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Strategies for improving English horses in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

Arthur MacGREGOR

en Anthropozoologica 29 - Pages 65-74

Published on 01 October 1999

During the two centuries that from the focus ofthis survey, concerted efforts were made to enhance the quality of English horses.Two distinct strategies were followed. On the one hand, legislative measures sought to improve native horses by controlling exports, by regulating the common pasturing of animals and by improsing on land-owners requirements that they maintain numbers of serviceable horses in proportion to their estates. On the other hand, breeding programmes dependent on superior animals imported from continental Europe and from the Mediterranean littoral were pursued. The effectiveness of these programmes is reviewed and their long-term legacy is assessed.


Keywords:

Horses, Breeding, Legislation, England.

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