IRRICANA, Alta. – When Percheron breeder Fred McDiarmid got a phone call asking if he would help drive a 30-horse team, he didn’t say yes right away.
“I didn’t know what to think. It’s quite a little job,” said the Veteran, Alta., farmer.
The idea of hitching 30 draft horses to pull five grain wagons was easier said than done.
The concept came from members of Pioneer Acres, a site outside of Irricana where antique farm equipment is housed and restored. They wanted to mark the 30th anniversary of the place and thought the horse parade was a unique idea.
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Ultimately the team was drawn together and paraded three times for thousands of people who came to Pioneer Acres for its Aug. 6-8 celebration.
The trainers and drivers started by getting in touch with Dick Sparrow of Iowa. He had synchronized a 40-horse hitch used by Barnum and Bailey to pull circus wagons.
Sparrow sent them the specifications for harnesses and the type of lines needed to control such a mass of muscle.
They needed quiet, socialized horses that would work well as a team.
They needed 500 feet of chain to attach the team.
They needed three skilled drivers who could control the horses that stood four abreast with two leading in front.
The horses and drivers were found and practice drives started three weeks before the show.
They started by hitching the horses to a sleigh that was pulled across summerfallow at McDiarmid’s farm. They practised pulling, giving commands, braking and making turns, which was probably the trickiest part. The lead horses need about 10 to 15 feet of room to make the turns and as they circle the parade route, the chains become almost impossibly tight.
Figuring out the hitching and sorting out the lines was also tricky.
“The first hitch was two hours,” said McDiarmid. Thirty people helped hitch for each of the parades. By the end of the weekend, they could do it in 30 minutes.
As the humans learned to handle the massive team, they found the greatest challenge was keeping the animals calm. At 2,000 pounds, a runaway Percheron is formidable.
The slightest noise from the whistle of a nearby train or a tractor could set them off, said McDiarmid. “It would be so easy to have a wreck. You just don’t know,” he said.
Pioneer Acres originated as a club for a handful of vintage tractor enthusiasts who wanted a place to restore and run their old equipment. Incorporated as a society in 1972, the group moved to its present site north of Calgary in 1983. Members come from across the province to store their collections and restore them in the club’s specially outfitted garages.
