Auxois
Country of origin | France |
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Breed standards | |
The Auxois is a horse breed from eastern France. It is a large breed, with some individuals weighing over 910 kilograms (2,010 lb), bred for horse meat, agricultural work and leisure pursuits. Overall, members of the breed are solid and muscular in appearance. They are usually bay or bay roan in color, although some other colors are accepted by the breed registry, and are known for their power and docility.
The Auxois is a direct descendant of the
By the 1970s, the Auxois had almost become extinct, and the French government began pushing the breeding of all native draft horses for meat production, as opposed to agricultural usage. However, the meat of the Auxois was not considered high quality, and this, combined with a lower-than-expected market for meat, led to a continued decline in French draft horse populations. In the 1990s, the French government reversed its position on breeding for meat, and began promoting draft breeds for leisure pursuits. The Auxois continues to be rare, having the eighth-smallest population numbers of the nine native French draft breeds. An annual breed show is held in Semur-en-Auxois, and the Auxois is frequently seen at the Paris International Agricultural Show.
Breed characteristics
The Auxois is a horse of great size, larger than the
The head is relatively short, with a wide forehead. The neck is also relatively short and muscular, the shoulders long and sloping and the chest wide and deep. The body is solid, with a broad, short back and loins. The hindquarters are well-muscled.[1][3][4] The legs are robust, although they can appear small in relation to the mass of the body.[5] They usually have less feathering on the legs than other French draft horse breeds.[6] Horses registered with the studbook may be branded on the left side of the neck with the letters "TX".[7] This brand is generally applied during breed competitions, and only after the age of two.[1]
Auxois horses are usually
The majority of Auxois are still bred for meat production,[12] and in 2001, 50% of the horses bred were intended for slaughter.[13] However, the power and gaits of the breed make them valued for competitive and leisure driving, as well as equestrian tourism.[9] The smaller horses of the breed are used for milk production.[11] The Auxois is used for celebrations, such as weddings, and historical reenactments.[11] It is also used for logging,[9] and in recent years, has been increasingly used in agriculture, being found in vineyards, gardens and farms.[8] The use of them for the maintenance of rural roads is also in planning.[14]
History
The history of the Auxois is closely tied to its homeland, for which it is named. The rich pastures of the Auxois area, including the French Gold Coast, parts of Yonne, the Saône-et-Loire and northern Nièvre, are conducive to the breeding of large draft horses.[7][15] The recognition of the Auxois dates back to the early 20th century, making it relatively new compared to other French draft breeds.[16]
The Auxois is a direct descendant of the
Breeders introduced foreign
The first attempts to create a breed registry in 1903 and 1904 failed. In 1912, another attempt was made, this time successful, and a stud book was created in Dijon in 1913. With the creation of the stud book, only purebred Auxois or Ardennais and Trait du Nord crosses could be registered.[19][22] However, by 1917, the physical characteristics of the breed were still not fixed, and leaders of the equine community were critical, and doubtful of whether the Auxois was a breed in its own right or still merely a subtype of the Ardennais. They were also unsure whether it was a good idea to accept the recognition of another regional breed, of which France had many.[23]
World War I and World War II
World War I interrupted the efforts to secure a breed standard, with stud book selection not resuming until 1920. Within a few years, the ideal height was set around 15.3 hands (63 inches, 160 cm), and its breeding spread throughout Auxois and neighboring regions.[19]
Between World War I and World War II, the Auxois was the pride of regional farmers.[24] Before the advent of motorization, it was the preferred pulling animal, even for slow work, winning out over the local Charolais cattle breed used as oxen.[7] The Auxois was bred solely for agricultural work, and used exclusively for this purpose.[8] The strongest horses were used for multi-horse hitches in the fields and for logging.[24] The Auxois competed in popularity with the Nivernais horse, and it was not uncommon for farmers in the region to have both the black-coated Nivernais and the red-coated Ardennais and Auxois to satisfy the color preferences of all potential buyers.[25]
In the early 1930s the Auxois reached the peak of its physical development.[26] It was described, like the Ardennais and the Trait du Nord, as a born plowhorse, with a neck naturally held so low that the nose almost touched the ground. It was developed entirely for traction, and its conformation allowed it to move huge weights over short distances.[27] At the same time, it became more popular than the Nivernais, and was considered a southern representation of the Ardennais breed. Merchants visiting Burgundy horse fairs appreciated the breed, and deemed its bay coloration better able to hide dirt than that of the light gray Percheron or black Nivernais.[28] The peak populations and usage of the Auxois and other French draft horses was short due to the advent of mechanization in the 1960s.[29]
Post-war to 1990s
During World War II, fuel stocks were used by the armies, and were unavailable to farmers. This allowed horses to remain a key aspect of agriculture and transportation until the end of the war.[30] After the war, farmers rapidly mechanized their operations. The Auxois and other draft breeds were quickly abandoned in favor of machines,[9] and population numbers began to fall in the early 1950s and collapsed completely in the 1960s.[31] By the 1970s, the Auxois had almost disappeared,[9] although many villages in the breed's homeland retained a small number of mares for traditional competitions.[24]
In the early 1970s, Henry Blanc was appointed as the new director of the French National Stud, and began the conversion of French draft breeds into animals bred for slaughter into horse meat. The stud encouraged farmers who could no longer find buyers for their animals to fatten them for resale to the slaughter markets. Breeding for the production of meat helped to safeguard the Auxois breed by keeping its gene pool intact, but also transformed the previously powerful breed into one bred solely for weight — the main consideration in pricing at slaughter. In 1976, an official French decree changed the name of the category in which the Auxois fit from "draft horses" to "heavy horses" and encouraged farmers to select the heaviest breeding stallions possible, to increase the average weight of the breed. The National Stud approved this change,[32] and between the 1950s and the 1980s, the average weight of the Auxois increased from 650 to 800 kilograms (1,430 to 1,760 lb) to 800 to 1,000 kilograms (1,800 to 2,200 lb) or more.[33]
The conversion to meat was unfavorable for the Auxois, however. The Percheron was preferred for the quality of the meat and the Ardennais and closely related Auxois were considered to have some of the lowest quality meat.[34] In addition, the promised market for horse meat did not materialize, and French slaughterhouses were overwhelmed by imports of cheap horses from the Americas and Eastern Europe. Because of this lack of profitability,[11] the population of most French breeds, including the Auxois, continued to decline until 1994.[31] The collapse in prices then forced the National Stud to redirect its draft horse-related activities.[35]
In the early 1990s, recreational riding enjoyed a revival in France, while the consumption of horse meat dropped.
Present
As it has been since the creation of the Auxois stud book, only purebred horses and Ardennes and Trait du Nord crosses are allowed to be registered. This is to ensure selection for the desired breed characteristics, which are now a lighter and more active horse than was seen during the time of breeding for horse meat.[7] Horses bred through artificial insemination and embryo transfer are allowed to be registered; those potentially bred through cloning are not.[1] The Syndicat du Cheval de Trait Auxois (Auxois Draft Horse Association) is the national registry, managing the stud book, breed standard and promotion of the breed.[40] An annual breed competition is held in September in Semur-en-Auxois.[9] The Burgundy region continues to celebrate the breed, and there is a museum dedicated to it in Bierre-les-Semur.[37] The Auxois is also regularly seen at the International Agriculture Show in Paris.[41]
The population of Auxois is very low, and it is one of the rarest of the nine French draft horse breeds.
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f Roche-Bruyn, François (November 14, 2002). "Règlement du stud-book du cheval auxois" (PDF) (in French). Haras Nationaux. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 1, 2013. Retrieved 2013-04-11.
- ^ Deutsch, Julie (February 2004). "L'auxois". Cheval Star (in French) (149).
- ^ "Standard et stud-book du cheval de trait Auxois" (in French). Syndicat d'élevage du Cheval de Trait Auxois. Archived from the original on 2013-06-23. Retrieved 2013-04-11.
- ^ a b c Centre de promotion de la race du cheval de trait auxois et Syndicat du cheval de trait auxois (2009). "Auxois" (PDF) (in French). Haras Nationaux. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-09-24. Retrieved 2013-04-11.
- ISBN 978-0-671-66068-0.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-681-41894-3.
- ^ a b c d e f g Bataille, p. 136
- ^ a b c Bataille, p. 137
- ^ ISBN 978-2-84416-459-9.
- ^ Collective 1951, p. 151
- ^ a b c d e f g Collective 2002, p. 108
- ISBN 978-0-8061-3884-8.
- ^ a b c d Pilley-Mirande, Natalie (September 2001). "L'auxois, un deuxième souffle". Cheval Magazine (in French) (358): 53.
- ^ Collective 2002, p. 109
- ^ Sourdillat, p. 330
- ^ Sourdillat, p. 332
- ISBN 9782030003008.
- ISBN 9780715357989.
- ^ a b c Sourdillat, p. 336
- ^ Lizet, p. 232
- ^ Bataille, p. 135
- ^ Collective 1951, p. 152
- ^ Lizet, p. 233
- ^ ISBN 978-88-7009-220-2.
- ^ Lizet, pp. 234–236
- ^ a b Mavre, p. 38
- ^ Mavre, p. 42
- ^ Lizet, p. 260
- ^ Mavre, p. 43
- ^ Mavre, p. 66
- ^ a b Mavre, pp. 34–35
- ^ Mavre, p. 31
- ^ Mavre, p. 150
- ^ Lizet, p. 263
- ^ Collective 2002, pp. 106–107
- ^ a b Brunel, Sylvie & Durand, Bénédicte (2007). "Le cheval, une énergie d'avenir ?" (PDF) (in French). Festival International de Geographie. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-03-06. Retrieved 2013-04-10.
- ^ ISBN 978-2-7469-2782-7.
- ^ "Centre de promotion du cheval de trait Auxois" (in French). Syndicat d'élevage du Cheval de Trait Auxois. Archived from the original on 2013-06-23. Retrieved 2013-04-10.
- ISBN 978-2-84444-187-4.
- ^ "Le syndicat" (in French). Syndicat du Cheval de Trait Auxois. Archived from the original on 2013-06-23. Retrieved 2013-04-11.
- ^ "La Côte d'Or se dévoile au Salon International de l'Agriculture à Paris" (in French). Newspress. February 17, 2011. Archived from the original on September 4, 2012. Retrieved 2013-04-11.
- ^ Bataille, p. 138
- ^ Pilley-Mirande, Nathalie (October 2002). "Les traits français dans le monde". Cheval Magazine (in French) (371): 62–65.
References
- ISBN 978-2-85557-154-6.
- Collective (1951). La Revue de l'élevage [The magazine of breeding] (in French). Vol. 6. Revue de l'élevage.
- Collective (2002). Chevaux et poneys [Horses and ponies] (in French). Éditions Artemis. ISBN 978-2-84416-338-7.
- Lizet, Bernadette (1989). La bête noire: à la recherche du cheval parfait [The black beast, in search of the perfect horse]. France Mission du patrimoine ethnologique (in French). Éditions MSH. ISBN 978-2-7351-0317-1.
- Mavré, Marcel (2004). Attelages et attelées : un siècle d'utilisation du cheval de trait (in French). France Agricole Editions. ISBN 978-2-85557-115-7.
- Sourdillat, Jean-Marie (1929). "Un pays d'élevage : l'Auxois" [A land for breeding : The Auxois]. .