THROW BACK THURSDAY For several years, while running my training stable, instead of using a tractor on a manure spreader, I used a pair of Clydesdale horses. I always hated to hear the diesel tractor running and I hated the smoke. With a pair of horses, it didn’t take long. You could just speak to them and they would walk up and stop at the next stall. So, it worked well for us. I had always had an affection for draft horses. I guess it is a throwback to my pulling pony team I had as a kid. Back 16 years ago, I had an opportunity to go to work for Express Ranches in their Clydesdale division. Express Ranches is the largest purebred breeder of Angus cattle in North America. The ranches have grown to around 160,000 acres in 4 states. Bob Funk, the founder, also owns Express Employment Professionals. It is a billion dollar a year company that Bob started from scratch in 1983. In the middle 90’s, Bob Funk thought it would be an addition to the ranches to have a team of black Clydesdale horses. He thought it would be good to promote Express Ranches but learned soon after the first hitch did more for the employment company than the ranch. Bob hired a young guy from Nova Scotia to manage the hitch. When they interviewed me to work with the hitch, they knew I had shown horses, shod horses, and had driven teams and 4 in hand. After a short interview I was informed that the week after my final National Show Horse finals I was to go with the hitch for a parade and to open a PRCA rodeo in Waco, Texas. Now, I had it in my mind that I would go through a learning process with the hitch. I was wrong. Now, Express doesn’t do anything half way. We had two different vehicles that we used with the hitch. One is a typical 5th wheel wagon that can literally turn around in the length of itself. It is identical to Budweiser’s wagons, modeled after a Studebaker type. They cost around $45,000. Then we had what is called an Abbott and Downing hotel coach. It looks just like the stage coaches seen in old western movies but on a larger scale. The coach, including the driver, would carry 24 people. The coach cost $100,000. Both vehicles were made by Hansen Wheel and Wagon out of Letcher, SD. Take a look at their website. They do absolutely extraordinary work. The first time we hitched was for the parade through Waco, Texas. We used the coach for the parade. After Don, the manager, got them lined out and the lines all adjusted he told me to put my hands on top of his. I did just that and he said “here you go”. So, I was on the job with Express now all of 3 days and he had me driving the 6. Don is one of the most talented hitch drivers in the business. He is one of the few that has won National Championships with a Belgian, Percheron and Clydesdale sixes. The Six horse hitch class is the big deal, much more than the 8. Eights were not used much in real life. They mainly have been for exhibition made famous by Budweiser. Believe it or not, there is equitation to driving a hitch. Going from a 4 horse hitch to a 6 is like day and night. Going from 6 to an 8 is an easier transition. You can tell a good driver if you hardly see him move. You want to sit on the box seat with your legs straight ahead of your hips, no wider, no closer. You will put one foot ahead of the other. One on the foot board rail and one on the floor board. Your back should be straight up, not leaning forward or back. You want your hands fairly close to each other so you can discreetly adjust your lines, which is constantly. You want your elbows bent so you have room to take up a line without having your hands back in your belly. I was taught a more eastern style of holding your lines. Each horse has a line that goes directly to the outside of their bit. Then there is a cross line over to the inside of the opposite horse inside of their bit. On a six you have 3 lines in each hand. Your wheel line will run under your hand, out through the top and over your thumb, similar to your snaffle rein on a double bridle. Then your swing horse’s (the middle team) lines run between your little finger and your ring finger. Then your leader’s lines go between your ring finger and your middle finger. When you are going straight on flat ground you want the tugs on your wheel horses to be constantly tight. Then you want your swing horse’s tugs to have a little bounce, and then your leader’s tugs should have a little swing to them. Your wheelers do the majority of the work. They are the only pair that can slow your wagon and back it. If you are going up a grade, you may give your swing team a little line to help pull. If you are on a steep incline you may let your leader’s line out and so then all 6 horses can pull. Here is how you make a 90 degree turn in an intersection. You don’t just pull all the lines on one side or you will run your wagon up over the curb. It is like just driving your truck and forgot you have a 30 foot trailer on. If you just turn your truck, the trailer runs over the curb. Every horse is driven separate. Let’s say we are going to make a RIGHT hand turn. As you approach the turn you will take your RIGHT thumb and POINTER and pick your LEFT wheel line up and over the front of your LEFT hand and hold that line tight between your LEFT thumb and the first knuckle on your pointer. You want to keep your wheel horses going straight. Then, without moving that hand much, you take your RIGHT pointer and pick up your RIGHT lead horse line and start to bring him around the corner. Depending on how sharp the turn, you keep taking line from your RIGHT lead horse. Then when your leaders have made the turn you hold that line between your RIGHT thumb and pointer. Then again take your LEFT pointer and take slack out of your RIGHT swing horse’s line. As they come around slowly release your right wheel horse’s line. When all 6 horses have made the turn you pop both of your thumbs up and everything is back straight. A good turn is when the 6 horses go around a turn like a snake. When you drive an 8 you have all the lines the same except you run your leader’s line over the top of your hands and down through your palm. Driving the coach is harder to drive than the wagon so the coach will give the passengers an easy ride. The body is slung on leather straps for suspension. Every time you have people move around you have to keep adjusting your lines. If you were driving down the ramp into Freedom Hall in Louisville and you had a full load of people both inside and on top, going down the ramp you would hold the rear wheels with the brake and let them slide. You would take both of your wheel horse’s lines and double them over the top of your hands. As soon as you hit the ring and everything flattens out you would pop both of your thumbs up, release your wheeler’s and let off the brake and then everything will rock back and now you are level. It took me weeks to get everything looking right. Then it became easy. Like anything else, it is not hard to do just hard to learn. Express had a show hitch and a parade hitch. We usually had 40 geldings to keep 2 six horse hitches going. Draft horses just think different than other horses. Many times we would take a 3 year old, put a harness on him, let him walk around the stall for a couple of hours so he would get used to the tug chains rattling. Then we would ground drive him around for a couple of sessions then hitch him on a sled with an older horse and then put him in the swing (the middle pair), drive them around the ranch a time or 2 then take him to a parade. After they saw a couple of marching bands and some flags, they were broke. It wasn’t too long before Don (the manager) would take the show hitch to a show and I would go to a parade or rodeo opening with the second hitch. One of the best times that we had was the Pegasus parade in Louisville right before the Kentucky Derby. My wife Terry, Caroline Fauks, our in house video guy Charlie and I loaded up and went to Louisville. They stabled all the hitches next to each other in the shed rows at the Kentucky State fairgrounds. Budweiser’s east coast hitch, Heinz Catsup, Wells Fargo, and a couple of private hitches were all there. At big parades, they would specify times that you were supposed to be in line. They would give you a number and then the parade marshals would put you in the lineup. Here is a typical day at a parade. If the parade was supposed to start at 10:00 AM, you would get to the barn by 4:00 AM. You feed your grain and while they were eating, you take each horse out and wash their legs to make sure they were white, white, white. While that horse was out, there stall would be cleaned. We didn’t use water buckets. We would take a 40 gallon Rubbermaid trash container and fill it with water. After they ate their grain, you would lead each horse to water. While they were drinking we would take a very fine saw dust and rub it all over the horse’s legs. This is done to absorb the water in the feathers. Then one by one you would lead the horse up to a post or stall and tie their head up and start rolling (braiding) manes. A mane roll is made up of polyester stretchy material about 8 feet long. You would take it and start right behind their bridle path and, as tight as possible, do a four part braid down the crest of their neck. My wife Terry was great at it. Then you space out 5 artificial flowers down the mane roll. Then you did a 3 part braid in their tail by putting knitting needles in a cross and tie a shoe string around it to make a bun. Dock tails on hitch horses is a must. If you would have a horse swish their tail over a line it could jerk the entire hitch sideways. They are docked for safety. Then you would braid a 3 part braid with ribbon in their forelock. By this time it is 7:00 AM. You load all 6 horses and get in line. Usually, in a big Parade like this one, you will get a police escort to your starting point. When you get to where you are to hitch, you start with pulling out the ramps and hook your winch on the wagon. A big hitch wagon weighs around 1 ton. After your wagon is unloaded, you chalk the rear wheels. Then you put the main pole (wagon tongue) in and put your spreader bar or neck yoke on the end of the pole. The poles have a hooks on the end of it. The wheeler’s double trees are attached to the wagon directly. Then, one at a time they start to bring you horses starting with your wheel horses. It is time to start harnessing. The harness for a wheel horse weighs around 140 pounds. They are the only harness with a full breeching, the straps that go around their hind quarters to slow and back the wagon. First, you slip the 50 pound collar and hames over their head and watch so you don’t bump their eyes. A 19 hand wheel horse can put their head up pretty high. Then the back band goes on, then the breeching, then the tugs and lastly, the bridle. Then you attach your line to the outside of the horses bit and put the cross line on the horses throat latch to keep it off of the ground or stepped on. Next you lead that horse to whatever side he is on. You have someone then get up on the wagon seat. You hand that person the line. Repeat the same with your other wheel horse. Then you attach the cross lines on the inside of each horse’s bit. Now the 2 wheelers are standing side by side and the helper has the lines held. Next, you hook your neck yoke (spreader bars or some time there are just pole chains). These are hooked to a snap on the wheel horses martingale. Lastly, you hook your tugs to the double trees. Now your wheelers are all set. Next, you attach the swing pole to the end of the main pole hook and then put the swing horses double trees on top of the swing poll and buckle them in with a leather strap. While this is going on they are harnessing the swing horses. You lead them one at a time on either side of the swing pole and take their lines off and run them through the rings on the wheeler’s bridles and then throw them up to the person on the seat. After your swing horses are all ready to go you hook your leader’s double tree to the end of the swing pole hook. Then lead your leaders up together. Run the lines through the bridle rings on the swing team then your wheelers and hitch the leader tugs. The last thing before you step them off is to get up on the wagon and sort your lines. Starting with your wheelers, you take any twists out of the lines. I always stood on foot board to do this. That way you could take your eyes and follow each line from your hand all the way to the horse’s bits. So you knew that each line was exactly where they were supposed to be. Then sit down on the seat, set your leader’s lines, and then your swing lines then give your wheelers plenty of slack. By now it is 9:00AM and now you sit until they tell you to go. Last thing, you have someone run a brush through the feathering on their legs. Brush out the saw dust and, by now; their legs are dry and ready to go. In this particular parade, we didn’t have a second driver. In long parades you will switch off driving every 15 minutes or so because those big sons of guns can pull your arms out of the sockets, especially when they get tired. This time I was alone and Terry sat on the seat with me. The parade lasted an hour and a half so, by the time we were ready to unhitch, it was around 1:00 PM so the horses had their heads up for 3 hours or so. I had to put all the lines in one hand, have Terry pull my left glove off and take my wedding ring off because it was cutting down in my finger. We always drove with football players receiver’s gloves. They were sticky and the lines would not be as apt to slide through your hands. Anytime you did a show, after the deal was over, you pulled the harness off and cleaned every strap before they were put back in the display boxes. A set of good Shannahan harness for an 8 horse hitch is about $75,000 so you took great care of the harness. You pulled the mane rolls out, took their tails down and rinsed every horse off, led them to water, fed them, offered them water again and threw them all the hay they could eat. To hitch and unhitch a 6 or an 8 horse hitch, not counting the time doing the exhibition, is a 6 hour job for 5 people. I can’t tell you how many rodeos we opened and by the time we were done taking care of the horses, the show was over. I worked for Express for 3 years and Terry and I still did our Wisconsin auction and our November sale. But after 3 years being on the road for over 200 days, it was time to come home. We got to entertain lots of people all over North America, coast to coast and at the Calgary Stampede. Thousands of people would come around to see the big horses. The most asked questions were “does it hurt when they step on your feet? “And “where’s the beer?” I wouldn’t have missed the opportunity to drive this hitch for 3 years for anything. The pictures here are of 2 completely different sets of horses. The horses standing at the gate were the 1999 National Champion Six horse hitch. Later, we sold the wheelers and the swing horse and put a young pair of leaders on and sold the hitch to Stanley White, Jr. Stan showed them to another National Championship Clydesdale Six Horse Hitch. That is unheard of to win against the good old boys but Stan did. I gave him one driving lesson and fairly quickly, he could beat them all. The left hand lead horse in the show hitch was Bud. I don’t care what breed of horse it is, I love a good horse. I would have risked my life for Bud. He was truly a great horse. He would trot like a fine harness horse and he would go through a brick wall if you asked him. He is almost 30 and is retired on 140,000 acres in New Mexico. The hitch with the overhead shot was our parade hitch as is the hitch on the coach opening the International Rodeo Finals. If we hitched for 5 exhibitions, we would hitch a different combination of horses 5 times. There is a picture of me taking 4 horses for a walk. Steve Fauks took the picture. This was New Year’s Eve, 1999 in Florida at Ben White race track. The Millennium - we were waiting for all the computers to go down. The year 2000 came and all was well. Bill Addis Pictures 1.The National Champion Show Hitch 2. Opening International Final Rodeo 3. Opening The Show 4 Terry Rolling Manes 5.Taking a stroll New Years EVE 1999 6 , Getting ready for the Pegasus Parade
Posted on: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 12:41:07 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015