| Heavy Horses at the Great Yorkshire Show
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Harrogate, Yorkshire.
8th - 10th July, 2008
by Rosemary Cooper.
The 150th Great Yorkshire Show saw the retirement from competitive driving of Roger Buglass, after 25 years. As his dray, drawn by his black Shires Ted and Lucky, circled the Grand Ring for the final time, a ripple of applause ran round the ring.
‘It was really moving,’ he said. ‘But I’m getting older and so are the horses. I started driving when I was about 11. When I left school, I went straight to work on the farm, but when I came out from the army at the end of my National Service, the horses had gone. I took the tenancy of a small farm, but increased my land, and still farm 500 acres in Northumberland. I started driving show turnouts for a hobby when I was 50. Ted and Lucky are 16 and 17, and I also had Prince, the last horse from Newcastle Breweries, as a replacement for Ted when he was laid up.’ Ted once injured himself on wire when frightened by poachers, but made a full recovery.
The Pairs turnout class was won by Paul and Walter Bedford, wearing Stetsons while driving two bay Clydesdales to a dray of American type. Unusually one of the horses was a mare, Deighton Miranda, daughter of many times Champion Deighton Deborah. Previously Champion Clydesdale at the Royal Show, Miranda has been absent from the British showing scene for a couple of years, having been sold to a buyer in the States. Now the Bedfords have her back, but having gone to a country where the docking of tails is still legal, sadly she has lost her tail.
Richard Green drove Daniel Thwaites Brewery’s black geldings, Royal and Daniel, into second place and Mary Fuller was third with her parents’ light grey Percherons, Charlie and China. Fourth was David Lambert from Nottinghamshire, who has been absent from the showing scene for some years, but is now enjoying quite a lot of success with his five-year-old black Shires, Ossington Joe and Ossington Sam.
In the Singles the previous day, Hugh Ramsay drove his bay Clydesdale, Arron, to success, with Mary Fuller finishing second with another grey Percheron, Andy. This horse has wonderful breeding, being by Ryan’s Day Granitdier out of Willingham Phoebe, which makes him a full brother to some of the best Percherons of all, including Willingham Marie, who a few days earlier took her second Supreme In-hand Championship at the Royal Show, the only heavy horse ever to do so. David Lambert’s son Anthony, of Fieldview Logistics, was third with Leverton Quality Lad, otherwise known as Bill, a dark bay Shire with one brown eye and one blue.
Sadly torrential rain poured down, so the Teams class on the last day had to be cancelled. Grumbles went round the heavy horse lines that the show jumping ought to be cancelled to save the ground for the teams, not the other way round. Actually the famous Cock o’ the North Show Jumping Championship, with its huge double of walls, was jumped over a drastically shortened course, utilising only half the Grand Ring, and show-jumpers of course can turn in a fraction of the space needed by a team of heavy horses.
In-hand classes for Clydesdales and Shires took place on the morning of the second day. The Champion Clydesdale was Mr J Adamson’s bay seven-year-old Hawkhill Katy, by Millisle Solway Bay, with the Reserve Championship going to Paul and Walter Bedford with their bay filly Rosemount Eilidh, by Muirton Inspiration. They also owned the Champion Shire, the Trelow Commodore mare Acle Delma’s Double D, who took the Female Championship at this year’s Spring Show. She is a very deep old-fashioned type of mare, unlike the Reserve Champion, Jim Yates’ brood mare Boyton Gold Bracelet, who is a more modern type of Shire. Boyton Gold Bracelet is by Bodernog Master and has a foal at foot, Cowerslane Ivor, by Tremoelgoch Oscar.
RESULTS.
To follow.
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