Horse power

I like horses. I know very little about them, but I like them a lot. I especially like it when horses can do things that machines can't. It seems to make everyone smile because of the old ways undertone. "See where technology has failed? See where the old ways triumph!"

So I found this video of a truck that got stuck in the snow. They tried to pull it out with another truck, and that one got stuck. As it turns out, they got stuck near a farm, and on that farm they had some horses E-I-E-I-O.

A pair of these heavy draft horses (Percheron maybe?) came down and were hooked to the truck. Than they were given the "Giddyup!" command and they pulled it from the snow with ease. The truck weighs around 2 tons, which is around 4000 pounds.

Here is the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq5dd7JLk1s&feature=related

I continued looking and found a video of heavy draft horses in a competition pulling 11, 000 pounds or five and a half tons. So a piddly little 2 ton truck was hardly a warm up.

I started doing some research to see just how much they could pull. Instead I found (ignorant) people talking about the horrible sport that is heavy draft horse pulling. Saying it isn't right to force them to a life of pulling stuff, and it isn't right to work them so hard etc. etc.

They like to pull. And for centuries they have been bred to do just that. Like a Retriever loves to retrieve, over and over and over, and a Pointer like to point, heavy draft horses like to pull. In fact if you watch some videos of these heavy horse pulls you can see them prance and dance before a pull because they are so excited.

I would watch a show that has an old school vs new skool technology vs horse kind of thing. Pulling stuff, carrying things etc. I think that would be fun. I find that people are drawn to that sort of thing and enjoy watching it. If I were a network exec. I would look into that because it strikes a chord with most people.