] The regency was, however, around the start of the period where people began to fiddle around with selective breeding etc etc... horses were starting to be bred with a future purpose... Also, There were those horses which were specifically allocated by the owner as "the one i go hunting with", even if he/she was not bred for the purpose.

Is this a quote, Jo? If so,I'd be glad to know where it came from.....as I said elsewhere,I'm realy interested in 18th century breeding and other farming techniques. It's my experience that fiddling around with the breeding of animals for particular purposes actually goes way back- the Celts did it, the Normans did it, the medievals certainly did it, and there was an enormous interest from the seventeenth century onwards. Are you saying that there was a separate wave that coincided with the Regency (ie 1811-1820)?