The Suffolk Punch

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

What kind of draft horse did frugal English yeomen breed to take on the rigorous task of plowing their heavy, clay soil? For one thing, they look different, even to the untrained eye. They run true to color. They are all chestnut. The official association for these animals won't register one that isn't within some seven hues of chestnut, from gold to liver, or one that has any other color on it (except a small white blaze or star or a splash of white on the ankles or fetlocks). Compared to the Percherons and Clydesdales you've seen hauling beer wagons, these horses are smaller and rounder (hence the British word punch ). In a sense, they look friendlier.

An expert notices that they seem short of back and short of leg, with especially heavily muscled forearms and thighs. The shoulders are upright—positioned for power, not speed. Also, the forearms and thighs are comparatively longer than those of other workhorses. As a result, to extend their legs forward, Suffolks need to lift them two and a half to three degrees of angle less than another horse, a modification that promotes power and movement with less action. These are horses that aren't likely to get stuck in the mud. Too, their coats are smooth down to the hooves: no long hair near the ground to collect mud and dirt. A special advantage is that, being smaller, they eat considerably less than other breeds of heavy horses.

It was 1978 when Jason Rutledge and his wife. Sally, dreamed their "Suffolk dream" and bought a few mares from "the killer man," at the ominous place where horses stop off before becoming horse meat. One of the mares turned out to be pregnant, and two years later Jason and Sally found an Amish man who traded them a stallion for the colt.

Rutledge was born to farms and farming—he learned land lessons from his "grampaw," known as Uncle Willie and now in his 80s. "Farming's made up the majority of my income for 15 years," Rutledge says. "Hay's one of my main crops... cabbage, tobacco. Got a little orchard, apples and some peaches." And, he adds, "I breed and sell Suffolks." He gets around $2,500 for what he calls an average purebred, but in truth, he says, "I'll take all the traffic will bear."

How powerful are the relatively small Suffolks? Rutledge takes some of his horses to pulling matches around Virginia and the surrounding states. Weighing in at about 1,600 pounds, they tend to be above the cutoff point (which is exactly 1,600 pounds), so they usually have to compete with the much larger heavyweights. So far, Rutledge's horses have not won in that class, but one of his teams has come in second, hauling 7,000 pounds of dead weight the required 26½ feet in the required time, only a few hundred pounds behind the winners.

Rutledge goes to the contests to make the breed better known. Suffolks almost disappeared in the 1950s when mechanized equipment virtually wiped workhorses off the farm altogether. Also, he confesses, those contests are "my kind of hot-rodding. You get those animals pulling 7,000 pounds, screeching along the ground ... that's a power trip."

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print

GET MORE INFORMATION ON THIS TOPIC:

IMPLEMENTS FOR FARMING WITH HORSES AND MULES'

Sam Moore

Paperback

Our Price: Price: $38.00

• Browse Books