Coldblooded or draft animals are a very obvious type as their physical characteristics tend to be so very large. The term generally describes larger, more robust animals that are bred for heavy work.
What Is A Coldblooded Breed?
Most of the draft breeds come from the cold northern regions of Europe & Russia and they are still warmblooded animals, but called coldblooded due to their size & stature. Considering they are from a rather localized place, there is a wide variety of draft breeds, the list below is hardly a complete one.
American Cream Draft | Ardennes | Australian Draught | Ban-ei | Belgian Draft | Boulonnais | Clydesdale | Czech Coldblood | Drum Horse | Dutch Draft | Estonian Draft | French Ardennais | German Cold-Blooded | Hladnokrvnjak | Hungarian Draft | Italian Draft | Jutland | Kaldblodstraver | Lithuanian Draft | Northern Ardennais | Percheron | Poitevin | Posavac | Russian Heavy Draft | Schleswiger Draft | Shire | South German Coldblood | Suffolk Punch | Sugarbush Draft | Swedish Ardennes | Vladimir Draft
The 20th Century was hard on many of these breeds & their demand declined as machines took over the farm. This in turn has caused many of their numbers to dwindle.
The Work Horse
These heavy animals are obviously not known for their sprinting ability. Draft breeds are almost always bred for heavy work, sheer strength and meat production (sorry but it’s true) all of which require massive size.
An animal out of it’s time – the days of large horses powering the farm are largely over.
Modern Drafts
While some of the heavy breeds are still bred for work and transportation, a large % of those bred in Europe and the states are used as show animals or in specialty careers like carriage horses. Both of which are a rather anti-climactic end to the animals who worked so hard to feed & house our previous generations.
Horse Types
As if horse breeds weren’t confusing enough, there are a variety of types as well. Typing is a much older form of classification and stems mainly from the geography & climate of the animal’s native land. Be sure to check out the list of all the different horse types and keep checking back for more in-depth info about each one.