The Suffolk horses at Lanwades Park - Pride and Max
Pride and Max have now gone home to Rede Hall, near Bury St Edmunds, after their summer at Lanwades Park. Both are doing well. Come back and visit us next year when we’ll have some more Suffolk horses for you to say hello to!
Over the next few years we aim to have a number of animals at Lanwades Park to see. Ultimately we hope to have the ‘Suffolk Trinity’ comprising the Suffolk horse, Suffolk sheep and the Red Poll (Suffolk) cattle, as well as some Ixworth chickens!
For 2011, Withersfield Pride (or Pride for short), a multi-award winning 14 year old Suffolk horse mare, and Max, a foal born earlier this year have joined us.
Their names may sound familiar to you. They were the subject of local press coverage when Max’s mother was unfortunately put to sleep after damaging her leg. At only four weeks old, Max – officially known as Rede Renegade – was introduced to Withersfield Pride in the hope that she would take him on. And the mare, who hasn’t had a foal for four years, has now adopted him as her own and has even started to produce milk!
You will now be able to see Max develop and grow over the coming summer at Lanwades Park. We will update this page during the year with news and photos of their progress.
The Suffolk horse is the oldest breed of heavy horse in Great Britain. The breed dates from the sixteenth century but all animals alive today trace their male lines back to one stallion, a horse called Crisp’s Horse of Ufford, who was foaled in 1768.
The Suffolk horse is, as its name suggests, native to East Anglia, where it was traditionally used for agricultural work until the mechanization of farming led to its demise as a working horse in the mid-twentieth century. There was a sharp decline in numbers in the 1960s and today there are less than 500 living horses in the UK. The Suffolk horse or ‘Punch’, as it is affectionately known, is now classified as an endangered breed.
Since 2008, the Animal Health Trust has been working together with the Suffolk Horse Society to develop a sustainable breeding programme for the Suffolk horse. The small population size means that genetic diversity is reduced and this can sometimes lead to health problems. We are using the latest technologies to measure current levels of genetic diversity, and this information will be used to predict the sustainability of breeding practices. New breeding strategies are being explored, in order to determine the best way of managing the population to ensure the long-term future of this historic and majestic breed.