Category:Cleveland Bay Horse

The English Sporthorse

The Cleveland Bay is the oldest established breed of English Horse.

In 1884, the Cleveland Bay Horse Society of Great Britain published the first volume of its Stud Book containing stallions and mares scrupulously selected for purity of blood, many of whose pedigrees traced back over a century. Since that date, the breed has been maintained free of outcrosses. In consequence, Cleveland Bays stamp their get with remarkable uniformity of size, conformation, soundness, stamina, disposition and color.

The Cleveland Bay is unique in its carefully maintained purity. While the warmbloods of France, Germany, Sweden, Poland, Hungary and other European countries have produced a number of good individuals, their pedigrees are riddled with recent Thoroughbred, Arabian and other outcrosses. Registration in their studbooks carries with it no guarantee or even probability that their offspring will inherit their excellence with any consistency.

Early History

North Yorkshire, England, is famous as the cradle of two of the worlds leading breeds of horses, the Thoroughbred and the Cleveland Bay. In its fertile Vale of Bedale, from about 1660 to 1740, by breeding desert bred imported Arabian stallions to native British race mares, the D'arcys of Sedbury, the Darleys of Aldby, and other breeders evolved the race horse now known as the Thoroughbred.