Irish Draft Horse

The Irish Draft Horse is a breed from Ireland, sometimes referred to as Draft Horse and there are various types of draft horses being either heavy or light depending on their use in agriculture.

But the Irish Draft is a lighter built draft horse used for wagons or horseback riding horse, and it is the founder of the Irish hunter and many other horses in Ireland.

The Irish Draft, horse is known by the Irish for its driving speed, and the horse has for many centuries been bred in Ireland by crossing native Irish mares with large, heavy Harness horses, mostly imported from France.

During the 1500s and 1600s were also some improvements by breeding the Irish horses with the famous Spanish horses. In 1850 the horse was described for the first time in writing, and was described as a short legged but a large horse. The demand for various horse types demanded a flexible animal able to cope with farm work, hunting, horseback riding and pulling carriages doe large families.

After the Great Famine in 1847, the number of Irish Draft horses fell sharply and farmers did their best to get the breed started by improving the basic Irish strains with Shire and Clydesdale horses, without much success.

These undesirable traits that the breed had then took a long time to breed away and in 1897 Thomas Meleady wrote a bitter article about the breed as a result of the Scottish horse blood that made the horses lethargic and without perseverance.

He called them the “tungbenta horses soon get tired” and said that Clydesdale horse is also ruined the area’s pony strains. In 1904 breeding began to improve the breed again with the help of distributed bonuses to the best stallions.

Ireland has always seen horse breeding as an asset and encouraged the breeding and trading of horses and the same was done now with the Irish Draft, breed on the hope of improving the breed again.

In 1917 a stud book was opened for the race which included 375 mares and 44 stallions and up to the Second World War the breed was sold as Remount horses, hunting horses and light carriage horses.

1976 the Irish Draft Society was established in 1979 and an English division was created at the same time.

The stud book began to use a rating system to gather the horses which were the best of the breed, and today there is anew breed type which is a cross breed created by crossing the English full blood and it is called the Irish Sport Horse.
Although the Hunter type horses are bred in a similar way to the Irish Draft.

Attributes
Even today, there is a shortage of Irish draught horses, mostly mares; however the stallions which there are enough of are used to breed all kinds of horses.

Today the breed is larger than they were in 1850, when they were described as large horses; this is largely due to the demand for taller horses, the height at the withers generally has increased among all the world’s horses.

But the horse has developed to become smooth and strong animal with powerful hind legs which makes it a good jumper. The breed works extremely well in some cross country disciplines and is completely fearless but at the same time it has a gentle nature thanks to the role the Irish have played in training and breeding this animal.

The breed, especially the sports version, is popular with international stars of Eventing. The Irish Draft horses are tall and strong and can carry very heavy riders, even in very difficult terrain.

The legs are massive, sometimes with a slight hint of feathers; the trails are full but shapely. The neck is long with a well muscled flexible neck that flexes easily from the poll. The head can be a bit rough with a flat or slightly outwardly curving nose profile.

The chest is roomy and the back long, with the hind quarters sloping down quite considerably from the croup down to the tail but the tail is carried high when the horse moves.

Irish Draft horses are also known to be naturally healthy and have a very calm stable temperament. Horses also are good doers requiring less food in comparisons to other breeds of a similar size.