Cleveland Bay Horses of The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

Founded in 1926, Colonial Williamsburg is the world’s largest U.S. history museum, sharing the story of colonial and revolutionary America. Since 1986, its Rare Breeds program has preserved 18th-century livestock breeds, bringing history to life.

Cleveland Bay Horses date back to 16th-century England, making them one of England’s oldest breeds of horses.

The Cleveland Bay is known as a heritage breed. Unlike many modern breeds of horses, Cleveland Bays are not bred to do one specific job but are instead bred as a multipurpose horse. They are strong plow horses, powerful carriage horses, and capable riding horses.

Cleveland Bays are valued for strength, endurance, power, and appearance. Their distinctive bay (reddish-brown) coats and black points (tail, legs, and mane) make them striking carriage horses. This led to their popularity with English royalty.

As coaching (a sport involving driving four-horse carriage teams) gained popularity in America in the 1800s, so too did the Cleveland Bays. Many were exported from England to the United States.

Colonel Richard Henry Dulany of Virginia was among the proud American Cleveland Bay owners. He established the Upperville Colt & Horse Show in 1853 to showcase his young horses. This show is still held yearly in Upperville, Virginia.

The Cleveland Bay Horse Society was founded in the United Kingdom in 1884 and in America in 1885, with the mission to preserve and promote the breed. By 1907, the American Society had registered over 2,000 horses.

However, in the early 1900s, the Cleveland Bay population drastically declined due to their use on the battlefields as artillery horses during World War I.

By 1960, the Cleveland Bay was on the verge of extinction. With only a handful of purebred stallions (breeding males) and mares (breeding females) in England, the breed was in desperate need of help to ensure its continued survival.

In the 1960s, Queen Elizabeth II made her Cleveland Bay stallion, Mulgrave Supreme, available for public stud. The breed’s population increased, and Mulgrave Supreme became a household name. The Queen’s love and support of this breed saved it from the brink of extinction.

Unfortunately, the breed again saw a drop in population in the 1980s for a multitude of reasons, including shifts in agricultural production and popularity of modern breeds. Since then, their numbers have been in steady decline.

As of January 2026, there are only around 200 registered purebred Cleveland Bay Horses in the United States, of which only about half are breedable (37 stallions and 88 mares). With only 7 foals born in the U.S. in 2025, this critically endangered breed is getting closer to extinction every year.

The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is seeking to save this historic breed. In 2016, the Cleveland Bay Horse was added to its Coach and Livestock's Rare Breeds program. Previously, the program has bred horses such as the American Cream Draft and the Canadian Horse.

In 2019, Colonial Williamsburg celebrated their first foal born in 16 years, a purebred Cleveland Bay foal named Valiant, also known as Moose. Two other purebred Cleveland Bay foals were born that year as well.

To protect the fragile legacy of one of the world's rarest horse breeds, Colonial Williamsburg's Cleveland Bay breeding program uses surrogate mares.

Because the breed's population is so small, losing even one mare to the complications of pregnancy or birth would be devastating. By having a surrogate mare carry the foal to term, the program keeps the Cleveland Bay mares safe and healthy.

After a purebred donor mare becomes pregnant, the embryo is transferred to the surrogate mare, who carries the embryo to term. This allows a single donor mare to be bred with different stallions within a single season and produce multiple foals in a year.

From 2019 to 2026, 19 purebred Cleveland Bay foals have been born through Colonial Williamsburg’s Rare Breeds Program, all accomplished through embryo transfers and artificial insemination.

Along with surrogacy, Colonial Williamsburg’s Rare Breeds team is undertaking additional conservation efforts to preserve the Cleveland Bay. This includes collaboration with breeders in the UK, the country where the breed originated.

The team also hopes to introduce new genetics for the Williamsburg herd and implement a genetic testing program, focusing on genome mapping and heritable traits. Future programming will also allow guests to meet and greet the horses and learn about the conservation efforts at work.

With a global population so small, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation has made genetic diversity a cornerstone of its Rare Breeds Program and is committed to preserving the historic Cleveland Bay horse breed for generations to come.