The Old English Black (also known as Lincolnshire Black) is an extinct

horse breed A horse breed is a selectively bred population of domesticated horses, often with pedigrees recorded in a breed registry. However, the term is sometimes used in a broader sense to define landrace animals of a common phenotype located within a ...

. During the time of the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, French people, French, Flemish people, Flemish, and Bretons, Breton troops, all led by the Du ...

in 1066, the Normans may have taken some of the Great Horses from

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across the

English Channel The English Channel, also known as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates Southern England from northern France. It links to the southern part of the North Sea by the Strait of Dover at its northeastern end. It is the busi ...

and bred them with native Horses. Eventually, a distinct type evolved that was known as the Old English Black Horse. Despite the name, the breed had not been a colour breed. For a long period of time, bays and browns were more commonplace than

blacks Black is a racial classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid- to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin and often additional phenotypical ch ...

. There were also roans, greys, and

chestnuts The chestnuts are the deciduous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Castanea'', in the beech family Fagaceae. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce. They are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Description C ...

among them. The colour

markings Marking may refer to: Symbols Marking may refer to human-made symbols and annotations in several contexts: On vehicles * Aircraft marking * Emergency vehicle equipment markings ** Battenburg markings, emergency vehicle patterns * Vehicle marki ...

were not unlike those of

Clydesdale horse The Clydesdale is a horse breed, breed of draught horse which originated in the seventeenth century, and takes its name from the Clydesdale (district), Clydesdale district of Scotland. The first recorded use of the name "Clydesdale" for the bre ...

s, with the desired pattern being four white stocking and a well-defined bald face. Large Dutch horses (possibly of Brabant and Friesian descent) were imported by

William III William III or William the Third may refer to: Kings * William III of Sicily () * William III of England and Ireland or William III of Orange or William II of Scotland (1650–1702) * William III of the Netherlands and Luxembourg (1817–1890) N ...

when he discovered that the cart horses of his era were not strong enough for the task of draining the Lincolnshire Fens. These horses became known as the Lincolnshire Blacks. Eventually, the Old English Black Horse became

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

as a distinct breed and its bloodlines merged into other breeds. According to Hall and Clutton-Brock, Robert Bakewell developed the Old English Black Horse into the Black Horse of Leicestershire, a forerunner of the Shire Horse of the Midlands. The Old English Black Horse heavily influenced the bloodlines of the Clydesdale and

Shire Shire () is a traditional term for an administrative division of land in Great Britain and some other English-speaking countries. It is generally synonymous with county (such as Cheshire and Worcestershire). British counties are among the oldes ...

, and these breeds today have many features inherited from their ancestors.

Notes

References

* * Stephen JG Hall & Juliet Clutton-Brock, Two Hundred Years of British Farm Livestock Extinct horse breeds Horse breeds originating in England Horse breeds {{Horse-breed-stub