Belgian Horses

 Everybody likes to trace their lineage way back to a king, oh, let's say Charlemagne. I couldn't do that if you held a gun to my head, wouldn't know where to start. Some Scots-Irish married some Germans, came to southern West Virginia, a bunch of them went to Iowa, and there you have it. Simplified Zick genealogy.  Fans of the Belgian draft horse say they, and all draft breeds, sprang from the "great horse" of medieval times, made heavy to carry knights in full armor into battle. And they doubtless turned some serious soil when there wasn't a battle to charge into.

Gentle giants that can exceed six feet at the withers and weigh more than a ton, Belgians are more popular in the U.S. than all other draft breeds combined.  They can pull prodigious weights; a team of Belgians whose combined weight was 4,200 pounds pulled 17,000 pounds for 7.2 feet. Yikes.

 Pulling an antique cultivator (?) and a man is nothing to these enormous animals. The antique equipment looks so frail and spidery; I look at the potential for getting it all stomped on and twisted and it scares me. But Belgians are steady animals, not the stomping kind.

 Coming about...

 Another team, these with natural, not docked, tails. I've got to guess that the suspension on this old machinery makes for a bone-rattling ride. We are so spoiled with our hydraulic shocks and air-conditioned tractor cabs, sitting high above the dust. Imagine how sore you'd be after a day of riding this.

I knew a Belgian mare named Victoria when I was a college student living in the wilds outside the Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts. Her owner, an opera singer and woodswoman, used Victoria to haul the wood with which she heated her cottage in the winter. Yes, it was romantic as it sounds, drowning in climbing roses and backed by sugar maples. Susan used to let me ride Victoria into the town square of Petersham, where I would tie her and go get an ice cream cone at the general store.

When I turned Victoria  for home, she'd finally break into a canter in a slow-motion, Belgiany kind of way. It was like riding an overstuffed sofa, absolutely glorious and exhilarating, to have the ground shaking beneath her great hooves and me bareback astride. I loved that horse.


And so it was pure pleasure to watch this gentleman ready his team (two experienced horses with wide blazes, and a young mare on the left) for the exhibition.

Tucking the forelocks.

Despite the blinders, they keep an ear cocked back to keep track of where he is so they won't step on him.

We thanked him, and apologized for being such paparazzi. He didn't mind. He thinks they're beautiful, too.

Belgians snoozing, scratching

Pulling, whoaing

Champing their bits, waiting for the next request.

Draft Horse Field Day

Stumbling on things is what autumn rambles are all about.  Rolling through Adams County, Ohio, Tricia and I stumbled on the 9th Annual Old Fashion (their spelling) Draft Horse, Mule and Pony Field Days six miles south of Peebles, Ohio. It was October 2, so figure it's held each year around then. For information, you can call Dale Grooms 937-544-3123 or 937-587-3293.

On this magical Saturday, already overloading on fancy pumpkins and searing blue skies, the addition of muscular draft animals and antique harness and machinery was almost too much for us.

I would imagine that if you did one of those word profiles of this blog, the word "love" would come up an awful lot. I wish there were other good words. I adore draft animals, their shapes and heads and bottoms; their hooves and noses. So stumbling on this event was like rolling in catnip for me.

There were sweet little girls and their miniature pony and donkey. The brunette reminded me of Ramona the Pest, in a good way. She climbed fearlessly atop a gentle Percheron.

 

His mane was shaved, so she had nothing at all to hang onto, but I knew she wouldn't be dumped by this sweet giant.

 

Off they went, much to the consternation of their other horse friends.

Obviously, the other member of the black Percheron team had to go along or he'd be very unhappy. That's one of the things that charms me about horses. We can make them in any shape we want, but they're still herd animals at heart, and are happiest in a crowd.

Left behind, two draft ponies from the same farm (the black perhaps a cross between a pony and a Percheron)  set up a nickering, then full-blown whinnying from the chestnut. I believe it's a Haflinger, judging from its conformation and coloring.

You can see the Arab blood in its beautiful head. The Haflinger is an Austrian mountain breed, developed in 1874 by crossing the stocky native Tyrol pony with a half-Arab stallion. This gave a taller, finer look to the offspring, and the lovely head with the inward-pointing eartips and slightly dished face speaks of its hot Arab blood. Sorry, sweetie, you'll just have to wait until your friends come back. You'll be OK.

No, I won't!