The Cleveland Bay Horse is a 'Critically Endangered' Breed.   In 2001, only 39 foals were registered with only 14 of these being fillies.

Numbers prior to 2000 had been approaching 80 per year on average but the sudden decline has been a major cause for concern.

Registrations in 2002 were again well below the average.  It is thought that some of the decline in registrations can be attributed to Foot & Mouth Epidemic when mares would not have traveled to stallions.

It is estimated that of the 2005 crop of foals there were 21 fillies and 25 colts born.  Registrations are still ongoing for these foals so final numbers are yet to be determined.  The 2004 crop of foals yielded 25 fillies and 36 colts registered with the Society (a total of 61 foals).

In 2006 it was estimated that there are only about 550 pure bred Cleveland Bay Horses in the world.  Approximately 220 of them being breeding aged females (3 yrs. - 20 yrs old) and the remaining being stallions, geldings and youngsters.

As of August 2007 the number of recorded 2006 pure bred registrations are as follows: 26 colts and 33 fillies.  A total of 59 pure bred foals. 

A Brief History of the Cleveland Bay

The Cleveland Bay, originally called the Chapman horse for the travelling salesmen that used them, is England’s oldest and only native Warmblood breed of horse.  The Cleveland Bay’s origins can be traced back to the middle ages in the Cleveland district of north Yorkshire where a race of clean legged bay colored horses were the general purpose horses of their time.  These native horses were expected to be able to work all week in the fields or under pack, be ridden in the hunt and be driven to church on Sunday all without coming up lame or requiring special care.  This demanding environment produced a horse that was sound, with great stamina, a calm disposition and was an ‘easy keeper’.  The qualities that were important to the people of Yorkshire are also those that make the modern Cleveland Bay the all around performer that it is today.   

The Cleveland Bay received greater notoriety throughout Great Britain with the advent of the coach during the reign of Queen Elizabeth the First.  The Cleveland Bay’s natural strength, activity and endurance were well suited to pull the first heavy vehicles over the rough roads of Elizabethan Great Britain.   

As the roads improved during the 1700’s, a demand for greater coach speeds required more pace from the coach horse of the day.  The Cleveland Bay benefited from an infusion of blood from horses imported from the East that were used to create the Thoroughbred breed, another Cleveland district native.  The descendants of those horses were used on traditional Cleveland mares and their offspring became an integral part of the breed’s history transforming the breed in the process.

                                   Emperor Wood Cut                     The Coach Horse                                

During the early 1800’s, the Cleveland Bay continued to be used and improved as a coach horse.  However as the use of railroads increased as a mode of travel the use of coaches and coach horses for long distance travel declined.  The result was a decline in the Cleveland Bay population to the point where the breed was in serious danger of becoming extinct. 

By the middle of the 1800’s a number of things happened in the United States to improve the popularity of the Cleveland Bay.  During the 1850’s, a Cleveland Bay stallion named Scrivington was imported from Great Britain by a Virginia gentleman named Colonel Delaney to his Virginia plantation Welbourne.  Mr. Delaney’s goal was to use Scrivington to improve the quality of his horses.  As a means of showcasing the quality of Scrivington’s foals, Mr. Delaney and other like minded Virginians organized the Upperville Colt and Horse show.  That horse show organized by Mr. Delaney in the 1850’s continues to be held under the same oak trees in Upperville Virginia that witnessed the first Upperville Colt and Horse show.  It was the first livestock show that was designed to be only for horses and it now lays claim to the title of the oldest horse show in the United States. 

 Over the next few decades literally thousands of horses with Cleveland bay blood were exported to the United States.  It is during this time that Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Show were touring the United States and Europe.  Buffalo Bill used a team of Cleveland Bay stallions in his Wild West show giving a further boost to Cleveland Bay popularity in the Unites States. 

 By this time, the Cleveland Bay stallion’s ability to pass on its stamina, temperament and soundness had become well known in the horse world.  To the point where the Cleveland Bay was used by the US cavalry in their breeding programs.  In addition, Cleveland blood can be found in such uniquely American breeds as the Morgan, Standard bred and Quarter horse.   In Europe, many Warmblood horses can trace their ancestry to the Cleveland Bay.  The most notable example of this is the use of Cleveland Bays to improve the Oldenburg breed.    

During this time in Great Britain, a few like minded Cleveland Bay breeders and enthusiasts decided to form the Cleveland Bay Horse Society (CBHS).  In 1884, the Cleveland Bay Horse Society began its work preserving and promoting the breed, a function which it continues to perform to this day.  Meticulous records of Cleveland Bay registrations, pedigrees and ownership were and continue to be documented by the society providing a comprehensive record of the Cleveland Bay horse population. 

By the early 1900’s the breed was once more in decline.  This was made worse when WWI broke out as the Cleveland’s were sought after as artillery horses.  The very qualities that exemplify the Cleveland nearly cost the breed its very existence as many Clevelands were lost on the battlefields of France very nearly sealing the breed’s fate.  The breed numbers, now severely depleted by WWI, did not have a chance to recover by the time WWII erupted in Europe.   

Photo from “Cleveland Bay Horses“ by Anthony Dent

By the 1960’s there were only 5 mature stallions left in the UK and not many more mares with which to rebuild the breed.  One of the 5 remaining pure bred Cleveland Bay Stallions, Mulgrave Supreme, was earmarked for export to the United States when Her Majesty the Queen stepped in and purchased him.  Her Majesty’s Grandfather had been a breeder of Cleveland bays in the 1920’s and the Queen stepped in at a critical moment in the breed’s history to give the breed a much needed boost.   Her Majesty has been a patron of the breed ever since then.

Her Majesty made Mulgrave Supreme available at public stud and the breed suddenly found a new popularity with the English public.  Over the following 10 years, stallion numbers rose dramatically.  Mulgrave Supreme became a household name in the horse world with many successful offspring competing in all disciplines including driving, dressage and show jumping.  Several of these offspring competed at Olympic levels in addition to being ridden for pleasure, hunting, eventing or driving. 

 The current state of the breed is improving but the Cleveland Bay is listed as critical by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust.  There are approximately 550 pure bred Cleveland Bay horses in the world with 250 of those being breeding age mares.  2005 saw 61 foals registered worldwide.  As a comparison, there are approximately 1600 Giant Pandas in the wild and approximately 7000 Snow Leopards.