Durable horse
Jonathan Fox III tells me that 1999 is the 100th anniversary of his family’s involvement in breeding Percheron horses.
Jonathan and his wife, Molly, now live at Kamloops, B.C., but occasionally check in at the original Justamere farm at Lloydminster.
When I was a lowly scribbler and flash gun flasher for The Western Producer, I used to see Justamere livestock, draft horses, Polled Hereford and Holstein cattle around the fair and sale circuit. I wasn’t scribbling as early as 1931 or I’d have seen him win his first championships – for champion gander and champion goose at the Calgary Poultry Show.
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Jonathan, with his cigar and missing front tooth, was on the boards of half the cattle based organizations in the country. (He once claimed Molly was to blame for him losing the tooth but she wasn’t there to refute this.)
With the material Jonathan sent me about Percherons was his statement that those who trace artificial insemination to when frozen semen was introduced in this century should know AI was used long before that. My records indicate the Arabs were using AI for their desert steeds hundreds of years ago.
The Percheron breed came from France and first achieved prominence as a rapid draft or stagecoach horse about the turn of the 18th century.
It was probably used as a war horse when knights wore heavy armor and carried lance, spear and sword.
At one stage warhorses had armor too so they were lugging about 400 pounds while being slashed and poked by foot soldiers.
Justamere Stylish Stella, a horse Jonathan remembers with pride, also got poked but in a more friendly fashion by show ring judges. She won her share of ribbons.
Happy 100th, Jonathan.
