Queen (then Princess Elizabeth) pictured with her dog Dookie in 1936 (Image: The Royal Family_Instagram)
How a colt saved from export rescued a near-lost horse breed
Her passion was visible at the Derby at Epsom and Royal Ascot, and her runners won, Landau took the Rous Memorial Stakes in 1954, Estimate won the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot in 2013, and Highclere took the Prix de Diane at Chantilly in 1975. In 1960, only six purebred Cleveland Bay stallions were alive, according to The Livestock Conservancy, a nonprofit organisation working to protect more than 150 heritage farm animal breeds. The Queen, whose grandfather had also bred Cleveland Bays, bought a pure colt named Mulgrave Supreme, born in 1961 and earmarked for export, and used him as a stud. The Conservancy still lists the breed as critically endangered, though perhaps as many as one thousand horses are alive today, about 180 of them purebreds in North America.
Because the lighter, faster crossbreds were worth more, it explains that the breed was developed in Yorkshire for strength, speed, soundness and stamina, but mechanisation ended demand for farm, coach and road horses, and breeders crossbred their mares.
She also helped ensure the survival of several rare horse and pony breeds through breeding programmes in her private yards and in the working yards that produced horses for royal and state occasions, according to the same page. The Livestock Conservancy notes that he is patron of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, its sister organisation in the United Kingdom, and is converting the Queen’s Sandringham Estate to organic farming, a system he says works with nature rather than against it. The Royal Family’s official website traces the Queen’s horsemanship to a Shetland pony named Peggy, a gift from her grandfather, King George V. From that first pony, she grew into a rider, owner and breeder the website calls hugely knowledgeable. Racing was only one side of her stables. Highland ponies were bred to haul timber and game and plough small Scottish farms, and the Queen kept a large working stud of them; the royal family’s website lists them among the breeds she championed. Her farm animals followed the same pattern. On her Gloucestershire estate, the Queen also raised Gloucester Old Spots pigs, a docile, intelligent breed that nearly vanished in the 1960s and has slowly increased since. King Charles the Third now carries the family’s involvement forward. The Conservancy still classifies the Cleveland Bay, Fell and Highland as critically endangered, so their survival depends on breeders, registries and owners.
