt that, horses with poor dispositions got canned even before mechanization, a dangerous horse is not a good thing to have when hitched to a plow.  Especially an 18-hand horse that weighs close to a ton.  I suspect they were bred for good dispositions long before the internal combustion engine was developed! :-)  Montanabw(talk) 00:23, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Dartmoor (pony) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you.  —RMCD bot 21:58, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

The UK breed standard had different measurements for geldings and stallions, and they have it in hands, so the "male/female" split didn't really work here.  For this British breed, the standard was given in stone and kg; this is the first time I've run across the use of stone, so will open discussion of whether to use {{convert}} for pounds.  I think use of the templates is appropriate here. Montanabw(talk) 08:56, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Well, actually that's sort of exactly what "sexual dimorphism" means – when the males and females are distinguishably of different size, shape or colour. The standard makes clear that mares are expected to be not just smaller, but also morphologically quite distinct from males. However, tabulating the height values as you've done seems more or less to work – I'll do the same for the weights.
The over-conversion of units throughout the page is an invasive nuisance (I hate to think how it would sound to those who use a screen-reader). I suggest, at the very least, (1) getting rid of all inch conversions, as anyone who doesn't know what either a centimetre or a hand is (!?!) can follow the blue link to Hand (unit); (2) abbreviating all units after the first mention; and (3) making sure that "hand" is only linked once instead of a dozen or more times. I also suggest giving precedence to metric units, per MOS:NUM – Britain has used the metric system for longer than I can remember, and that's a pretty long time. I can easily do those things if there's agreement here. Another possibility would be to move the customary units to a footnote. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 12:07, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
The breed standard is more stringent for stallions because there are supposed to be a lot fewer of them.  It's clear that, in spite of clear scientific evidence that gelding a horse actually may allow it to grow taller, not shorter, the standard allowing mares and geldings to be smaller is simply a less stringent standard, reflecting more of them.  My view is that it is human anthropomorphism that wants "feminine" mares and "masculine" stallions while at the same time glorifying bigger, stronger horses in general -- breeders can't really have it both ways...
As for the rest, I'd say that where the breed standard by the breed society of the nation of origin (as here) puts it in hands, then hands should lead. That said, I cannot object to giving metric units precedence where that's the only source for height, or where the leading breed society does so as well, at least for some breeds. (It gets complicated for breeds that are widely distributed in the English-speaking world, to the point that they far outnumber representatives in their region of origin, the Arabian being a case in point).
I certainly agree that where a given height conversion is said once, I would agree that we would not need to do it every time that number is mentioned -- but where there is a different number, then conversion would usually have to kick in, though I suppose there does become a point where perhaps if there are a lot of conversions, a chart might be more useful than a narrative.  I cannot agree with getting rid of inches altogether; while I can certainly do the inches conversion on the fly, non-horse people cannot. (I can't do metric conversions on the fly, though I can multiply by 2.54...) That hands template is one issue we've gone over quite a bit.  If you recall the last round, it was included editors from the UK who vigorously supported the continued use of hands.  Frankly, the sexual dimorphism thing annoys me probably as much as the conversion thing bugs you, so if we're both mildly annoyed but can agree to each just live with it, perhaps that is as good as it gets? (smile).  Montanabw(talk) 21:53, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

I am editing the Gypsy Horse article, and I came across another book on the Shire that had coloured Shires in it. I wonder if this is worth adding--that is, the fact that the Shire used to have colours prior to their culling. Here is what I've written. We could smooth this into the current writeup of course:
Colour was prevalent among Shire horses; Sir Walter Gilbey reproduces and then discusses colour in a drawing of a team of tobiano Shires dating from 1844 to 1855. Commenting on the drawing, he calls the team's tobiano colouring "[t]his curious parti-color" and states that it "is by no means uncommon in the Shires reared in the Fen country." He goes on to describe a stallion who breeds "horses of odd colours" and states that such horses "are common ... [t]o this day", or the late 1800s when his book was first published.[59] 
Here is the source: Sir Walter Elbey, Bart, "Concise History of the Shire Horse" (1976). Reprinted from the original 1889) Hampshire: The Spur Publications Company. ISBN 0904558134.
Also, Edward Hart's "The Coloured Horse and Pony" discusses colour in the Shire. I can add this as a source.   — Preceding unsigned comment added by SFGMary (talk • contribs) 17:35, 2 December 2019 (UTC) 
Thanks!
SFGMary (talk) 19:37, 2 December 2019 (UTC)SFGMary