Livestock was abundant at the annual Grain Miller's Harvest Showdown, especially horses. Horses were shown, driven, ridden, raced, performed tricks, chased down calves and steers and bucked off their would be riders.
An annual event at Harvest Showdown is the heavy horse competition which features the big boys of the equine fraternity, the draft horses. The draft or cart horses were shown in the halter classes, competed in pulling competitions, and were adjudicated in cart classes ranging from the two year old cart class to four, six and eight horse hitches.
Lyle Brown was on hand to act as judge in the heavy horse division at Harvest Showdown. Brown, who judges two to three shows a year, has been at it for about 10 years. His family has been in the draft horse business for three generations, raising, training, showing, promoting and selling big horses.
Many people don't realize the draft horse industry is still a fairly big industry, Brown claims. There are breeding programs in the show world, the horse pull world, and in carriage services, not so much in Canada but more so in the U.S., he suggests. "The Amish people in the states are still using all kinds of draft horses just like they used to a few hundred years ago here," Brown points out. While everybody doesn't have them, the numbers are still significant, he asserts.
No particular breed can lay claim to the biggest draft horse, Brown states. "Any given year you might find a Belgian, Percheron, Clydesdale, or a Shire that may come up being the biggest," he says. Recently a big 19/2 hand Belgian horse, which weighed 2,900 pounds, in Indiana was touted as the biggest horse in the world, Brown reports. "There may be some bigger horses than that," he suggests.
In adjudicating the heavy horse teams, Brown says he looks for a balanced outfit that's well presented. The horses look like show horses, showing lots of animation and movement. He looks for uniformity. "I would like to see the headsets all the same, at least in teams." He likes the horses to look very proud but show that they have manners. "You'll do some forgiveness on all of those elements because every horse doesn't do that so it'll be a kind of a trade-off whether one isn't as animated but moves better or one is bigger or in better condition than another. Then you kind of judge accordingly," Brown explains.
Brown, who also raises and shows horses says, "I think if you show horses, you probably should stand in the ring and do a little judging. It makes you a better showman."
