Bring Back The Woolly Mammoth

A few year ago, Scientists analysing the fossils of the Woolly Mammoth, came to the conclusion that the rising temperatures at the end of the ice age may have been the reason that the animal became extinct and not (as previously thought) due to human intervention. Now, there has been talk of “de-extinction” for some time now. The process of certain creatures that are no longer with us being brought back to life. Now, I can kind of see the point in bringing back the poor old Dodo as we, the human killed it off, but the Woolly Mammoth?? The Plains of North America now have roads, crops and people on them, so what would he eat? And it’s not just as though you can ask him to live just anywhere, he’d be sweating like a fat lass in a disco if you made him live in Spain. Crikey, even I can think of better things to bring back from the dead than that. I mean Freddie Mercury for one, or even my Granny and that’s without touching on the list of famous and influential people who have passed away in the last six months. In life there are things that simply run their course and is this a good enough reason to re-create them? All this got me thinking and as horses are usually at the forefront of my mind, I started thinking about all our native horse breeds.

The Rare Breed Survival Trust states that a breed is “Critical” when there are less than 300 breeding mares; “Endangered” is less than 500, “Vulnerable”; less than 900 and “At Risk” is less than 1500. And even though these all important mares are registered, they may not be used for breeding purposes and even if they are, they may not produce a live foal. This makes some of our native breeds rarer than wild pandas. One of my favourite breeds The Hackney is on the Critical list. The Hackney was used as a carriage horse and the clue to his survival is in his name. The only Hackney Carriages we have now have an engine and are driven by someone who has knowledge of London that would rival that enormous man on The Chase. The Hackney is a beautiful creature, sleek, elegant and with an extravagant high knee action. He is eye catching to say the very least and he had brought his good blood to many other breeds of horse. Would I have one? Oh lordy, yes I would love one, but I would have to travel a long way down South to take him to a Show, as up here in the North, Hackney Ponies are more scarce than buses.

The great Clydesdale horse is on the At Risk list. This heavy horse was used to plough our fields and sow our crops until the rise of the tractor. He has also brought his bloodlines into many riding horses and over the years I have known a few horses that have been the offspring of a Clydesdale mare sent to a Thoroughbred stallion. The common sense and kindness of the heavy horse crossed with the quick thinking and energetic racehorse makes an active and generous horse to ride and deal with. Pure-bred Clydesdales with a saddle on have become very popular in recent years. I have a friend who shows her majestic elephant of a horse in ridden classes and I have to admit the first time I rode him I caught flies in my mouth. I expected this colossal beast to be a bit like a cross between a Neanderthal and an Army Tank, with the finesse of Play Doh. To my amazement he was neither. His mouth was soft on the bit and it was like sitting on an air suspension. At the slightest touch of my legs he moved forward with a lovely enthusiastic manner; he clearly loved his job and was both eager and happy to please his rider. I am 5’2” and about 9 and a half stone so he would find me something of a feather weight, but just because this horse is the size of a bungalow, should we really be asking him to carry big weights? If you look at the Clydesdale’s hind legs you will find that you would struggle to get a fag paper between his hocks, unlike our riding horses where this would be a conformation fault. This gives the heavy horse the power to drive those all important back legs into the ground and pull a huge amount of weight behind him, he is not built to carry weight on his back. And there you have it, the reason that the lovely gentle Clydesdale is at risk is because we no longer need him to be the Farmers’ Servant. How sad.