Dick Sparrow - 40 Horse Hitch, and Neil Dimmock's 46 Percherons

-
Here's a clip of Dick Sparrow driving 40 horses. It's an amazing sight, particularly when the shot changes to show the team from the rear and you get the great incongruity of modern American corporate architecture as a background to the wagon and horses. I love the anticipation in the video: the sense of something amazing being just round the corner is palpable.



Thanks to Christina Wilsdon for telling me about this world record 46 Percheron hitch (alas just stills) but you get the idea.

Comments

Braymere said…
Funny you should post this today. I attended the Draft Horse Show at the National Western Stock Show in Denver, Colorado yesterday and there was a moment of silence for Dick Sparrow. Also, a lot of the drafters wore a ribbon on their hames in honor of his memory.
22 January 2011 at 16:25
Anonymous said…
i had to find out about the family and more of the 40 horse hitch..original 40..as my grandmother lived by them and was a friend of "Dick" Sparrow and i remember him signing a hat for her when i was a child and came to the farm to see the horses and rode on the "bandwagon" that day! I will never forget this and as i saw the commercial on super bowl it brought back those memories and i hope the family and the horses that had followed in their steps are all doing well..WHAT A FANTASTIC MEMORY OF YOU ALL! so sweet and special..if you only knew!we still have the hat and treasure ALL OF IT!!







4 March 2013 at 06:22
Unknown said…
It's too bad Neil Dimmock is even included with Dick Sparrow. Neil uses running W's to yank his young horses hoofs out from under them when he trains them to drive. I've seen the videos.
6 July 2022 at 21:18
Jane Badger said…
Do you have links for these? It's concerning if so and obviously I will amend the blog if you can provide the evidence.
8 July 2022 at 09:17
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rollkur and the blue tongue

-
I've been meaning to write about this all week, but reading the exclusive in Horse and Hound about the controversy tipped me over the edge. For my non-horsy readers, rollkur is a training/warming up technique used by some dressage riders. It basically involves riding the horse with its jaw pulled in virtually to its chest, in order to increase suppleness. Patrik Kittel , a Swedish competitor in Odense was videoed riding his horse in this way. If you watch the video , you'll see the horse's tongue hanging out - blue. It takes a while before the rider notices this. When he does, he stops, puts the horse's tongue back in, and carries on. There are two things which bother me about this. Firstly, I am fully aware large sections of the dressage world, and some of its brighest stars, consider rollkur perfectly ok, but the FEI guidelines state this practice should only be for short periods, allowing the horse to rest. Patrick Kittel apparently rode the horse for two hou
Read more

Archibald, don't eat the bedclothes

-
Image
My friend Louise sent me this picture today. It's from a children's book with the rather wince-making title For The Wee Ones. I thought, when I read that (because I read the message before I looked at the picture) that the picture was going to be a typical winsome production from the school of artists who think (or who are paid to think) that the child is a thing sent from God and a blissful thing. They had obviously never met a child, and certainly not mine. I should have known Louise better. The artist responsible for Archibald, don't eat the bedclothes slipped this one past the editors. Just look at the poor, broken Mother Rabbit. She knows she has not the faintest chance of being listened to, and poor thing, she is stooped in the way of a mother to whom this is just the lastest in a long line of horror; with nothing good to come. And Archibald is obviously the spawn of the Devil. Just look at those eyes. He'll have the bed after he's finished the bedclothes
Read more