You would recognise a Suffolk horse if you saw one. They are barrel bodied, immensely strong beasts, always some shade of chestnut and with clean legs instead of the hairy, feathered legs of shire horses. Their powerful build makes them look stocky, but this is an illusion. The breed standard says they should be sixteen to seventeen hands high, and seen close up you realize they are truly massive. And they are truly rare because, well, how many people nowadays are able to keep a seventeen hand horse bred for field work as a pet?
I only discovered about the event at Marks Hall because I happened to pick up a leaflet in the museum at Stowmarket. It turns out to be an annual get together, though this was the first time it had been held in Essex instead of Suffolk. The leaflet said Gates open at ten, and the Systems Administrator was reluctant to believe there would be any point in arriving on the dot, so we ambled up at a quarter past, and it was just as well we did, because judging for the supreme champion was already well underway. They were all very patient about being alternately paraded up and down and made to stand about, including a mare with a foal at foot (sixteen weeks and already massive). Then there was a class for ridden Suffolks, part of the strategy to save the breed from extinction since more people might be willing to keep a Suffolk if they thought they could ride it. The thunder of hooves as a Suffolk passes at even a slow canter is quite something. We saw Suffolks pulling vintage outfits and agricultural machinery and helping load logs on to a cart, and standing politely while complete strangers stroked their noses, and finally the young handlers' class in which they were led around the ring by children the oldest of whom was fourteen and the youngest of whom looked about ten.
The Suffolk Horse Society and all the owners taking part must have massive trust in their horses, to have them cantering in a tight circle no more than twenty feet from spectators separated from them only by a row of angle irons and some green plastic, hauling a traditional hay wagon downhill without brakes, being led about by small children, and petted by complete strangers. If one had careered out of the ring it could have done severe damage, and a single kick could kill you, but they all behaved impeccably. It was the first show for one of the horses in the ridden class, who ended up standing in the middle of the ring to get used to the whole thing while the others trotted around him, but overall they behaved impeccably. I stroked the muzzle of the logging horse, and it was like velvet. He was a very laid back creature, lending his huge weight to haul each log up the skids on to the cart at a word from his handler, and relaxed as anything as soon as he'd finished.
There were lots of happy, well behaved dogs as well, and while we were there we took a turn around the walled garden, which is maturing beautifully since being laid out in a cutting edge design within the old walls at the turn of the millennium, while having managed to become very much of its era and distinctly vintage in less than twenty years. It was a very nice day out. I worry about the long term future of the horses, though. They don't truly look very comfortable to ride, being so broad, and will there be enough horse logging, funeral corteges and heritage museum gigs to go round? Five hundred is really not very many
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