Decline
Following the wars, the breeding of heavy agricultural horses collapsed, and the breeders had to adapt. In 1964, the southern studbook opened a "Sportregister" with the aim of producing riding horses, and in 1969 the NWP and southern studbook merged to form the KWPN, the Royal Warmblood Horse Studbook of the Netherlands. There was a studbook for riding horses, a studbook for driving horses, and a studbook for Gelderlanders. All of the Groningen stallions lost their breeding approval, and mare owners were encouraged to breed their Groningen mares to foreign stallions. The breed was sure to disappear.
Read more about this topic: Groningen Horse, History
Famous quotes containing the word decline:
“The decline of a culture
Mourned by scholars who dream of the ghosts of Greek boys.”
—Stephen Spender (1909–1995)
“Families suffered badly under industrialization, but they survived, and the lives of men, women, and children improved. Children, once marginal and exploited figures, have moved to a position of greater protection and respect,... The historic decline in the overall death rates for children is an astonishing social fact, notwithstanding the disgraceful infant mortality figures for the poor and minorities. Like the decline in death from childbirth for women, this is a stunning achievement.”
—Joseph Featherstone (20th century)
“Or else I thought her supernatural;
As though a sterner eye looked through her eye
On this foul world in its decline and fall,
On gangling stocks grown great, great stocks run dry,
Ancestral pearls all pitched into a sty,
Heroic reverie mocked by clown and knave....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)