Horse Sense All In a Hoof Day’ s Work

By Maggie MacHale

Our horses today provide us with countless recreational opportunities, fantastic riding partners and devoted companionship, but for centuries, these powerful animals have been essential to transportation, farming, heavy hauling and countless daily tasks.

While most traditional equine roles have been replaced with modern machinery, horses still serve practical purposes on farms, ranches and homesteads. They are more than just our companions; they are versatile working animals that fill many roles, ranging from livestock management to ecological stewardship.

Hauling

Traditionally, draft horses have held many hauling, pulling and transport roles on the farm. These range from carting wagons and materials to delivering merchandise, transporting people and performing heavy farm work. Most of these roles have now been replaced by machinery, from plows and trucks to the modern tractor.

According to the American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture, horses can offer a sustainable and costeffective alternative to modern machinery, especially in winter when a machine could fail to start. They are great at hauling wagons of feed for livestock, or even a plow, as exemplified by Michigan State University.

The university notes that its Draft Horse Program was among the finest of its time, particularly from 1910 to

1930, when it earned 155 championships and 211 firstplace finishes. Although the program was discontinued in 1963, the horses returned 36 years later, including for the 2002 MSU Plow Day, the first time in more than 40 years that horses had plowed university grounds, and again in 2004. MSU has expressed hope that the Draft Horse Program will continue into the future.

While this job for draft horses is becoming less and less common by the day, they still fill many essential, everyday roles. Patricia Crane, a horse enthusiast and sculptor, notes that they are mighty in show rings, hitches, multiple hitches, parades and pulling and plowing contests. It’ s not uncommon to find a team pulling a float at a local parade.

While there are more than 40 distinct draft horse breeds that are recognized globally, some of these gentle giants include the American Cream, Ardennais, Auxois, Belgian, Boulonnais, Brabant, Breton, Clydesdale, Comtois, Norman Cob, Percheron, Renish German, Schwarzwalder Fuchs, Shire and Suffolk Punch.

Equipment

Another, less common, even rare, role for horses is horse-powered equipment. Beyond just plows, rakes, mowers and planters, some machinery runs on equine power. Feed cutters, silo blowers and small grain elevators can be powered by horse treadmills, inclined platforms with belts.

There are also horse mills, or horse sweeps, where the horses walk in a circle to rotate a central gear that powers threshing machines, corn shellers, wood saws and grist mills. The Kenneth and Katie Copp family, part of the Unity, Maine Amish community, runs a horse-

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