Cleveland Bay - Uses

Uses

The Cleveland Bay is a versatile horse and is still used today for many tasks, including driving and farmwork. In the 1920s, Cleveland Bays replaced black Hanoverians in the British royal stables, and both the Cleveland Bay and Cleveland Bay/Thoroughbred crosses are used as royal carriage horses today. The horses are used as heavy hunters, as they are powerful and able to carry a man weighing 250 pounds (110 kg) for a full day of hunting over large obstacles and through heavy clay. When crossed with Thoroughbreds, the resulting progeny are lighter and faster, but still strong and heavy of bone. When show jumping was first beginning as a sport during the mid-19th century, Cleveland Bays were among the initial stars. Two mares, Star and Fanny Drape, were two of the top performers. Fanny Drape was known to have cleared a 6 feet (1.8 m) stone wall with a rider on her back, and a 7.5 feet (2.3 m) bar while being jumped in-hand. In 2006, a Cleveland Bay stallion named Tregoyd Journeyman was used as a model for a new horse figure by Breyer Animal Creations, and the stallion participated in that year's Breyer model horse festival. Purebred and crossbred Cleveland Bays make up the majority of the bay horses in the Royal Mews, the British royal stables, where they receive intense training to desensitize them before they are put to work drawing royal carriages.

The Cleveland Bay was used in the creation of the Oldenburg breed, because of its stamina, strength, and jumping ability. The breed was also used to create and improve the Holstein and Hanoverian breeds. In the late 18th century, the Cleveland Bay was used to create the short-lived Yorkshire Coach Horse through crosses with Thoroughbreds. These Yorkshires were used mainly to pull mail and passenger coaches, hence their name. Called by some the "New Cleveland Bay", foreigners often could not distinguish between the two breeds, and many horses registered as Cleveland Bays in European coach horse studbooks were actually Yorkshire Coach Horses. In the 19th century, the Cleveland Bay was crossed with French and Belgian draft horses to create the Vladimir Heavy Draft, a Russian breed developed to fill that country's need for a heavy draft breed.