As Kevin and I were looking for things to do in celebration of the 4th of July, my mom provided a few suggestions, one of which was to attend the Horse Pulls in Oakley. Kevin enjoys horse pulls, plus it was in the middle of the day, so it fit into our schedule better. Kevin’s dad also drove up with us (he too enjoys horse pulls).
Most of you have probably never been to a horse pull, so the basic gist is that you hook two large horses to a sled. On the sled there are large cement blocks which provide the weight. You then have the horses pull the sled. Whichever team pulls the sled the farthest wins. Lest you go all animal rights on me, the owners of these horses have invested a lot of money into them, so if they feel that the weight is too much, they will forfeit their turn because they don’t want to hurt the horses. Also, these horses (which are usually Belgians and Percherons) are bred to pull this much weight. There are three classes, light-weights, mid-weights, and heavy-weights.
My cousin has three teams of horses that he competes with. However, he hasn’t been exercising them as much, so the four smaller horses were too big for their classes. He only competed in the heavy-weight division, which he placed second. Kevin didn’t think of taking pictures until the end, but he did get some good shots.
Sheldon's team on their last pull. I think there was about 8500 pounds on the sled at this time
The horses need to pull the weight 20 feet to have a complete pull. Here they are measuring how far they pulled. The men on the back of the sled were the extra 500 pounds.
Jody and Sheldon waiting for the outcome of the last pull by the other team.
Together these horses weighed in at 4000 pounds. We went to see them once and Sheldon let them run loose in the barn. I only came up to their mid chest area. I definitely prefer my short quarter horse, Derrie.
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