Hackney horses face extinction as modern world passes them by
HACKNEY horses are at risk of extinction, the Rare Breeds Survival Trust (RBST) has said, despite their historic role in traditional British rural life.
The RBST, which works to save and safeguard rare native livestock and equine breeds, has today released its Watchlist, showing which are seeing a recovery and which are most at risk.
While some animals are doing well, thanks to a renewed interest, others are dying out because the modern world has no use for them. The number of breeding hackney horses, traditionally used for driving carriages, is down to 129, from 158 last year.
Christopher Price, the RBST chief, told The Daily Telegraph: “With all of the breeds, the best way to conserve them is restoring them to the use for which they were created.
“It’s straightforward for livestock but hard for equine breeds, as the use for them has disappeared.” He said hackney horses “need to be valued for what they are rather than what they can do”.
Breeds of rare animals that do not have a commercial use, should be preserved for “social reasons”, he argued.
Additionally, many native breeds are good for conservation grazing which encourages biodiversity and regeneration of habitats. The new Agricultural Bill, due to come into force soon at the end of EU negotiations, will reward farmers for environmentally friendly uses of their land, with subsidies for caring for British breeds.
The number of Bagot goats has doubled in a decade, Vaynol cattle numbers have increased significantly this year and Border Leicester sheep have had their best year since they joined the Watchlist. However, some familiar breeds, including Dartmoor and Exmoor ponies and Tamworth and saddleback pigs, are at risk of dying out.
Mr Price said that keeping native livestock breeds will end up being more economically when the UK leaves the EU’S influence.
He explained: “When the CAP [Common Agricultural Policy] goes, farmers need to look at what else they can do, which is looking at the traditional British breeds which are designed to thrive in the British landscape without supplementary feed and with fewer medicines, so the costs go down.”
The music-hall entertainer Gus Elen used to sing that “with a ladder and some glasses, / You could see to ’Ackney marshes / If it wasn’t for the ’ouses in between.” Before they built those houses, the meadows of Hackney were used for the grazing of horses. Hackney horses were already famous in the 13th century. They gave their name to the forerunners of taxis, hackney carriages (and the name of hack to hired writers, such as journalists). The acme of cabs, the Hansom, drawn by a spirited, high-stepping horse, was a really elegant two-wheeled equipage when 7,000 plied their trade in Sherlock Holmes’s day. Then petrol came in and – crash! – the horses went out. As we report today, only 129 breeding animals survive. To encourage interest in such breeds may not be an original thought, but nor is it hackneyed.