Under such circumstances Shire breeders may serve their own interests by mating their fillies with a good young sire at two years old and keeping them in good condition for producing a strong vigorous foal. Very few of Robert Bakewell’s remarks are recorded, but this one is, “The only way to be sure of good offspring is to have good cows as well as good bulls,” and this applies with equal, if not greater, force in the business of horse-breeding; the sire cannot effect the whole of the improvement.

CHAPTER V
Team Work

Since my very youthful days I have always been accustomed to putting cart colts into the team at two years old, a system which cannot be too strongly advocated at the present time, when every worker in the shape of a horse is needed.

There are numbers of high-class Shires living a life of luxurious idleness to-day, for the only reason that they were never trained to work, yet they would be quite as well in health, and more likely to breed, if they were helping to do ploughing or almost any kind of farm work when not actually nursing a foal or being prepared for any important show.

When a Shire mare can be sold as “a good worker,” a buyer feels that he is getting something for his money, even if she fails to breed, so that there is much to be said in favour of putting fillies into the team, and nothing against, so far as I know, unless they are over-worked, strained, or stunted.

A non-breeding mare which will not work is an impossible, or useless, sort of animal on a farm, where mere ornaments are not required, whereas if she is a worker in all gears she is “anybody’s mare”; on the other hand, she is nobody’s if she refuses either to work or to breed.

Geldings for haulage purposes are always in demand, but big powerful mares are equally useful for the same purpose, and it is much better to sell a non-breeder for the lorry than to sell her for another breeder to meet with disappointment. It is obvious that there will be a great scarcity of weighty working horses when the countries now involved in war settle down to peaceful trades and occupations, and there is no country which stands to benefit more than Great Britain, which is the best of all breeding grounds for draught horses.

To allow, what would otherwise be, a useful worker to eat the bread of idleness because it was regarded as too well bred or valuable to wear a collar is not a policy to pursue or to recommend, especially to farmers, seeing that the arable land tenant can put a colt into the team, between two steady horses at almost any time of the year, while the occupiers of grass farms may easily start their young Shires as workers by hitching them to a log of wood or some chain harrows, and afterwards work them in a roll.

There is no doubt, whatever, that many stallions would leave a much higher percentage of foals if they were “broken in” during their two-year-old days, so that they would take naturally to work when they grew older and could therefore be relied upon to work and thus keep down superfluous fat. This would be far better than allowing them to spend something like nine months of the year in a box or small paddock with nothing to do but eat.

In past times more working stallions could be found, and they were almost invariably good stock getters, but since showing has become popular it is almost a general rule to keep well-bred, or prize-winning, colts quite clear of the collar lest they should work themselves down in condition and so fail to please possible buyers on the look-out for show candidates.

A little more than twenty years ago there was an outcry against show condition in Shires, and this is what a very eminent breeder of those days said on the subject of fat—

This bears out my contention that Shires of both sexes would pay for a course of training in actual collar work, no matter how blue-blooded as regards ancestry or how promising for the show ring. The fact that a colt by a London champion had been seen in the plough team, or between a pair of shafts, would not detract from his value in the eyes of a judge, or prevent him from becoming a weighty and muscular horse; in fact, it would tend to the development of the arms and thighs which one expects to find in a Shire stallion, and if from any cause a stud or show career is closed, a useful one at honest work may still be carried on.

Wealthy stud owners can afford to pay grooms to exercise their horses, but farmers find—and are more than ever likely to find—that it is necessary to make the best possible use of their men; therefore, if their colts and fillies are put to work and rendered perfectly tractable, they will grow up as stallions which may be worked instead of being aimlessly exercised, while the mares can spend at least half of their lives in helping to carry on the ordinary work of the farm.

It is certainly worth while to take pains to train a young Shire, which is worth rearing at all, to lead from its foalhood days so that it is always approachable if required for show or sale, and these early lessons prepare it for the time when it is old enough to put its shoulders into the collar, this being done with far less risk than it is in the case of youngsters which have been turned away and neglected till they are three years old. The breaking in of this class of colt takes time and strength, while the task of getting a halter on is no light one, and the whole business of lungeing, handling, and harnessing requires more brute force and courage than the docile animal trained in infancy calls for.

The secret of training any horse is to keep it from knowing its own strength; therefore, if it is taught to lead before it is strong enough to break away, and to be tied up before it can break the headcollar by hanging back it is obvious that less force is required. The horse which finds he can break his halter by hanging back is likely to become a troublesome animal to stand tied up, while the one which throws its rider two or three times does not forget that it is possible to get a man off its back; therefore it is better and safer if they never gain such knowledge of their own powers.

The Shire breeding farmer ought to be able to go into his field and put a halter on any animal required, from a foal to an old horse, and he can do this if they have been treated with kindness and handled from their early days.

This is a matter to which many farmers should give more attention than they do, seeing that an ill-trained show animal may lose a prize for no other reason than that its show manners are faulty, whereas those of the nearest rival are perfect.

The writer was taught this while showing at a County Show very early in his career. The animal he was leading was—like himself—rather badly educated, and this was noticed by one of the oldest and best judges of that day, and this is what he whispered in his ear, “My lad, if you would