2000 CAWDOR CUP WINNER & NATIONAL STALLION SHOW CHAMPION

The Choicely-Bred Clydesdale Stallion

Hillside

Lorton Legend

Foaled 1997

Bred by the Late John Hendry CASS, Quaker Stud, Low Lorton, Cockermouth, Cumbria, England

PROPERTY OF
Shona HARRISON, Middleholm, Lesmahagow, South Lanarkshire, Scotland

"Hillside Lorton Legend"

is a handsome and modern type of Clydesdale stallion possessing superior quality, great temperament, a grand outlook and striking presence.

Tall, well-coupled and with first class feet and legs, extra clean broad flat bones and an abundance of straight, silky hair, he cannot fail to impress. For style, movement hair this aristocratically-bred stallion is second to none. A superbly balanced stallion built on true draught lines and full of Clydesdale character, LEGEND has a blue-ribbon showyard that speaks for itself.

Hillside Lorton Legend

    As can be seen from his pedigree below, HILLSIDE LORTON LEGEND is bred 'in the purple'. His immediate ancestry features three crosses of Cawdor Cup winners Doura Masterstroke and Kettlestoun Apple Blossom. LEGEND's sire, Collessie Benedictine, a maternal half-borther to the 1997 Cawdor Cup winner Collessie Cut Above, was reserve for the Cawdor Cup at the 1989 National Stallion Show and Male Champion the same year at the Royal Highland Show. Colessie Benedictine's dam, Kettlestoun Valetta, was a Cawdor Cup as was her dam, Kettlestoun Apple Blossom and her maternal grand-dam, Kettlestoun Lucinda.

Pictured at East Kilbride Show, July 1997, aged 4 months.

             Hillside Gentle Giants

A rich seam in the heritage of the CLYDESDALE HORSE can be unearthed in the rural history of LESMAHAGOW, a Parish geographically flanked by the old market towns of Strathaven and Lanark and lying in the heart of the district from which the modern Clydesdale evolved.  References to specific breeders of a bygone Lesmahagow during the years when the "Clydesdale Type" of heavy draught horse was formally accepted as a distinct breed can be found in the early volumes of the society's stud books.

One of Lesmahagow's earliest registered breeders is a JOHN HARRISON of HILL farm with a mare ROSA of HILL foaled in 1879 and the STALLION, BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE, foaled 1885. This stallion was sold to James Weir of the famous Sandilands Stud and then exported to Joseph H.Rea, Carrolton, Missouri, USA.

As a traditional working farm, HILL is now just a memory as is the once neighbouring BANKHEAD FARM, upon which half of Lesmahagow's council housing is now situated but where, back in 1889, when CLYDESDALES reigned supreme, GEORGE HARRISON, a grandson of the aforementioned  JOHN HARRISON of HILL, was born.

In 1926 GEORGE HARRISON purchased HILLSIDE FARM and acquired the tenancy of adjoining MIDDLEHOLM FARM. By the time he first registered stock in the Stud Book of 1939, he had already gained a reputation of being a selective and meticulous judge of farm stock, qualities which earned him many successes at agricultural shows not only with Clydesdale horses but also with Ayrshire cows.

Inevitably his path crossed with some of the legendary names in national and international Clydesdale circles of the day. His horses' bloodlines soon stretched as far afield as North America and Australia. His favourite mare was HILLSIDE BONNIE JEAN, a consistent champion on the show circuit. In 1949 alone she was Female Champion at the National Stallion Show, Reserve Female and Reserve Cawdor Cup Champion at the Royal Highland and Female Champion at the Royal Show, England.

"BONNIE JEAN" produced foals of outstanding quality. The most successful of them was CRAIGIE SUPERB. As a foal "SUPERB" was Champion at Lesmahagow Show in 1952 for his breeder GEORGE HARRISON. Later that year in the hands of the most famous Clydesdale Stud of all time, Craigie Mains, he was crowned Champion at Lanark Foal Show. The following year he won the top three honours in the Clydesdale show calendar - the Cawdor Cup at the National Stallion Show and Male Titles at the Royal Highland and the English Royal.

The then manager of the SCOTTISH FARMER newspaper wrote: "On all hands, he {Craigie Sperb} was regarded quite easily the best piece of Clydesdale horse-flesh seen for many years".

In 1956 he was exported to Australia. Exhibited by his new owner, GEORGE COX of VALMONT STUD, Victoria, SUPERB went on to win the Royal Melbourne Show three times in a row.

In his fascinating book, "MY LIFE WITH CLYDESDALE", George Cox claims that Superb, never having been beaten in Scotland, England and Australia, was the best show horse he ever owned, adding: "He had everything, size, substance and style, a magnificent hind leg and a perfectly formed fore foot. In showing his paces, both at walk and trot, he never put a foot wrong".

{A full brother of Craigie Superb, Craigie Superb II, joined the world famous BUDWEISER CLYDES in 1957}

SUPERB died suddenly in 1960 and in the same year his breeder, GEORGE HARRISON, passed away, leaving his widow Agnes to continue the HARRISON tradition, albeit on a more limited scale and at a time when the popularity of the breed was at its lowest ebb.

Born AGNES ORRANCE McCASKIE in 1890 at Whiteside Farm, Lesmahagow, she married GEORGE HARRISON in 1914. Her parents Robert and Susan [nee Chalmers] also came from families with a long tradition of breeding quality registered Clydesdales.

Agnes bred a number of Clydesdales which were also exported, including a colt, BARDRILL EXPO, which became a popular breeding stallion in the U.S.A. for many years. The dam of this horse was the well known prize winner HILLSIDE MEMORY, bred by Agnes in 1961 and named in remembrance of her late husband.

Agnes died in 1979, leaving her son George, who had become a registered breeder in his own right in 1968, to continue a family tradition which originated over a century before.

GEORGE HARRISON of MIDDLEHOLM FARM was born in 1921, one of six sons. He moved to MIDDLEHOLM in 1963, his father having purchased the farm outright in 1956.

George was a keen and respected Clydesdale enthusiast, often being invited to judge at shows. He had many successes and tragedies in his life with Clydesdales....losing two quality mares in the same year to the still mysterious illness "grass sickness", his foal dying at Biggar Show in 1986 and finally, his own sudden death at Craigie Show in 1988 after his filly had won First Prize. In his obituary he was described as "one of the country's leading Clydesdale breeders".

Today the family tradition is being carried on by SHONA HARRISON, a great, great granddaughter of John Harrison of Hill. Born at Middleholm in 1955, she and her husband and two children returned to Middleholm after the death of George.

In 2000, Shona achieved what her forebears had striven for over 140 years. With her three year old stallion HILLSIDE LORTON LEGEND, she won the coveted CAWDOR CUP and became not only the first HARRISON to achieve the breed's ultimate accolade but the first woman in history to own and put through its paces a stallion.

But that's not the end of the story...at 45years old, Shona is still a relative youngster to the breed and of course, her two children SHAUN and RHONAGH seem set to carry on the Clydesdale tradition into the 8th generation and beyond.

Researched and written by John Zawadzki.