Tieling Draught Horse

Tieling Draught Horse

　　【Germplasm Origin】 Tieling County, Liaoning Province

　　【Main Production Area and Distribution】 Primarily produced in Tieling County, Liaoning Province, and distributed across Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, and other provinces.

　　【Formation History】

　　This horse breed was developed through planned and purposeful complex crossbreeding under the superior natural conditions and breeding practices of the Tieling Breeding Farm. In 1949, the Tieling Breeding Farm purchased 44 mares with varying degrees of Anglo-Norman, Anglo-Arabian, and Percheron bloodlines from Changchun, Nong’an, and other areas, as well as some allocated by the military. The quality of these mares was inconsistent. To improve their physique and conformation, crossbreeding with Anglo-Norman and Percheron stallions began in 1949. By 1951, all mares were crossed with Ardennes stallions. By 1958, most mares had over 75% foreign blood, and crossbreeding trials commenced. In 1962, the focus shifted to fixing the traits through continued crossbreeding. At the same time, to broaden the bloodline and correct issues such as overly moist constitution and unbalanced structure, bloodlines from the Soviet Heavy Draft Horse, Jinzhou Horse, and Orlov Trotter were introduced. Starting in 1968, first-generation crossbred stallions were used for breeding within the herd. During selection and mating, based on individual phenotype, blood ratio of each breed, kinship level, and offspring quality, a method combining inbreeding while avoiding excessive consanguinity was adopted. This gradually unified the herd’s blood composition to include 50–62.5% heavy breed blood, 9–12% medium breed blood, 2.13–6.25% light breed blood, and 20–25% Mongolian horse blood. Although the Tieling Draught Horse originates from seven different breeds, through rigorous selection, breeding, and culling, along with rational cultivation, it has become a fusion of several parent breeds, forming a population with largely consistent characteristics and stable heredity, establishing it as an excellent breed.