The 19th Century Marvel: The Fascinating Tale of Sampson, the Giant Horse

Originally from Western Europe and Northern Europe, draft horses have been used for millennia. During Antiquity, the Romans notably used these horses to pull the tanks. They were then mainly used for war and agricultural work.

An extraordinary animal

Today, draft horses are still used for the team, but they are also more and more popular for leisure riding. There are several breeds of draft horses such as the Percheron in France or the Shire from the center of England.

The Shire holds the record for the largest horse in the world. These horses measure an average of 1.80 meters at the tourniquet, but some are obviously even larger. This is the case of Sampson, a shire that lived in the 19th century in England. This animal was 2.19 meters high, which is truly gigantic for a horse.

Shire size: 1m80 on average

Often nicknamed “nice giant” for its docility and large size, the male shire measures between 1.63 and 1.83 meters at the tourniquet. The females are generally smaller with a height at the withers around 1.60 meters. In terms of weight, the Shire weighs between 816 and 1,088 kilograms. It is therefore as heavy, even more, than a car like the Renault Twingo which weighs between 900 and 1,100 kilograms depending on the model.

As for Sampson, we know little about him, apart from that he was a headline of the Shire race supposedly born in 1846 in Bedfordshire, England. His master Thomas Cleaver by Toddington Mills probably did not suspect that this foal was going to become the biggest horse that they never saw growing up. Once adult, Sampson has become the stable giant. All the other horses were pale next to him.

A weight equivalent to a Volkswagen Tiguan

According to the Guinness Records book, Sampson measured 21.5 hands high or 2.19 meters at the tourniquet. Remember that the unit of measurement of a horse is “hand”. One hand is 4 inch, or 10.16 centimeters. In addition, the height of a horse is measured from the ground to the highest fixed bone structure, the tourniquet.

Thus, if Sampson measured 2.19 meters, according to the famous record institution, its head was even higher. It shouldn't be easy to harness him and put him a halter. There is no doubt that all the parts of the horse's equipment had to be made to measure.

The weight of Sampson was never confirmed, but experts assumed that the Shire weighed approximately 1,524 kilograms. To give you an idea, it is the weight of the compact Volkswagen Tiguan SUV. We have no more information on the life of this horse. However, we know that it was renamed Mammoth (Mammoth in French) after being crowned with the largest horse in the world.

Later, the famous Big Jake, a horse of more than two meters and more than a ton, taken up this record but died at the age of 20 in 2021.

Source: Iflscience