Bohai Horse

Bohai Horse

　　【Place of Origin】 Guangrao, Shouguang, and Kenli counties in Shandong Province

　　【Main Production Areas and Distribution】 Primarily produced in Guangrao, Shouguang, and Kenli counties of Shandong Province. Distributed in coastal counties along the Bohai Sea in the northeastern part of Shandong, including Huimin, Changwei, Yantai, and Weifang; and in the western part in Wudi, Zhanhua, Kenli, Guangrao, Shouguang, and Changyi.

　　【Formation History】

　　The western counties of the production area have a long history of horse breeding. According to a partial survey in 1952, local horses were relatively small in stature and had poor pulling power, making them unsuitable for farming and transportation needs. Therefore, starting in 1952, high-quality foreign stallions were introduced to crossbreed and improve the local horses. The formation of the breed went through three stages of improvement and selective breeding:

　　1. Introduction of lightweight Soviet Thoroughbred and Soviet High Blood horses to improve local horses. In 1952, the Shandong Provincial Department of Agriculture and Forestry transferred 10 Soviet Thoroughbred and Soviet High Blood stallions from the Chabei Ranch in Hebei Province. That same year, artificial insemination stations were established in five counties—Guangrao, Shouguang, Wudi, Weixian, and Qingyun—to carry out artificial insemination. By 1956, approximately 2,000 first-generation crossbred horses of various ages had been produced.

　　2. Establishment of a high-quality breeding system using both lightweight and heavyweight high-quality stallions through complex crossbreeding and rotational mating. From 1956 to 1958, six Soviet High Blood mares and four stallions were introduced and allocated to the Guangbei Farm for purebred breeding; ten Don mares and eight stallions were introduced and bred successively at the Qihe Livestock Farm and Zhimai Gou Ranch. From 1959 to 1960, seventeen Ardennes mares and two stallions, as well as thirteen Soviet Heavy Draft mares and three stallions, were introduced and allocated to the Guangbei Farm and Changyi Stud Farm for purebred breeding.

　　In 1963, based on years of improvement work already conducted at the farm, the Guangbei Farm and Shandong Agricultural College developed and implemented a breeding plan for the Bohai Horse. Subsequently, the Bohai Reclamation Bureau formulated a breeding plan for the Bohai Light Draft Horse for the farms under its jurisdiction. This led to the establishment of state-owned farms as bases within the production area, which then drove horse improvement and breeding efforts across all counties in the region, engaging the public in large-scale horse breeding activities, with over 5,000 horses improved annually.

　　3. Clarification of breeding objectives and implementation of inbreeding fixation. In 1974, Shandong Province formed a horse improvement effect investigation team. After more than two months of research and summarizing the results of the previous twenty-two years of improvement, a breeding program for the dual-purpose (draught and riding) Bohai Horse was established. The following year, the Shandong Horse Breeding Coordination Group was set up to organize collaborative breeding efforts among counties and agricultural-pastoral farms in the production area. The program stipulated that horses achieving hybridization between lightweight and heavyweight breeds and meeting breeding criteria would promptly undergo inbreeding, with one ideal-type stallion selected as the main breeding horse to maximize utilization. After eight years of inbreeding, the improvement effects were further consolidated. In November 1983, the Bohai Horse Appraisal Committee passed the breed evaluation, concluding that the expected breeding goals had been achieved, and officially named the breed the “Bohai Horse.”