{"id":704,"date":"2010-08-09T04:59:50","date_gmt":"2010-08-09T04:59:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theequinest.com\/breeds\/?p=704"},"modified":"2025-01-15T13:27:40","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T13:27:40","slug":"italian-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theequinest.com\/breeds\/italian-draft","title":{"rendered":"Italian Heavy Draft Horse"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Intro<\/h3>\n<p>Also called Italian Working Horse, Rapid Heavy Draft and Cavallo Agricolo Italiano da Tiro Pesante Rapido, the Italian Heavy Draft is a man made breed created to fulfill needs of both war and agricultural.<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<h3>Origins<\/h3>\n<p>The breed dates back to 1860, when the horse production branch of the Department of War began crossbreeding <a href=\"\/breeds\/breton\">Breton<\/a> stallions to mares of the northeastern Italian plains. The mares were of varied stock and included animals of <a href=\"\/breeds\/hackney-horse\">Hackney<\/a>, <a href=\"\/breeds\/belgian-draft\">Belgian Draft<\/a> and <a href=\"\/breeds\/breton\">Breton<\/a> origin. Through continuous cross breeding of those same lines, the Italian Heavy Draft came about with their own distinguishing characteristics. <\/p>\n<p>In 1927 a stud book was formed and until the mid-20th century the Italian Draft was a popular breed as they were not just powerful, but fast as well. Towards the end of the 20th century, need for a heavy draft had all but died out and their numbers declined sharply. <\/p>\n<p>In the 1970&#8217;s a program was put into place to improve the breed for meat production, which is what they are primarily raised for today. <\/p>\n<h3>Features<\/h3>\n<p>Average height 15 &#8211; 16 hands<\/p>\n<h3>Physique<\/h3>\n<p>Head is long but shapely with a straight or slightly convex profile<br \/>\nEyes are large and lively<br \/>\nEars are small<br \/>\nNeck is short and muscular<br \/>\nBack is short and straight<br \/>\nChest is broad, muscular and deep<br \/>\nShoulder is long and well sloped<br \/>\nLegs are short with broad, strong joints and some feathering<br \/>\nFeet are straight and boxy<\/p>\n<h3>Traditional Colors<\/h3>\n<p>Generally liver <a href=\"\/colors\/base\/chestnut\">chestnut<\/a>, often with <a href=\"\/colors\/modifiers\/flaxen\">flaxen<\/a> mane and tail.<\/p>\n<h3>Temperament<\/h3>\n<p>Amiable and easy to work with<\/p>\n<h3>Use<\/h3>\n<p>Meat production<br \/>\nAgriculture<br \/>\nCreation of heavy draft mules<br \/>\nImproving meat production value in other breeds<\/p>\n<h3>Helpful Links<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.anacaitpr.it\/\" target=\"blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Associazione Nazionale Allevatori del Cavallo Agricolo Italiano da Tiro Pesante Rapido<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>More Images<\/h3>\n<div class=\"grid-two\">\n<div class=\"grid-two-one\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/images\/italian-heavy-draft.webp\" alt=\"Italian Heavy Draft Horse\" \/>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"grid-two-two\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/images\/italian-heavy-draft-2.webp\" alt=\"Italian Heavy Draft Horse\" \/>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"grid-two\">\n<div class=\"grid-two-one\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/images\/italian-heavy-draft-3.webp\" alt=\"Italian Heavy Draft Horse\" \/>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"grid-two-two\">\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h3>Video<\/h3>\n<div class=\"flex-video widescreen\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/F7c-Nz8sOHw?si=1RySYV__YQ3c9w7b\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div class=\"flex-video widescreen\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WnRZKBIfcPc?si=ucky0TRQS2qUY0nC\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Intro Also called Italian Working Horse, Rapid Heavy Draft and Cavallo Agricolo Italiano da Tiro Pesante Rapido, the Italian Heavy Draft is a man made breed created to fulfill needs of both war and agricultural.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5119,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[126,11,127,42],"class_list":["post-704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-italy","tag-at-risk","tag-chestnut","tag-endangered","tag-flaxen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theequinest.com\/breeds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theequinest.com\/breeds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theequinest.com\/breeds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theequinest.com\/breeds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theequinest.com\/breeds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=704"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/theequinest.com\/breeds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7755,"href":"https:\/\/theequinest.com\/breeds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704\/revisions\/7755"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theequinest.com\/breeds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theequinest.com\/breeds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theequinest.com\/breeds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theequinest.com\/breeds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}