Are the skills of the old horseman skills being passed on to a younger generation? Oh yes they are and of course this is as important as keeping the horse going because without the people it’s no use having the horses. At our main fund raising event each year, the Suffolk Punch Spectacular in September, we have a young handlers class. I always think that is possibly the most moving thing I ever see in a year because we have very young people handling these horses. Frequently they’re horses which they’ve borrowed for the day and a lot of them don’t know the horse they’re handling. But when you watch this class it is quite remarkable, because they all look like seasoned tradesmen at it.

How important is the work that Paul Heiney is doing?
Intensely important, we rely totally on those people. Paul in particular is one of those who actually does things with his horses and that is really the most important thing we can do. There are two sides of this, of course. Paul has geldings which he works and that’s crucially important. But then of course we must not forget the most important people who are the breeders. It is the breeders that we rely on to continue the breed but they have problems because heavy horses today of any breed are not particularly saleable and are not worth a great deal of money. So if you breed heavy horses you are going to lose money and you have to accept that it has to be a hobby and an interest.

One of the most important uses of the Suffolk horse nowadays, from a purely commercial point of view, is crossing Suffolk horses with thoroughbreds to produce hunters. Now that cross of breeds is worth a lot of money and this is very important for us because those mares which produce a Suffolk foal every year produce something which is difficult to sell. But if every other year, owners of mares produce a hunter foal that is saleable for a lot of money that will subsidise the following year’s production of a Suffolk foal.

Our biggest problem is with Suffolk stallions. A stallion needs a lot of care - it’s an individual animal which must be handled by people who know how to handle them. You need substantial housing and substantial fencing. If you’re going to cover mares, and of course that’s the whole point of having the stallion, it is extremely time consuming and all our breeders today have proper jobs and other things they have to do. Now if Suffolk stallions can be used for breeding hunters that is a serious commercial use for an animal which will make it possible to keep it.

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