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NEW BLOODLINES FOR AUSTRALIA We have been most fortunate to purchase the eight year old purebred stallion "Moelion (pronounced Mow-ee-lee-yon) Arthur", CBHS Stud Book number 2325 from the Penrhyn Stud of Charles Medforth in Wales. "Arfur", as we call him, is a Cleveland Bay Horse Society Premium stallion and has won the King George V Cup for Champion Cleveland Bay Stallion of Great Britain for the last four years running, and was Reserve Champion for the Cup first time out as a three year old. A very popular and well regarded horse in the UK, we have found his manners impeccable and he's a perfect gentleman to handle. Recovered quickly from the journey UK to Australia and the transition from a UK winter to our summer, he arrived for us in excellent condition and has settled in well. We have also been most fortunate to have acquired two top quality purebred females. It has been of concern to me some time that we do not have enough diversity in our female blood lines in Australia and New Zealand. Of the eleven original Cleveland Bay stallion lines only one has survived and all the present day stallions are from stallion line one*. The Cleveland Bay Horse Society is one of the few Breed Societies today which still place great emphasis on the female breeding lines **and trace purebred entries in the Stud Book to one of the present day eight female ancestry lines (of an original seventeen*) established with the founding of the Society and the Stud Book in 1884, of which one, line four, is now extinct. As far as I am aware all the current purebred mares in Australasia are descended from "Stixwould Clementine" 1857 and "Penrhyn Contessa" 1760, both imported from the UK into New Zealand by Ron Chapman in the late 70's. Both these mares were female line five, and hence all their female descendants in our region are line five. The line three females left here in Australia by Wendy Forbes when she moved to the United States, regrettably died out with the early death of "Clareborough Classic" 1952AUS out of "Knaresborough Bewytched" 1657 as a three year old in 1987. We have acquired "Miss Chance" 2289 by the former Premium stallion and 1990 King George V Cup Champion Cleveland Bay Stallion of Great Britain "Masterful Jack" 2191 out of "Willow Deity" 2058, who is a line three mare, and "Forest Fair Anna" 2331 by the Premium stallion and three times King George V Cup Champion Cleveland Bay Stallion "Wigginton Antonio" 2191, out of "Forest Fairest" 2058 who is a line one mare. Hopefully the introduction of these two new line one and three female ancestry lines into Australia to add to our line fives should prove of great benefit to the future and diversity of the breed down under, and the breeding and qualifications of these mares together with "Moelion Arthur" should assist in our ongoing and gradual improvement of the quality of our local Cleveland Bays. For readers interested in understanding the ancestry lines I refer you to * Where did your Cleveland Bay come from? By Andy Dell, page 104, The Cleveland Bay Magazine number 32, 1999 ** Present Day Female Ancestry Lines. By S. A. Emmerson, page 103, The Cleveland Bay Horse Society Centenary Stud Book, Volume XXIX, 1984 ** Cleveland Bay Mare Lines. By Jane E. Scott, page 31, The Cleveland Bay Magazine number 32, 1999 David
Gregory, From
Cleveland Bay News, Autumn 2001.
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