Byelorussian Harness Horse
# Byelorussian Harness Horse

The Belarus Harness Horse, Belarusian: Беларускі запражны конь, romanized: Bielaruski zapražny koń, is a Belarusian breed of draught horse. It was bred for use in agriculture, and is also used to produce mare's milk and $horsemeat.^{:443}^{:226}$

## History

The Belorusskaya was bred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, principally in the western part of what is now $Belarus,^{:226}$ which was for much of the twentieth century the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. The aim was to create an agricultural draught horse adapted to local conditions, capable of working on sandy, swampy or woodland $terrain.^{:321}$ Local mares, many of them of Polesian type, were put to imported stallions. The majority of these were of the Norwegian Dølehest draught breed, but there was also some Ardennes and Brabant $influence.^{:443}$ By the 1980s the breeding programme was close to $completion;^{:273}$ two volumes of the stud-book had been issued, in which 616 mares and 135 stallions were $recorded.^{:321}$

In 1980 the total breed population was some 93000, of which almost 28000 were $pure-bred.^{:321}$

The breed was officially recognised in Belarus in $2000.^{:226}$

