User:Terrencereilly/sandbox

No scientific studies exist concerning the origin of the Auvergne horse, but there are several theories:

* Accoring to the Association of the Auvergne Breed, the breed is the distant descendant of the oriental races abandoned by the Saracens in the plains of Vouillé circa 732. Their horses remained in the same area (the departments of Corrèze, of Creuse, and of Haute-Vienne) until the barons of the country took possession of them. The horses would presumably been the root of those which had spread over the course of the following centuries into all of Limousin, followed by Auvergne, to become the ancestors of the Limousin horse, a close relative of the Auvergne horse.

* According to Lætitia Bataille, a specialist in equine managment in France, the Auvergne horse was the product of the ancient Navarrin horse's crossbreeding with the Thoroughbred.

* According to the inhabitants of the Auvergne region, the breed is native to the region, and lived tehre "depuis la nuit des temps" (since the dawn of time.) According to their theory, it is descended from prehistoric animals who had simply wandered into the region.

There seems to have been two types of Auvergnal horses throughout the region's history: the smaller horse, or "half-blood Auvergnal", was a riding horse destined to the light calvary; the common, "all-purpose" horse was used by locals until the improvement of automobile roads, at which time it was crossbred again to better handle divers agricultural duties.