page_title: History of the horse in Britain
section_title: 21st century
hierarchical_section_title: History of the horse in Britain / 21st century
caption_attribution_description: The Wadworths brewery dray in Devizes, Wiltshire, town centre. Pulled by two Shire horses, it delivers beer every weekday morning to four pubs in the area. The horses and dray also attend fairs and parades. Wadworths were founded in 1875 and the horses introduced in 1974. Photographed by Adrian Pingstone in March 2007 and placed in the public domain.
context_page_description: The known history of the horse in Britain starts with horse remains found in Pakefield, Suffolk, dating from 700,000 BC, and in Boxgrove, West Sussex, dating from 500,000 BC. Early humans were active hunters of horses, and finds from the Ice Age have been recovered from many sites. At that time, land which now forms the British Isles was part of a peninsula attached to continental Europe by a low-lying area now known as "Doggerland", and land animals could migrate freely between what is now island Britain and continental Europe. The domestication of horses, and their use to pull vehicles, had begun in Britain by 2500 BC; by the time of the Roman conquest of Britain, British tribes could assemble armies which included thousands of chariots.
  Horse improvement as a goal, and horse breeding as an enterprise, date to medieval times; King John imported a hundred Flemish stallions, Edward III imported fifty Spanish stallions, and various priories and abbeys owned stud farms. Laws were passed restricting and prohibiting horse exports and for the culling of horses considered undesirable in type.
context_section_description: Working horses all but disappeared from Britain's streets by the 21st century; among few exceptions are heavy horses pulling brewers' wagons, or drays. However, when Young's Brewery ceased brewing in Wandsworth, London, in 2006, it ended more than 300 years' use of dray horses by the brewery: its team of Shire horses was retired from delivery work and given a new career with the head horsekeeper, offering heavy horse team driving as a recreational event, although they continue to appear at opening ceremonies for new Young's pubs and other publicity events.
  There are still working brewery horses in other areas, such as Wadworth Brewery's Shire horses in Devizes, Wiltshire, but working teams are becoming increasingly rare. In some areas, such as the New Forest, local farmers and commoners use horses to round up thousands of semi-feral ponies grazing on the open Forest during the drift season, and Britain's mounted police use horses in crowd control, but other than such niche areas, the horse in Britain today is kept almost entirely for recreational purposes. They compete in all equestrian disciplines, carry riders from novice to advanced on trekking and trail-riding holidays, work in riding schools, provide therapy for the disabled, and are much-loved companions and hacks. The horses and riders of Great Britain have won numerous medals for eventing in equestrian sports at the Summer Olympic Games.
caption: Wadworth Brewery's Shire horses pulling a dray in 2007
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