the horse of Flanders returns to Europe thanks to a breeder from the North of France

Denis Beck, farmer and breeder in Bailleul (North), has just purchased a Flemish draft mare in the United States. It is the fifteenth horse he has bought on the other side of the Atlantic. The Flemish trait breed had completely disappeared from the European continent. It was by chance that Denis Beck discovered, in the 90s, that the community ​Amish, who lives in the northern United States, had many Flemish traits imported in the 19th century.

The latter refuse to use fossil energy, and cultivate their fields only with the help of horses. “It’s been almost two centuries since they left. They have all the documents from the day they left, all the family lines, all the birth certificates. We can (…) go very far back to avoid inbreeding”, explains Thierry Beck, the son of Denis Beck. With his sons and a Belgian friend, Denis managed to reconstitute the breed in Europe.