Topic summary
Ardennes horse
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Ardennais.
Uses
Ardennes horses have been used as foundation bloodstock to develop several other draft horse breeds and subgroups. These include the Baltic Ardennes and Russian Heavy Draft. The Swedish Ardennes is well established in that country, where it is in demand for use in forestry. It was first recognized as a separate sub-group in the 19th century, but today is considered a separate breed, even though its ancestry is entirely from the Ardennes horses of Belgium and France. Another closely related breed is the Auxois. Ardennes horses were also used in the 1920s to improve the Comtois by adding size. Along with the Breton and the Anglo-Norman, the Ardennes horse was used to create the Sokolski horse. Similarly, the Trait Du Nord was created through a mixture of Ardennes and Belgian blood.