Plow Day

While writing The Book of Draft Horses: The Gentle Giants that Built the World, I learned draft horse owners across the country are using their gentle giants to plow and work fields, mow and rake hay, even for logging. To share memories and pass on their skills to future generations events called “plow days” are held in rural communities.

I attended a Plow Day at the Jimmy Dozier Farm in Rocky Mount, North Carolina earlier this spring. It is an event that has grown bigger every year. Not only were there several teams of draft horses and mules plowing a thirty-acre cornfield, there were other things from the “good old days” on display. An antique car show, folks making grits and cornmeal with a restored burr mill, and a display of old horse powered farming equipment was spread out over Mr. Dozier’s front yard. Hundreds of people were there to watch the horses and see the displays. Rocky the Trick Mule provided entertainment, and there was plenty of food on hand to feed the crowd.

Jimmy has four draft horses, a pair of Belgians and a pair of Spotted Draft horses, which he raised from the Belgians. With the help of his horses, Jimmy plants corn in the thirty-acre field. He also uses the horses to rake his hay fields. He is restoring a horse drawn hay mower so he can also mow it with his horses.

The plow day was attended by hundreds of spectators. Jimmy doesn’t charge anything for the folks to come watch. It’s his gift to the community, and a way to hand down old traditions to the younger generations. Young people who want to try their hand guiding the horses down the furrows get a lesson from Jimmy or one of the other team owners. There is great value in giving the older generations a place to not only show their skills, but also share their stories and reminisce with each other.

My friend and I were admiring the line of antique cars. She remembered someone in her family who had an old car like the one we were stopped next. A man overheard her and stopped to look, too. Then he told his story of how as children he and his siblings used to rider in the rumble seat of the family’s car, a Model A Ford. “Look in there. You can see it’s not a lot of room, and the one we had wasn’t that nice,” he said as my friend and I peered into the tiny back seat of the car on display. That car had been restored beautifully; its rumble seat padded and covered in fine, smooth leather. “And if it rained, then that was just to bad,” he chuckled. You could see the fond memories dancing in his eyes.

We walked back to the plowing field. I snapped more photos. There was no roar of engines, just the jingle of the harness chains and voices of the people talking and laughing as they watched the men and horses at work.

The Age of A Racehorse is Not Really Its Age

The age of a racehorse has traditionally been calculated from January 1 of the year it is born. The original purpose was to try and set a standard for eligibility in the various age divisions of horseracing. Over the years this method of determining age in horses has also been applied to show horses and other equine competitors. Using this aging method means a foal born on December 31, 2008 will be a yearling on January 1, 2009, even though it is actually only two days old.

Of course, no one would breed their mare in order to have a one year old that is really two days old, but there are folks who try to have their mares bred so to have foals on the ground as close to the other side of January one as possible. That is because a foal actually born on January one will be a full one year old the next January first. They call that foal a long yearling. On the racetrack, that is an advantage because the yearling will probably be bigger, stronger and faster than the foal born in April or May, the natural time for mares to drop foals. This reasoning in horse showing is pretty much the same, particularly in halter classes. The long yearling is bigger than its competitors, giving it an edge in the judges’ eyes.

To achieve this January birth mares must be manipulated to come into heat at a time of year not natural to horses. This is usually done by hormone therapy, or using artificial lighting to fool the horse’s system into thinking the days are longer and spring has arrived. The foal is born in the dead of winter when it is cold, and before the pasture grasses are up. Everything about this process is artificial.

The racing industry is over-run with health issues, that in my opinion are largely due to the practices of breeding and foaling too early and racing too young. In the year 2004 alone, the Jockey Club, that oversees Thoroughbred breeding and racing, provided $850,000 to researchers to study a host of health problems including foal pneumonia, fertility abnormalities, bone factures and respiratory disorders. Also in 2004 statistics show 243 track horse fatalities in California alone. Each year thousands of racehorses are retired early due to injuries. Many are sold to slaughter, while a few horses are rescued by organizations that try to find homes for them.

I missed the Derby this past Saturday. I’m glad I didn’t witness Eight Belles crumble on the track while giving her heart and life to running the race.

I read an AP article by Richard Rosenblatt, that was posted on my local television station’s website. Rosenblatt quoted Rick Dutrow, Jr., trainer of the winning horse, Big Brown. "No matter what happens, you're always going to see horses break down on the track," he said, "That is part of this game. It's a very sad part of the game, but you have to go through it.”

I guess so. After all we are talking about a multibillion-dollar industry.