They're having a Draft Horse pull in Lathrop, MO tomorrow night. I don't know if any of you have ever been to one, but it is the coolest thing I have EVER seen!!! You hook up a pair of horses to a sled & they pull the sled 10 ft. Last year there were 15 teams ranging from 3300 lbs. to 4200 lbs. The horses are mostly Belgians, with some Percherons & Clydesdales thrown in for good measure. The heaviest team was a Belgian/Clydesdale mix & they pulled almost 18,000 lbs! If you ever get a chance to see one of these pulls, I HIGHLY recommend it!

http://www.lathropantique.com/ShowBill2010.pdf

 

I did this with a friend in WV. He had pulling ponies, more like monster ponies. I was the hook guy and when you drop the hook look out. I almost got run over by the sled they take off so fast. And the horses at these events are hugh like Clydesdales.

 

Yep, and there-in lies the problem. I LOVE watching the horse pulls too, but I made the mistake of buying a team that at one time was a pulling team. I didn't want to pull competitively with them, I wanted to use them in the woods to skid logs. Well let me tell you, when those ex-pulling horses hear a chain drop, they're gonna take off! It don't matter who/what is in the way either! NOT a good thing, especially if you're not expecting it. Learned a valuable lesson with the purchase of that team!

 

If their a calm pair you can work them otherwise hair triggered and you will get dragged through the woods like Indiana Jones.

 

That sounds like a youtube winner right there.

 

That sounds like fun (watching, not being run over). I believe Mike Rowe did a Dirty Jobs episode with a couple guys and their horse pulling log outfit. It was something else.


My bad, it was mules on the episode.