Gypsy Vanners

The Gypsy Cob, also known as the Traditional Gypsy Cob, Irish Cob, Gypsy Horse, Gypsy Vanner, or Tinker Horse is a type or breed of domestic horse from the islands Great Britain and Ireland. It is a small, solidly built horse of cob conformation and is often, but not always, piebald or skewbald; it is particularly associated with Irish Travellers and English Romanichal Travellers of Ireland and Great Britain. 

Yes, you saw them pulling the Vardoes in which the Gypsies lived and travelled in the Peaky Blinders series!

he Gypsy Horse breed as it is today thought to have begun to take shape shortly after the Second World War.  When the British Roma had first begun to live in vardoes around 1850, they used mules and cast-off horses of any suitable breed to pull them. These later included colored horses which had become unfashionable in mainstream society and were typically culled. Among these were a substantial number of colored Shire horses. Many of these ended up with Romanichal breeders, and by the 1950s, they were considered valuable status symbols within that culture. Spotted horses were very briefly in fashion around the time of the Second World War, but quickly went out of fashion in favor of the colored horse, which has retained its popularity until the present day. The initial greater height of the breed derived from the influence of both Clydesdales and Shires.

In the United States, the Gypsy Horse is used in many equestrian sports, by amateurs and youths. In 2004, the United States Dressage Federation accepted the Gypsy Vanner Horse Society as an affiliate member, allowing horses registered with GVHS to compete in its dressage and dressage-related events. The Gypsy Horse Association was accepted into the USDF programme in 2008; two other colored horse associations had joined by 2011.