British horse and pony breeds - and their future
By: Clive Richardson
Publisher: J.A. Allen; The Crowood Press
Published: 2008
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 222
ISBN-13: 9780851319469
Subjects: Horse breeds; Rare breeds
Description: "In the mid-1800s it was estimated that there were around 50 recognizable types of horse and pony in Great Britain but relatively few of these developed into breeds or survived into the twentieth century ... Today, both the much-loved Cleveland Bay and Suffolk Punch are on the Rare Breeds Survival Trust critical list and there are fewer than 500 Exmoor ponies in the UK ... [the author] looks at how the native [i.e. British] equine has evolved and ... where we are today. He examines the lost and minority breeds - including the Irish Hobby, the Yorkshire Trotter, the Shales Horse, the Orkney and the Eriskay - illustrating the ease with which breeds can die out or be absorbed into another breed through indiscriminate cross-breeding. He then moves on to outline what needs to be done to protect the survival of these horse and pony breeds and who needs to take responsibility"--Jacket.
Table of contents: title: Early origins; title: Early traders and invaders; title: The Normans and the Crusades; title: The ascent of the horse; title: British horse breeds; title: British pony breeds; title: Breeds under threat; title: The future for British breeds; title: Breed appendices: information on characteristics [and] breed standards for all British native breeds.