The Horses of Cluny

The Horses of Cluny

by 

Rachel Griffin 

On most pages of this book, you will find two funny friends to help you. Look out for Hali and Monty, and see what they have to say. 

At the bottom of some of the pages, you will find thinking points too. 

Any tricky words that have dotted lines under them will be in the glossary at the back of the book, which will help explain them to you.

The Abbey at Cluny

In the east of France, toward the south of the Burgundy region , lies the town of Cluny. The town was built in 910, by people who wanted to work with the monks who had built their abbey there. The abbey was destroyed in 1562 by town's people who didn't like the monks having such a fancy building when their own homes were falling down. The town's people took the stones from the abbey walls and used them to build their houses. There's not much left of the church that was once the biggest in the world. A bell tower still stands, and  some of the larger buildings have been repaired and turned into an engineering school. The land around the broken abbey was left in ruins , until 1807 when Napoleon decided it was a great place to breed horses for his soldiers.

All That Remains 

Only one bell tower is left standing, but you can see where the church used to stand as it has been left empty. An American from Harvard University called Kenneth John Conant worked on excavating the ruins from 1927 to 1950. Now visitors can walk around inside the space where the church used to be and imagine its towering walls and beautiful glass windows. 

Napoleon's Plan 

Horses were very important in Napoleon’s time, not just for the soldiers to ride around town, but for riding into battle.  All the officers needed fast, strong, reliable horses that could be trained to ride for days, and not be frightened at the sound of gun shots or cannons .  They also needed powerful, hard working horses, that would be able to pull the cannons through the mud and, up and down the hills to the battlefields. Cluny became one of the best places to breed these type of horses.

The Cluny Heavy Horses

Cluny started off with five stallions in 1814 and the stables just grew and grew. The best breeds for the heavy work were the Percherons, Auxois, and Ardennais horses.

Horse Facts

• Horses are measured in 'hands' - the measurements from the side of a  man's  palm to his thumb, which is about 4 inches.
• Horses move in four different ways - 

1. Walking: left back leg, left front leg, right back leg, right front leg, at about 4 miles per hour. It sounds like four beats on a drum when the hooves hit the ground.
2. Trotting: either right or left starts, but both back and front move together- right side, left side, right side, left side at about 8 miles per hour. It sounds like two beats on a drum.
3. Cantering: the horse pushes off with a back leg, and all three other legs are off the ground. The three legs come back down and the othe back leg pushes off again. This sounds like three beats, and can go as fast as 10 - 17 miles per hour depending on the size of the horse.
4. Galloping: Like the cantor, the horse pushes off with a back foot, but all four feet come back down to the ground at the same time. In the wild, horses gallop at about 25-30 miles an hour, and only over short distances, but race horses have been trained to go much faster. This sounds like a very loud, fast, four beat drum. 

• Horse color names are different too.

Percherons

Percheron are usually gray or black in colour, very muscular , and are keen to work. They measure 15.1 to 18.1 hands high ( 61 to 73 inches), and can weigh 1,110 to 2,600 pounds. Even though they are enormous, these horses are know for being docile and friendly.  Clever horses, they were first used to pull cannons and war machinery, but have since been used to pull carriages and work in forests. In America, they were used to pull buses in the days before buses with motors were invented.

Auxois

Auxois horses are usually bay  or roan colored and slightly smaller than the Percherons. The average height of an Auxois is 15.3 to 16.3 hands (63 to 67 inches) and they weigh around 1,500 to 2,010 pounds. These horses are strong and muscular too, able to survive outside all year round, even in the worst winters.  Between World War 1 and World War 2, Auxois horses were the favorite horses for farmers to use to pull their ploughs .  Today Auxois horses are used to pull carriages for weddings, county fairs, and historical re-enactments .

Ardennais

Ardennais can be any color, but it is rare to find a black one. They stand about 16 hands high (65 inches) and weigh around 1,500 to 2,200 pounds. They have short legs with lots of feathering , and short backs. They work well in rough hilly areas, and were the only horses that lived through the Napoleon battles in Russia, and made it back to France alive. The Germans thought they were such good horses during World War 1, that they went about capturing them in Belgium and Northern France in 1914, and taking them back to Germany.

Anglo-Arab Breeds

After World War 2, there was not so much need for the heavy horses, and so Cluny started breeding Anglo-Arabian horses, a mixture of Arab and English horses. The Selle Francais is the most well know of these, a great show jumping horse, who are quick to learn, and very energetic . All of the horses in the gold medal winning team at the 2004 summer Olympics in Athens were Selle Francais horses. Show jumping events take place in the training ground by the side of the breeding stables, and riders come from all over France to take part in the competitions.

Show Jumping And Other Events 

Every year, Cluny puts on more than 70 show jumping competitions and other horse back riding events. The riders below are in the ladies Horseball team. In fact they are the French champions of this sport.

Racing With A Difference

Cluny is also a great place to come and watch some horse races. There are often brightly dressed jockeys galloping horses around the oval race course at the Cluny hippodrome. The picture  shows a harness race though. The driver, as he's called in these races,  sits behind the horse on a special lightweight carriage  which has large bicycle wheels, called a sulky. He controls the horse with the long harness straps, and only allows the horse to trot, harness horses are not allowed to canter or gallop. This means the driver must be very skilled at steering his horse and sulky around the course to be the winner. 

References

https://equivallee.jimdo.com/

http://www.cluny-tourisme.com/Hippodrome-de-Cluny?lang=fr

http://www.leperon.fr/elevage/Archives/Le-C.I.R-de-Cluny-s-internationalise

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Arabian

https://www.equivallee-haras-cluny.fr/haras-national-de-cluny/

http://www.learnersdictionary.com