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A horse for all seasons
"T hat 's strange," you
might say to yourself as
you drive past a field along the
Goose Arm Road in Nicholsville,
" I could have sworn that moose
was light brown with short legs."
You would be half right. The
animal is baycolored and it does
have short, stocky legs, but it's
not a moose . Your imagination
isn't playing tricks, it' s just that
a horse the size of a moose isn't
something you normally see in
Newfoundland .
Ivan Baker . 29, of . ichclsville.
is out to change things for people
in the Deer Lake ar ea with his
own idea of br inging back working
draft horses.
" I grew up in Deer Lake, and
Bowaters had horses for a long
time ," Ivan reasons , " and in the
early 1!KKls everyone used horses .
There may well have been some
draft horses among them . The
kind of country we have here is
still better suited to horses than
tractors or truck s when you're
working in the woods. There's a
lot of advantages, not the least of
which is that a horse requires a
minimum amount of upkeep and
gets better with age . A lot of peo ­
pie around here still have ponies
for work in the woods. but I want
to convince them that a draft
Working In the woods
(photo CCkJrtesy Ivan Bak er)
horse is a good investment. I'm
clearing land now to give me
enough pasture having got my
feet wet raising pigs and a cow,
and keeping a strawberry
garden. I'm really enthusiastic
about draft horses, as my wife
and two children will tell you.
"I spent some time on the
mainland studying the different
breeds, and the general opinion is
that a Belgian is the best suited
to the kind of work I had in mind.
Most people associate draft
horses with the Clydesdales used
by the breweries to haul wagons
in shows, but there are, in fact,
several different breeds and a
very strict check on breeding
stock. I picked up my horse as a
colt and started working him at
10 months . It's important to do
that as the stallions thrive on
hard work if they 're started early.
Mares are more placid , but
they 're smaller and not as strong
for hauling wood . His father
weighed 2,200 pounds and his
mother 1,950 pounds , so his large
size and weight are not surprising.
The average size for a
Belgian is te-and -a-hatr hands
and he 's already 17 hands at four
years of age. "
It's pouring with rain outside ,
but the chance of meeting a
Belgian (ace to face is too good to
Ivan Bak er and friend
DECKS AWASH - 27
miss and we walk across a nearby
field to where he is grazing on
a neighbor 's land. He is large, but
friendly, and he has a companion.
" The greatest growth is in the
first year. as you can see by his
colt who has already filled out
quite a bit," Ivan comments.
"The mother was a quarter horse
and she had no trouble carrying
him. A lot of people think that
breeding a draft stallion to a
smaller mare causes problems,
but the gestation period is identical
and the foal is no bigger than
normal when it is born. Afarmer
down the road was going to breed
some of the racehorses he raises
for harness racing and shows to
my stallion when I first brought
him over and he probably now
wishes he hadn't changed his
mind . The stamina of a Belgian
and the short course speed and
strength of a racehorse would
produce an excellent horse for
the woods .
"My main aim is to rear my
horse as a breeding stallion and
bring over some more draft
horses including mares later. A
horse this size needs about two
acres of grassland in summer
and another two in winter, so you
need a fair number of acres to
consider bringing in more. Eventually
I hope to have a dozen or