Animals: Draft Record

Although the small Hillsdale (Mich.) County Fair offers only $35 for its biggest prize, year after year the best teams of draft horses in the U. S. are sent there to pull. Reason is, the quack grass of Hillsdale’s paddock gives heavy horses good footing and ten world’s records have been tugged across its surface.

Last week 8,000 people crowded Hillsdale’s fair grounds to see Contractor John Adrian’s record-holders, Flaxie & Dan, brought from Williamsville. N. Y.. defend their laurels against their old rivals, George H. Statler’s Ohio team of roan and sorrel Belgians, weighing 4,700 Ib. For five years one or the other of these teams has always held the world’s record. Once they broke it three times in one day and they have dragged it up to unbelievable heights.

In the final, with the dynamometer (pull-measuring device) set at 3,900 Ib., a new high mark, the equivalent of a rolling load of 130 tons or of nine monster plows cutting 14-inch furrows, the East’s Flaxie & Dan on their first trial pulled hard, started the load, got it half way down the 27 1/2-ft. strip they had to cover. Then they suddenly stopped, mistaking an overexcited spectator’s shout of GO! GO! for WHOA! WHOA!

When Flaxie & Dan tried and failed again, their owner threw down his hat and gave up hope. Then lanky Russell Sando drove out the Statler Farm’s former champions. Rock & Tom. Scorning to pick his ground, but hitching where Contractor Adrian’s horses had left the load, he quieted his prancing giants, then eased their reins and let them lean into their collars. When he clucked them “G-up!” they heaved, set leather straining and tug chains tight. Whipping and rein-slapping are not allowed but were not needed to keep Rock & Tom’s huge hoofs pounding, tearing, tossing up clods in their mighty struggle. The load moved, it kept moving. When ponderous Rock & Tom brought up with their snorting nostrils against the board fence, their load was well past the 27 1/2-ft. mark and the crowd was roaring approval. For setting a new world’s record. Rock & Tom’s owners were awarded an extra $50.