I've always had an affinity with these big beauties but trying to photograph them with a digital camera is a nightmare. If you try to do it when they're moving (when they look really good) you click the shutter and by the time it actually captures the image they've moved on and you end up with a good shot . . . . of a horse's arse!
These two Shires are pulling a plough but the furrows were going a bit wonky.
Two more Shires - Fred and Archie in their finery having their harness explained.
Can't remember the breed but this feisty pair were much daintier than the Shires and this was the only action shot that came out well.
Apart from the Shires there was also a Clydesdale Cleveland cross, a Suffolk Punch (on the endangered species list), a Cleveland, some Clydesdales and a Percheron.
I overheard a spectator say - "They're amazing these Shires - there's so many different breeds". He obviously hadn't been listening! So I award him the best of the Horse's Arse pictures . . .
A Strawberry roan Clydesdale - the "feathers" (the hairy hooves) come higher up the leg than the Shires if I remember rightly. If I'm wrong - let me know.
1 comment:
Feathering on the Shires and Clydesdales is not diagnostic. Traditionally, Shires had coarser feathering. Both breeds can have more or less. Up until the '70's they were interbred to refine characteristics, more of the Shire than vice-versa. The Clyde, to my way of thinking, is the more refined, the more perfected, the more colourful (more white and roaning on average) and better movement. Some judges in the UK have told me, however, that with certain specimens, they have to be told what breed they are of the two before they can differentiate! With the best examples, it is obvious - but there is overlap.
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