A very successful exhibitor of the past season has been his Grace the Duke of Westminster, who owns a very good young sire in Eaton Nunsuch--so good that he has been hired by the Peterborough Society. Shires have been bred on the Eaton Hall estate for many years, and the stud contains many promising animals now.
Mention must be made of the great interest taken in Shires by the Duke of Devonshire who, as the Hon. Victor Cavendish, kept a first-class stud at Holker, Lancs. At the Royal Show of 1909 (Gloucester) Holker Mars was the Champion Shire stallion, Warton Draughtsman winning the Norwich Royal Championship, and also that of the London Show of 1912 for his popular owner.
Among those who have done much to promote the breeding of the Old English type of cart-horse, the name of Mr. Clement Keevil deserves a foremost place. At Blagdon, Malden, Surrey, he held a number of stud sales in the eighties and nineties, to which buyers went for massive-limbed Shires of the good old strains; those with a pedigree which traced back to Honest Tom (_alias_ Little David), foaled in the year 1769, to Wiseman’s Honest Tom, foaled in 1800, or to Samson a sire weighing 1 ton 8 cwt. Later he had a stud at Billington, Beds, where several sales were held, the last being in 1908, when Mr. Everard gave 860 guineas for the stallion, Lockinge Blagdon. Shortly before that he sold Blagdon Benefactor for 1000 guineas.
The prefix “Birdsall” has been seen in show catalogues for a number of years, which mean that the animals holding it were bred, or owned, by Lord Middleton, at Birdsall, York, he being one of the first noblemen to found a stud, and he has ably filled the Presidential Chair of the Shire Horse Society. As long ago as the 1892 London Show there were two entries from Birdsall by Lord Middleton’s own sire, Northwood, to which reference is made elsewhere.
Another notable sire purchased by his lordship was Menestrel, first in London, 1900 (by Hitchin Conqueror), his most famous son being Birdsall Menestrel, dam Birdsall Darling by Northwood, sold to Lord Rothschild as a yearling. As a two-year-old this colt was Cup winner and reserve Champion, and at four he was Challenge Cup winner. A good bidder at Shire sales, the breeder of a champion, and a consistent supporter of the Shire breeding industry since 1883, it is regrettable that champion honours have not fallen to Lord Middleton himself.