Oxkill Silver Fox ("Foxy")
Shire gelding, born 2012
Foxy, aka Oxkill Silver Fox, son of the late Metheringham Upton Isaac of www.OxkillFarm.com. Isaac was well known as a Shire breed ambassador for many years at the Equine Affaire in WestSpringfield, Ma. After his passing, his son, our Silver Fox, took on that role for a few years until we moved to Maine in 2022.
Foxy came to us in 2013 when we were known as Blue Star Equiculture. He came along with his brothers Merlin, Big Ben, and Tommy Pinball Wizard. Today only Foxy has survived. Ben passed of heart failure, not uncommon in the very big breeds, and Merlin passed of a very advanced case of EPSM, a wasting disease we could not bring him out of. The loss of those boys was heartbreaking and truly traumatizing. We lost Tommy Pinball Wizard in 2023 to a devastating infection. To say they are and were special doesn’t cover it. It is more accurate to say that they are the epitome of a Shire horse. All of them have and had the well known characteristics of equal parts sweetness and stubbornness. They are all magnificent and royal, true to their origins as King Henry Vlll’s war horse. Their size is legendary and they are known as the tallest horses in the world.
Foxy is now over 20hh (Tommy was 19.3hh). According to the Guinness world records, the biggest horse in the world that ever lived was a Shire horse named Sampson, born in Bedfordshire, England in 1846. Sampson reached a peak height of 21.5hh (219cm) (7ft.2in) at his withers.
As tremendously beautiful as Foxy is, it isn’t his size or looks that make him so special, it is his spirit. Foxy is the leader in the group of actual working horses that live here. There is a disabled and retired herd that we all cater to along with the working herd but they live separately in different areas of the farm. Foxy’s job out in the world is the same one his father had, as an ambassador for his kind.
Foxy’s breed is endangered as so many rare breeds are today with less than 2000 registered around the world. That wasn’t always the case. The breed was established in the mid-eighteenth century when many were exported to the United States. The Shires are strong and smart and were used for goods transport, farm work, pulling beer wagons, towing barges along canals, and forestry. There was up to a million of them in England, America and Australia and Canada. Their numbers dropped significantly after World War ll as the mechanization of vehicles on and off the farm took over.
You are always welcome to come and meet Foxy for yourself! You will find a new magnificent friend, impossible to forget once you do!
