The hardy Canadian breed of all-purpose horses has happily turned around a perilous trip to extinction and now numbers more than 6,000 registered animals. This means the breed is considered vulnerable but no longer endangered. The Canadian has its roots in the 1660s, when King Louis XIV sent shipments of Arabian, Barb and Andalusian horses from his royal stables to the colony of New France. As history would have it, there was little to no new DNA introduced until a century later when the English took over the colony, allowing the Canadian to develop its versatile character. The breed had dwindled to fewer than 400 in the 1970s. In 2002, Parliament passed an act naming it “the national horse of Canada.” As you will hear in the CTV video below, the Canadian is a tireless master of many tasks. We like him.
