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player ready...They were bred big not to pull manure spreaders but to carry medieval knights into battle.
The biggest stand over 6 feet tall at the shoulder, have hooves up to a foot across, weigh 2,500 pounds-about the heft of a compact car-and mock our modern notions of horsepower: Two of them yoked at a county fair can drag up to 6 tons of dead weight.
And, oh yes: They’re back.
Draft horses have returned to favor throughout North America after they were nearly wiped out in the mass move to motors after World War II. That’s partly attributed to the growth of Amish communities, who farm with horses for religious reasons.
But equine experts mainly credit a growing number of hobbyist-breeders who raise the horses for show or to rediscover the joys of hay-and-sleigh rides, the elegance of carriages.
“A lot of the draft-horse growth, particularly in the last decade, has been not so much for chore teams as for fun teams,” says Maurice Telleen, publisher of the 30-year-old quarterly Draft Horse Journal in Waverly, Iowa. “They’re becoming more of a companion animal than an equine motor.”
National figures are lacking, but a survey by the Michigan Agricultural Statistics Service two years ago counted 8,000 draft horses in the state-up a third from the 1984 total.
Draft horses are being rescued and promoted by people like Robert Dunton, 60, of Saranac, Mich., who has raised Belgian draft horses as a labor of love on his farm for 35 years. It began as a hobby but has become a substantial business in which he now maintains 30 horses for breeding, exhibit and sale.
“People will never achieve consensus on what constitutes a perfect animal, but that’s what we strive for,” Dunton says. “I try to breed the perfect animal.”
The once-extraneous draft horse, with the proper credentials, is now valuable. Champions with superstar blood lines sell for up to $25,000. But in more typical recent auctions, mature draft horses have sold for $2,000 to $8,000, depending on age, health, build and blood lines, Dunton says.
One reason for the growth of draft horses in North America in recent years has been fast-growing demand for the urine of pregnant mares. The female hormone estrogen extracted from the urine is used in the drug Premarin, widely used to control menopausal symptoms.
If people are falling in love with draft horses again, it’s no mystery to Kristin Stark, who says her Shires have manners courtly enough for anyone’s Round Table.
Kristin and her husband, Vern, operate Star Knight Farm in Webberville, Mich. The farm boards and trains light horses for horse shows and provides a draft-horse stud service. The Starks charge $600 plus expenses per pregnancy for the services of their champion English Shire, Grayingham Lucky Lad. He is one of only a few thousand of his breed left in the world.
“They are gentle giants . . . very careful around children,” she says of the draft horses. “They are kind, generous, willing to please. When you call them, they come right up, real perky and excited, ready for anything.”