Transcript:

[0:03]

[Music] Over 100 years ago there was a movement in many countries around the world, and most famously in the United States, of the prohibition of the sale of alcohol. To celebrate the ending of prohibition of alcohol in 1933, two sons, August Jr. and Adolphus, decided to surprise their father, August Sr., with a gift of six draft horses hitched to a beer wagon to commemorate the repeal of prohibition of beer.

[0:38]

They paraded down the streets of St. Louis, Missouri, in the United States to probably a crowd of hundreds cheering them on as these six large, gorgeous draft horses pulled this beer cart down the street. Realizing the potential of this beer cart and these horses, they went on a tour of the Eastern United States.

[1:12]

When they entered New York City, they had a crowd of thousands cheering them on as they went to drop off a crate of beer to the governor of New York at the Empire State Building. They then went on down to Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States, to present crates of beer to the president at the White House, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

[1:46]

This team of horses has gone on to become probably the most famous representation of draft horses that we have in existence. Almost everybody can recognize a Budweiser Clydesdale today. Anytime they pull that famous red cart, this team of horses brings a smile onto the face of the youngest child and the oldest adult in every crowd they pass.

[2:20]

These horses exemplify what many of those people don’t know — the history of draft horses and where we are with them today. Many of them don’t know how much we owe it to them for enjoying the quality of life that we have. It is because of them we are where we are today, and we owe it to them to know their story.

[2:53]

And Secretariat being led — he is number… The horse is the best thing in the world, isn’t it? I’ve always loved them, really, ever since I was a little girl.

[3:06]

Everybody’s in line… and they’re off! Secretariat away very well, has good position. The love — I never thought owning a horse could mean so much to me. Secretariat now taking the lead… The madness — what kind of a horse is that? I’ve never seen a horse like that before. Lightning now — he is moving like a tremendous machine.

[3:32]

Their story — Mustang is more involved in the early development of this breed than I thought they were. But there’s Secretariat — he has opened up the 22-length lead. He is going to be the Triple Crown winner! Welcome to…

[3:46]

[Music] Horses. Hello, I’m Dr. Chris Morton, and I’ve been an equine educator and scientist for over 20 years. And in today’s episode, we’re going to really focus on the gentle giants and tell their story — and why. Why care about them?

[4:06]

Because you really, once you understand the sweat, the grit, the trillions of pounds that they have pulled in our history in just the last 300 years, it has impacted us in so many ways that we don’t even know. And so today, we’re going to celebrate them, and we’re going to talk about them. How strong are they? Where did the term “horsepower” even come from? Who is the biggest horse to ever live? And why are they as big as they are?

[4:45]

If you can imagine, the earliest horses that were domesticated stood 13–14 hands. We have draft horses — the Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales — that stand over 18 hands. And I will return to them towards the end of the podcast. What makes a Budweiser Clydesdale a Budweiser Clydesdale? We will talk about that.

[5:07]

But these gentle giants, these coldblooded horses with these calm temperaments, are the largest horses ever to exist. There were not large horses out there thousands of years ago that somebody captured and domesticated. If you go back 4,000 years ago, pulling early carts, pulling chariots — there were horses in draft work, but not these massive beasts that we’ve seen in the last 200–300 years.

[5:53]

So we’re going to tell a little bit of that history, and where they are today, because these were some of the most popular horses back in the day. I mean, obviously, you had millions of riding horses because we didn’t have automobiles. And then out of the 60 million today, you’re talking tens of thousands, not a million.

[6:12]

Of the hundreds of breeds we have today, there’s only about 30-ish draft breeds. So what happened? Where’d they all go? But to get there, we really need to kind of talk about the origins leading up to why we saw so many draft horses and then why they’ve regressed.

[6:37]

And like I said, if you go back and look at using animals for draft work, the only comparable species we have is oxen — cattle. They are still used today throughout the world to do draft work. And that begs the question — why do we even need a draft horse if we have oxen pulling plows, oxen pulling carts? What’s the need?

[7:09]

Well, oxen were preferred draft animals on many farms in, say, the early colonial times in Canada, the United States, Mexico, parts of South America, and even Europe. They ate half as much as a draft horse, but they couldn’t work as hard as a draft horse.

[7:29]

And also, oxen are basically useless when fields were frozen — or think of those old dirt roads frozen — even those cloven hooves had trouble grasping the ground compared to a massive draft horse with their large single hoof. So horses had many more advantages to oxen, and they actually helped revolutionize, leading up into modern agriculture, where today we have tractors. But back then, oxen could only work half as hard as a draft horse.

[8:16]

So there was this need. As people migrated to cities and towns and villages, they gave up a farming lifestyle. They went to go work in a textile mill, say, in Manchester in the United Kingdom. Or they wanted to go work at the docks in Charleston, South Carolina, or in New York or Boston Harbor. They left their oxen behind, got on their riding horses, and migrated into the towns and cities and villages.

[8:46]

So you had this pressure. Okay, if — again, imagine living back then — you had a farmer who could only produce so many bushels of corn per year using his oxen, but corn prices are really high. If I just produce some more bushels, wow, I can make more money, and there’s a need for it. We need to feed people. So there are incentives built in there to produce more food. But my ox can’t do it — but this draft horse can.

[9:25]

So you see this push for them. And then you make and grow all this corn — you’ve got to get it to market before it spoils. And I can’t get a slow ox to pull a cart all the way to town, but wow — this team of draft horses I have, these Belgian horses or Percheron horses or these very popular breeds, say, in the United States, will get them to market much quicker, or get them to the mills, or get them to where they need to go.

[9:58]

So this is where you see this push for these horses. A question I’ve always had early in my career, when I started to really dedicate my life to animal science and then equine science — did draft horses originate from the knights of old? I always had this image in my head of this large knight on this large horse, covered in armor, with their joust, or jousting tournaments, or running down the field with their big swords and things.

[10:37]

And you come to find out — no, draft horses weren’t anywhere near used as knights back in the fields of old. Because there is this misnomer that knights needed these huge, massive horses to just barrel down into people or do what they did back in the Middle Ages, you know, 600–800 years ago.

[11:03]

When you look into the history of it, really, knights used two types of horses. They had the destrier horse and the courser horse. The destrier was this large, powerful warhorse, but nothing like an 18-hand Clydesdale or even a 16–17-hand Percheron, which is to me the bodybuilder of all the draft horses — just muscular, and I’ll talk about them here in a little bit.

[11:21]

So they did have these destrier-type horses — heavily bodied — but when you look at the data, and the Museum of London’s done research on this, those horses averaged 14 to 15 hands, which is up to 60 inches or 152 centimeters at the withers. So they weren’t these massive, tall, big draft horses; they were just big, beefy, strong horses.

[11:47]

And then even thinking about it, looking into the average male in Europe in the Middle Ages — he stood only about 5’8”. I stand 6’5”, so you can only imagine a knight of the day putting on armor, which carries weight, then trying to mount a horse that you’ve got to stay on in the middle of a battle or something like that. A 17, 18, 19-hand horse is not feasible — plus, they’re not as agile, they’re not as fast, as you’re going to find out with your draft horses.

[12:32]

So the knights of old did not ride draft horses. And then, just to tie that up, the courser horse was their light riding horse. It wasn’t one they rode into battle, but maybe one they rode up to a battle and switched horses, or used for scouts, or for sending messages back and forth through town. So no, the draft horses don’t originate there — they really can be traced back to a single horse type or breed, which is called the Black Horse of Flanders.

[12:57]

This breed goes back to the Dark Ages, Middle Ages — so 500 to 1000 AD. There was this horse in black, bay, or brown that was taller, stronger, bigger — but not used by knights. It was a pulling animal for agriculture or pulling carts.

[13:24]

Now, interestingly, the Black Horse of Flanders is extinct, but there is a breed of the time that still exists that many of you probably know or have seen, and that is the Friesian horse. Beautiful horse — the black coats, the feathering on the legs, which again, feathering is those long guard hairs that help protect the fetlocks and pasterns and hooves of these draft horses.

[13:49]

This is an old, old breed, so when you see a Friesian, you’re looking back into history. It’s like the Arabian for our riding horses — Arabian is one of our oldest known breeds; Friesian for draft horses is one of our oldest breeds. They are not the Black Horse of Flanders; it was something similar.

[14:04]

Now, Friesian today in the modern era — there are two body types. Some of you are going, “Wait, a Friesian? Friesian is like a warmblood, isn’t it?” Yes — and you see Friesians competing in dressage and in other events. There are warmblood-type Friesians because they were mixed in with Andalusian blood for more of your riding types. But there still is, in existence, this baroque-type, older, coldblooded type region. So they’re one of the most unique breeds on the planet because they can be both a drafty horse and a riding horse, and that’s why they’re so popular — you see them everywhere around the world.

[14:57]

Getting back to the Black Horse of Flanders — this is like the father of all modern draft horses. And I’d argue mother too, because both the mares and stallions were important. But they are the originators of where we get into our draft horses today. They influenced the size — so you see them much, much taller than a typical riding horse, 17–18 hands (that’s 68 or 72 inches at the shoulders).

[15:25]

When I get to the largest horse ever at the end of the podcast, it will blow you away how big that horse was. These horses weigh up to 2,200 pounds — you know, 2,000 pounds, so a ton on average. Average riding horse — your Quarter Horse can be up to 1,300 pounds, your Thoroughbreds 1,100–1,200 pounds. I mean, that’s your typical riding horse around there; some are a little bit lighter.

[15:50]

Then their temperament — that coldblooded temperament that we’ve talked so much about — bombproof. I use that term “bombproof” meaning nothing much bothers them. Imagine you’re pulling that beer cart down New York City to thousands of people cheering you on, excited, “Yay, we get to drink beer again!” Those horses can’t panic — you can’t lose the team, or people are going to get hurt or killed. So you needed horses that were very calm.

[16:21]

But also, for what you needed them to do — again, when you think about it — throughout history, since we’ve been using them on farms, they’d go out and pull that plow day in, day out. They would pull the wagons day in, day out for some grain and hay. And then you’d hitch them up the next day — they’d do it again, and again, and again. That’s why I just love and respect them so much.

[16:55]

When we talk about the Black Horse of Flanders and its influence on the modern breeds, I remember the very first time I met a draft horse up close and personal. I was a young graduate student in California, and I had walked into the barn after classes and Dr. Rodic said, “Chris, go get our Percheron mare.” And I was like, “Whoa, we have a Percheron? No way! I’ve never seen one.”

[17:25]

She was doing some crossbreeding with her Hackney stallion and with some of the local draft breeds in that part of California. She pointed to the halter — we had our rack of normal nylon halters for our broodmares, and there was this massive — I’m not kidding you, massive — nylon halter for this Percheron mare. She said, “She’s super sweet, don’t worry — just go get her.”

[17:51]

So I saw her in the paddock, and I went to go halter her. My first impression — and it sticks with me to this day because this was a while ago — was how thick that neck was, how muscular she was. She was so strong. She was the bodybuilding draft horse.

[18:13]

And I’ve gone on to work with Belgian horses — I’m going to talk about seeing the Clydesdales up close and personal — and they are just so impressive. But I honest to goodness, this was a horse where when I looked at that neck, and I petted her on the neck, and then brought her into the breeding shed, how calm she was — this was a massive beast. And she was a Percheron.

[18:43]

What I really loved digging into the history was, I didn’t realize just how popular Percheron horses were in the United States back in the day. I found this really interesting old typed-out article called “The Percheron Horse” by Fred Walters that was published in 1902, and I found this in Kansas State. He talks about the history of the Percheron horse, and what interested me was not so much — okay, Black Horse of Flanders, that is one of them — because Percheron’s from France, and Flanders is northern France, Belgium, Netherlands region, so think of that part of the world.

[19:27]

I remember Percherons tend to have gray, like the mare I’m talking about — and I don’t remember her name — but she was just a beautiful, beautiful horse. It was crossing the Black Horse of Flanders with an Arabian stallion that gave rise to the Percheron breed, which I found fascinating.

[19:47]

So the gray Arabian, Galipoli, was brought in the early 1800s to create this breed and then gets exported to the United States and becomes the most popular draft horse in the U.S. before World War II. It’s estimated that 70% of all draft horses in the United States before World War II were Percheron horses. That factoid — I just, it astounded me. If you would have asked me, I would have said Belgian horses, Shire horses, some of the bigger ones. I didn’t realize Percherons were that popular — and they were.

[20:24]

They weren’t as tall as, say, some of these other breeds, but they had that strength — they were really strong, hardy, really just… they called them “the superb draft worker.” And wait till you find out here in a little bit just how strong they were — we’ll get there.

[20:38]

There are so many other breeds, but why they were being pushed is because different parts of Europe were breeding them during the Industrial Revolution. Like I said — that farmer had to produce more food to feed more people, and then transport it to these hubs of civilization, and so the draft horses filled that niche very well. So well, in fact, that they became, like I said, some of the more popular breeds — until the automobile.

[21:08]

Right before World War II, draft horses were still working. And then, as tractors came along, they were replaced. As trucks came along, they were replaced. So in the modern world, draft horses really don’t have a place anymore as working animals — as a need or a necessity.

[21:37]

Now, they are still working — they still are doing logging work in certain areas, you still see them pulling carts in towns and cities around the world, carriages — people have maintained their breeds. Many of them went endangered — a few hundred — and now you have a few thousand left, thanks to people focused on saving that breed, like the Shire horse. But it really was, again, that automobile, that tractor, that drove draft horses away.

[22:13]

And even though we have 60 million horses today, and they’re so important not just as companion animals and for riding, pleasure, and things like that, they still are working animals throughout the world. But the draft horses just aren’t — so that’s where you see this big drop in them. But they’re still around. You still see things like the Suffolk Punch — it’s a breed developed in England, very popular breed, but again, the Livestock Conservancy classifies them as critical — there’s only about 2,500.

[22:52]

The American Cream Draft — never seen one, I hope I do. This is a cream-colored horse with amber eyes — one of the most unique colors of eyes in horses. So I really hope to see one one day. If any of you have, you are blessed, because there’s maybe 500 left — very rare, critically endangered breed.

[23:12]

Then you get to the Belgian horse, which many people probably would recognize — the chestnut coat, the flaxen mane and tail. When we say “flaxen,” think blonde — so lighter manes and tails. I’ve worked with a couple pulling a feed wagon in Texas — that was part of our way to honor them. Once a week, we would hitch up the team and go around and feed our horses with it, just to honor the horse and the way things were done back in the day. These were down to 200, but again, are recovering, and there’s thousands of them.

[23:53]

Then we get to two of the more well-known — and I’m going to say the Shire next, because the Shire will lead into the largest horse ever. Okay, the Clydesdale — Anheuser-Busch has put Clydesdales on the map. If it wasn’t for them, this breed might be extinct or be very rare. They’re known as the Budweiser Clydesdales, and they originate in Scotland — that’s where the breed originated — but again, exported to the United States. And then, in St. Louis, Missouri, where Anheuser-Busch is, that’s where they got these Clydesdales.

[24:33]

Now, the Clydesdales that we see are massive because Budweiser has bred them. I can remember the first time being very up close and personal with them — and that was because one of the traveling teams came down to Texas A&M, where I was a graduate student, and they were boarding at our facility for an event nearby at a Renaissance fair, where they were going to be in a parade.

[25:01]

When they pulled up and unloaded the team — these massive Clydesdales — they were put in our foaling stalls. These are the biggest stalls we had, but they had gone in and fluffed up all the straw. If there was champagne and caviar for horses, these horses were getting it. They were so well taken care of and loved, and they filled up the stalls because they’re so big.

[25:32]

When I got to walk into the trailer — air conditioning, padded stalls — I think there was classical music playing, I don’t remember, but it was just very, very well cared for. That’s why these horses just look so great, behave so great — they were just a dream to be that close to.

[25:47]

But to make the team — to make the cut — there are some things the horse has to have. First, they have to be a gelding. I’ll talk about what happens to the ones that don’t make the cut, or if it’s a mare or filly that isn’t kept for breeding. But the ones you see pulling the carts, and generally in the commercials pulling the carts, they’re all geldings. They’re all above 18 hands. They have to weigh between 1,800 and 2,300 pounds. They have to be bay, and they have to have four white stockings and that big white blaze down their face.

[26:26]

You can Google them — Budweiser Clydesdales — and look at them. They are just gorgeous. Flashy, with the white feathering — they are a great representation of what a draft horse is supposed to be.

[26:40]

For the ones that don’t make the cut — or the fillies and mares that aren’t kept, or don’t star in commercials (because a lot of the horses that star in commercials can be a filly or a young mare) — those are kept on the farm. But the ones that don’t make the cut, they actually either sell privately or auction off, and on average, they go for about $5,000 USD. So not super expensive — if you want a Clydesdale, you could probably get a hold of one and find out when there’s an auction, and you can own a piece of history. And again, not just Budweiser or Anheuser-Busch — I’m talking the history of these animals. They are just so incredible.

[27:25]

And that leads me into what I call “the champion.” I have not worked with Shire horses — I really wish I could, and hopefully one day I will — and that’s because there’s only about 3,000 in the world. This is the largest horse breed in the world. Out of the 60 million-plus horses that we have, only about 3,000 are the largest, and they’re threatened. They were almost extinct in the ’70s and ’80s. They stand at least 17 hands, they weigh up to almost 2,000 pounds, and they are just incredible workhorses out of England. They were exported around the world, so they were a popular draft horse again in the United States.

[28:15]

The Percheron was the one that ended up being the most popular by the end of the life of using draft horses on farms. Why do I talk about the Shire? Well, the world record holder for the largest horse in the world — and you have to Google a photo of this — is Samson. He was born in 1846 in the United Kingdom, Bedfordshire. When you see this image, you probably will recognize it — I’ve seen this as a meme, probably thought it was fake, but it wasn’t. This is a real image of Samson.

[28:51]

This was the tallest and heaviest documented horse in history. Samson measured at the withers — the top of his shoulder — 21.2 and a half hands, which is 2.19 meters or 7 feet 2.5 inches. So I definitely cannot look over his back or withers, no mention of his head — like, no way. It is said he weighed 3,359 pounds, which is over 1,500 kilograms. I can only imagine his feed bill. Samson was a beast — just an incredible horse, gorgeous, and well worth a quick Google search.

[29:43]

Now, that was 170 years ago. What about in the modern era? Is the Shire still the king of big horses? Actually, it’s a Belgian. There are two — one just passed away, so I did want to mention him. His name was Big Jake, and some of you may have seen him or seen videos of him. He was a Belgian horse. While he was alive, he was the tallest horse on record — he stood 20.2 and three-quarter hands, so not quite as tall as Samson, about four inches shorter, and weighed about 2,600 pounds, or 1,200 kilograms.

[30:24]

Now, I joke about how much Samson’s feed bill was — Big Jake ate about a bale a day. He was a big boy, but he passed away a couple years ago. So that goes to — who’s the next big one? What breed comes to your mind? I mean, when I saw Clydesdales, I thought, “Oh gosh, they’re the biggest horses ever,” because they were selectively bred — they’re over 18 hands. But they’re not. It’s another Belgian horse. Zeus is the largest horse today in 2023, going into 2024. He’s 21 hands tall — so that’s 7 feet, or 2.13 meters, at the shoulder — weighs about 3,000 pounds, so he’s heavier than Big Jake.

[31:06]

One of the factoids you read about him is they say it takes 30 pounds of steel to make one shoe for them — so that should give you some idea of how massive their hooves are. And I remember seeing draft horse hooves — but that gave them the grip, right? That big hoof. When we say oxen can’t walk on frozen fields but draft horses can — part of it is just that physiology that gave them so many more advantages over any other animal.

[31:39]

Which leads me into — how strong are they? That grip and that strength and that size propels them and gives them the horsepower, right? So where do we get horsepower from? So if I had the first question I would have for you: how strong — how much do you think one of those draft horses could pull? If you had to think weight in pounds…

[32:03]

I mentioned Percherons being the most popular — hugely strong, just massive necks, but not quite as tall — 16 hands, right? Taller than a riding horse, 15–16 hands. It’s estimated a Percheron can pull 3,600 pounds — one Percheron. So almost two tons. You put them in a collar and they can pull that. I’m going to tell you — they’re the weakest. And that’s a lot. That is a lot of weight.

[32:40]

Your Belgian can do 8,000 pounds. Your Clydesdale can do 8,000 pounds — so that is four tons of weight they can pull. So maybe being a little bit taller gave them some advantages. But Percherons — there’s probably many reasons why they were a bit more popular: not quite as big, probably didn’t eat quite as much, could still do the work, could make it easier to travel with them. There was a lot of logging back in the day, especially as cities and towns were popping up all over the place, so a lot of forestry work. There’s probably many reasons why Percherons were preferred — but they weren’t as strong. Strong, but not as strong.

[33:23]

Okay — that gives me the Shire, biggest horse in the world. On average, Shires can pull 8,000 pounds. But if you figured, okay, what is 8,000 pounds? Samson — we don’t know how much he could have pulled, but if I had to go to a competition or a show, what’s the world record? How much weight? Maybe double it?

[33:49]

According to author Donna Campbell Smith in her book Draft Horses: The Gentle Giants That Built the World, in 1924 a pair of Shire draft horses pulled — get this — 50 tons. 100,000 pounds! Like, what? How did you go from 8,000 on average to 100,000 pounds? And then later on, a different horse pulled 58,000 pounds, setting the world record. That’s insane for one animal to pull. That is how strong they were — or are. They are super strong.

[34:34]

And again — those big feet give them grip, being able to pull that weight, and the will, and the determination, the grit, the sweat — you just gotta love them. And that led me down this rabbit hole of where did the term “horsepower” come from, because we use that a lot today — the vehicles with the horsepower of it.

[35:04]

Well, not to get too much into this — because it is a little mathematics involved — in 1702, Thomas Savery wrote The Miner’s Friend, and he said the development of the steam engine provided a reason to compare the output of horses with that of the engines that could replace them. So when they talk about horsepower, they are talking about how much a draft horse can work. It’s not a Thoroughbred or an Arabian or another breed — it is the draft horses, the big boys and girls.

[35:41]

James Watt and other scientists and designers at the time said a horse can pull with a force of 180 pounds, or 800 Newtons, and there’s this whole complicated equation on how they figured this out. And it’s been altered through the years, but in general, what they all agreed upon was: a single draft horse pulling a mill wheel — because milling grains and different things for textiles or food back in the day, they would use horses to pull the wheel — and there, that had some force behind it. It was this number, which doesn’t probably mean a lot to us, but — 33,000 foot-pounds per minute is how much a horsepower is.

[36:32]

Now, what does that translate into automobiles? Because that’s something we still use — horsepower — so we probably use it as a selling technique for automobiles. “How many horses is that automobile?” “What’s the power of it?” Because it became a measurement of force. As more engines came out, they said, “Oh, this has more horsepower — it was one, now it’s two, now it’s four, or 10 horsepower,” and everybody would be all excited about it. Well, the average for most vehicles around the world is about 180 horsepower.

[37:08]

So that is — you can multiply 180 by 33,000 foot-pounds per minute, and that’s giving you an idea. So yeah — 180 draft horses is the average car. Smaller cars — 100–150. Larger cars — 300. So saying “300 draft horses” — that’s the horsepower, right? And I’m just glad that we still honor them today when we talk about pulling, or an automobile is basically pulling those wheels or generating force forward to get us from point A to point B.

[37:47]

But all in all, when you really sit down and do the mental mapping, and you go back and now understand that Black Horse of Flanders a thousand years ago, pulling early plows in Europe — the advantage it gave to those people to produce more food, pull more food and goods to markets — and then they expand out to where we get to the Industrial Revolution, where most people were migrating out of an agrarian lifestyle… then you think of the advancements that we made to get us to the 20th century — it was all on the shoulders of draft horses.

[38:22]

And I go back — yeah, the riding horses absolutely, 100%, changed our history forever. Bar none — no other species can compete with the horse, period. I’ll have that argument day in, day out. But then when you dilute that down and go, okay — riding horses were critical, yes — but draft horses… if it wasn’t for them, we’d still be pulling oxen, we wouldn’t have gotten more food, we’d have less people in cities, we wouldn’t have people on the moon, they would have never been in space, we wouldn’t have a space station around us right now if it wasn’t for draft horses, we wouldn’t have a drone flying around Mars if it wasn’t for draft horses.

[39:14]

And please tell me I’m wrong. Try to argue with me that I’m wrong — you can’t. Because when you really think about it — these beasts of burden, these gentle giants, who asked for just some grain and hay — again, we owe them everything.

[39:33]

[Music] I know 89% of you, roughly, will tune into this podcast without posting a review. And if you’ve enjoyed this episode or any of the other episodes, please subscribe and rate the podcast on your favorite app — iTunes, Spotify — it makes such a big difference. And then, just the next step, the gold star, is sharing with your friends on social media or your pony clubs, in your barns, with your riding friends. It means the world to me.

[40:04]

I hope the passion bleeds through — I am so passionate about these animals, and I just sit here and do all the research and think about my approaches to the podcast, and I get so excited when I think of telling their story and sharing it with you. This time we spend together in an hour — I hope it inspires you. I hope it inspires you to go find a draft horse and either work with them, or — if you already do — thank you. You’re keeping them going, the breeds going. They are such special creatures. I mean, all horses are, but these especially — these gentle giants. I just… I resonate with them so much, so thank you for doing that.

[40:54]

Just a reminder — social media: TikTok, Instagram, YouTube now, Facebook — you can follow us. We’re putting out these stories, doing videos, little clips. I’m out looking for horses to work with, other horse owners here, and sharing that. Also, you can email me — podcast@madbarn.com — you can send me any comments and let me know your feelings on draft horses or any other topics you might want to hear.

[41:26]

Final note — you can always go to madbarn.com, Learn tab, Articles. We have one on Irish Draught horses — could not talk about them today. We have an overall draft horse breed guide, a Belgian draft horse breed guide. Cleveland Bay — couldn’t even talk about them today, didn’t have the time. Suffolk Punch — so many others. Kicking out those articles all the time, but you can go and read their history a little bit and realize there are so many different draft horses out there — like I said, a little bit over 30, just depends on where you are in the world, of draft breeds. But that’s out of the 700. So again, they are overlooked — they really are — and we owe them so much.

[42:12]

So I hope you enjoyed this podcast, and stay tuned for another great one next week. Take care.