‘We forget how good Suffolks were at our peril’: Princess Anne on how and why we should harness the skills of this rare breed

Tullis Matson has an old black and white photo of a Suffolk horse ploughing a field with his grandfather. It’s not just a sentimental treasure, for heavy horses have had a huge impact in Tullis’s pioneering work with rare breeds. But that began with a passion for the horse.

“Suffolks, like many heavy horse breeds, put food on our table in the 1930s and ‘40s; they worked with us through wars, so now we have a choice,” says Tullis, founder and director of Stallion AI. “Do we let them go, or do we save them? It’s our heritage.”

Tullis spent a morning at Gatcombe Park Stud, where the Princess Royal has a small herd of Suffolk horses – stallions, mares and geldings – to see “how they’re trying to stop these amazing rare-breed horses from going extinct”. He went for a hack, a ride in the carriage and drove horses chain-harrowing a field, before visiting a few of Gatcombe’s Suffolk mares in their paddocks with Princess Anne.

“What amazes me is their versatility,” he says. “It was an incredible experience, I had an amazing ride – and I didn’t know how many gears they had. They’re powerful – weighing a tonne – yet graceful with it.”

Suffolks are of special interest to Tullis. In 2019, his cryoconservation techniques were used to select female sperm to breed a Suffolk filly in an effort to boost critically low numbers of mares in this rare breed.

“I’ve never looked through a foal’s back legs so quickly!” he says. “It was a big milestone. When that filly was born, I said, ‘This foal holds the future.’”

Tullis has used the same pioneering techniques for other endangered species, including bull elephants and white rhinos, through his charity Nature’s SAFE.

“Suffolks are close to my heart; my mother loved them,” he says. “But also this breed means so much to me because they’ve been a challenge when it comes to breeding. So we’ve had to up our game in terms of how we can freeze the semen and that’s now what we’ve pushed across to other breeds of horses we can help.

“Not only that, but we’ve been able to help other species like rhinos and elephants, and it all comes from the Suffolk horse. I thank the Suffolk because they helped develop this technology. We had to pull out all the stops to save them – if we could do this with this amazing animal, why couldn’t we do it with other species.

“The importance of saving these horses is absolutely paramount. If we lose the breed we can never bring it back.”

Princess Anne keeps a handful of Suffolk horses at Gatcombe, alongside other rare breed animals, such as Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs.

“I’m old enough to have seen these horses working in Norfolk,” the Princess says. “My passion for the Suffolks really comes from an annoyance that we forget at our peril just how good they were at working and how much they worked for us.

“These horses are the future,” says Tullis

We’ve lost that trait, identifying that these animals really enjoyed what they did.

“The heavies have been bred to work for a very long time. It’s in their DNA. People need to understand they’ve been our companion animals and working partners. They understand what they’re doing and enjoy it: show them a piece of harness and they know what to do. They say, ‘That’s OK, we’ll do that.’

While Tullis is already impressed by these heavies’ versatility, Princess Anne lists more of their skills.

“All our paddocks are chain-harrowed by the Suffolks,” she says. “There are places where having horses working makes a difference – they make less mess, they’re neater, they can work in smaller places.

“I just wonder if they could have a future with the fuel crisis,” she laughs, “so they’re not entirely loss-making. That would be nice.”

One avenue she would like to see explored is logging: “The logging is done much more in Nordic countries, the States and in Canada,” she says. “If you want a harness, you have to go to Scandinavia or America to get it, but there is more scope here than you think. And my Christmas tree was delivered by Suffolk last year. They could do more of that.

“There is commercially a possibility for these horses – we just have to be aware of what that could be so that people can make it possible.”

Tullis adds: “Their numbers are slightly improving but you cannot be complacent. They can’t exist just on goodwill, we have to find a job for them. It’s incredible what they’re doing at Gatcombe.”

Both Princess Anne and Tullis agree that to save the breed, we need to think outside the box, continuing to push the bounds of both technology and ideas.

When a breeding population falls very low, inbreeding makes it hard to get mares in foal. The SPARKS (Single Population Analysis and Records Keeping System) advisory scheme, which uses deep pedigree analysis, is now being applied to Suffolk breeding to inform appropriate matches.

“It’s like a dating agency for Suffolks,” and has really helped turn around other rare breeds such as Cleveland Bays,” says Tullis. “Inbreeding is such a problem in small populations because it can lead to mid- to late-term pregnancy loss, higher neonatal losses, infertility and problems with semen quality. And foals are more likely to be male – when we need to increase the female population.”

Princess Anne points out that the fact that Suffolks are so versatile means they make a great cross on a lighter breed – which has possibly exacerbated their rarity.

“Arguably the reason they’ve become so rare is that they make such good outcrosses,” she says, introducing Tullis to a 22-year-old mare who’s had three foals, one of which was half thoroughbred.

“They have relatively clean legs, so a lot of them were bred as good heavy or middleweight hunters, straight crosses, but they didn’t really go back to the pedigree enough so they kind of disappeared. Her crossbred is dark brown, so looking at him you wouldn’t think that’s a Suffolk, but there are others you look at and you can tell they have Suffolk in their history.”

Princess Anne asks what else could be done to perpetuate the breed. The Suffolk has always been exclusively chestnut (traditionally without the T) but could the gene pool be widened?

“It’s often about colour,” she says. “In the States, the native population learnt to breed coloured animals. If that’s the only difference, what does it matter?

“So I think there is scope to progress. I think sometimes we quibble about technology but with rare breeds it’s a really useful addition. It gives you scope you didn’t have before.”

Tullis agrees that all options need to be considered. “We’re going down a funnel and they call it the extinction vortex, which is very difficult to climb out of. We have to look at what’s out there and not have tunnel vision.”

But he remains optimistic: “We have the technology we are already using, freezing sperm and eggs, then tissue is the future as it contains the whole DNA,” he says.

“We have to look at all technologies – they’re all tools in conservation – if we want to save these species. We owe it to the next generation.”

He pats one of the mares.

“These horses, the female line, are the future,” he says. “These are the horses that helped save the elephants and the rhinos.”

Facts about the Suffolk horse

• The Suffolk is one of four British heavy horse breeds, alongside the Shire, Clydesdale and Percheron – all of which are among the biggest horse breeds in the world
• The breed is often known colloquially as Suffolk Punch, but just Suffolk is correct.
• They are always chestnut – spelt the traditional Suffolk way with no “t”.
• Listed as a priority by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, the highest level of endangerment. The data is showing improvement, but prognosis is guarded as the number of breeding animals is still very low.
• All studbook horses can trace their male lines back to a single stallion, “Crisp’s Horse of Ufford”, foaled in 1768.
• Unlike other heavy horse breeds, they have minimal feather, preventing them from being weighed down by heavy East Anglian clay.
• According to the Suffolk Horse Society’s secretary Belinda Rudderham: “On average, 85 mares go to stud each year; the society registers 40 foals”.

Do you have experience with Suffolk horses? Let us know at hhletters@futurenet.com

With thanks to D&H, who facilitated ambassador Tullis Matson’s interview at Gatcombe Park