Alberta’s heavy horse breeders and fitters have been hauling hardware home from recent national and international shows.
Clydesdale breeder Dennis Gor-deyko of Ohaton won the sup-reme champion Clydesdale title at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto earlier this month.
The winning horse, two-year-old 2S Barnaby’s Grand Luchesse, also won the grand champion Clydesdale stallion title.
Bruce Roy, a director with the Wild Rose Draft Horse Association, said the win was especially interesting because Gordeyko bought the horse for $6,200 as a weanling during a dispersal sale.
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Gordeyko also won the overall champion foal event at the Royal with one of the six animals he took to the show.
“He had a banner show, to be quite honest,” said Roy.
The grand champion Clydesdale mare at Toronto’s Royal, owned by Alan and Mary Knobloch of Prince-ville, Ill., also had an Alberta connection.
The mare, Calico Isabell, was raised by Kevin and Tammy Pelonero of Huxley.
At another show and in another breed, Brian Coleman of Didsbury, Alta., showed the world champion team of Percheron geldings at the World Percheron Congress in Springfield, Mass., held Oct. 6-11.
Coleman, a Percheron breeder in his own right, showed the team of Pride and Guy, which is owned by Brian and Randi Thiel of Pleasant Grove, California.
“Brian handles the horses for the Thiel family,” said Roy.
“The horses are here and he schools them, breaks them, fits them, shoes them and shows them. He is Mr. Complete in the draft horse industry.”
Coleman and the winning pair competed against 141 breeders from 19 states and six provinces.
“Their big 18-hands-high hitch horses were matched for colour, style and stride,” Roy said in a news release about the win.
In a later interview, Roy said Coleman regularly uses the horses to haul manure in winter at his Eaglesfield Percherons farm, and the workouts develop muscle tone and condition.
“The sharp joints on their underpinning were clean as hound’s teeth,” reported Roy, a long-time heavy horse breeder, judge and show announcer.
Coleman also showed the winning horses in the ladies cart horse and the four-horse hitch of geldings at the World Percheron Congress.
On his way back to Alberta from Springfield, he showed horses at the Michigan Great Lakes International Draft Horse show at Lansing.
There, the horses from Eaglesfield Percherons topped the ladies cart, gelding team, unicorn, four and six-horse hitches in the Percheron performance classification.
The six-horse hitch won overall champion in a final class.
Roy said there are quite a few Percheron and Clydesdale breeders in Alberta, increasing the success rate for people from that province.
“It’s kind of a hotbed of activity.”
He said draft horses are consistent crowd pleasers at shows.
“I think they’re so big and I think they’re so gentle and I think they just awe Joe Public. If they’re properly presented, they can be extremely beautiful.”
