June 22, 2001, Newsletter Issue #43: Carriage Driving, Belgian Horses

Tip of the Week

Carriage Driving

An elegant and not yet extinct form of Driving. Not yet disappeared are the days of driving elegance and glamour. Horses elegantly presented in fashionable carriages.

Carriage Driving can be performed with the single horse or with a team of up to six or more horses. It is absolutely imperative when driving with more than one horse that you put on the tack/harness in a systematic and precise order, every time you harness. The harness has got to fit every horse correctly and precisely in order to enable a team to function as a single unit.

For the remainder of this article, go to the Discipline of the Week 06/22/01 at Good GO! Farm at http://communities.msn.com/goodgofarm

Belgians

The most direct lineal descendants of the "great horse" of medieval times.

The Belgian, as the name implies, is native to the country of Belgium. This little country is blessed with fertile soil and abundant rainfall providing the thrifty farmers of Belgium with the excellent pastures and the hay and grain necessary to develop a heavy, powerful breed of horses.


Belgium lies in the very center of that area of Western Europe which gave rise to great black horses known as Flemish horses and were referred to as the "great horses" by medieval writers. They are the horses that carried armored knights into battle. Such horses were known to exist in that part of Europe in the time of Caesar. They provided the genetic material from which nearly all the modern draft breeds were fashioned.


Stallions from Belgium were exported to many other parts of Europe as the need to produce larger animals of draft type for industrial and farm use was recognized. There was no need to import into Belgium for she was the "Mother Lode." It remained only for this ancestral home of the "great horse," by whatever name, to refine and fix the type of the genetic material she already had at hand.


The government of Belgium played a very energetic role in doing just that. A system of district shows culminating in the great national show in Brussels, which served as an international showcase for the breed, was established. The prizes were generous. Inspection committees for stallions standing for public service were established.
The result was a rapid improvement into a fixed breed type as the draft horses of Belgium came to be regarded as both a national heritage and, quite literally, a treasure. In 1891, for example, Belgium exported stallions for use in the government stables of Russia, Italy, Germany, France, and the old Austria-Hungary empire. The movement of horses out of Belgium for breeding purposes was tremendous in scope and financially rewarding for her breeders decade after decade.ne The American Association was officially founded in February of 1887 in Wabash, Indiana. The breed offices are still in Wabash. It was slow going for the Belgian until after the turn of the century. In Terms of promotion the Percheron, Clydesdale, and Shire all enjoyed a substantial head start in this country.


In 1903 the government of Belgium sent an exhibit of horses to the St. Louis World`s Fair and the International Livestock Exposition in Chicago. While this effort was attended by plenty of controversy over which type of horse best suited Americans, it also generated a great deal of interest in the breed.

For more of this article, go to the home site of the Belgian Horse Association of America at www.belgiancorp.com

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