Power Horse Only Liked Leather Buckets

TO RETURN to Duke, who I told you was the strongest work horse I ever came across and also had the longest back I ever saw on a horse. His back, however, had little to do with his great strength, this was down to his being all heart. No matter what job you gave him, he seemed to understand what was expected of him. So he would just throw himself into his collar and it would never occur to him to jib or give up.

I remember the first time we put him between shafts, three of us did the job. Although he was seven years old and had been used to work, it would never have done to have him get away; the neighbours would never have let us forget it and we would have come in for a good deal of ribbing such as "let us know next time you want yon horse yoking up and we'll send our two boys on their way to school".

However, we needn't have worried as Duke went into the shafts just like on old hand, but with both us and the surroundings being strange to him, "owt could happen". Our boss always said: "Whenever you are yoking up for the first time never miss for, if your horse gets away, he'll always remember it and be sure try it on again".

You may recall I told you we had some difficulty catching Duke in the field. The usual way to catch your work horses in a morning was to take a bucket with some feed in, shout "Come on" and rattle the handle. They would come to you and, while having a mouthful of oats or meal, would let you put their halters on and that was that. Not so with Duke, and it took us a few weeks to understand why.

The buckets in those days were metal and it dawned on us that the horse had an aversion to buckets. We had never come across this before; whether he had had an accident with a bucket or even had someone abused him with one, we knew not. What we had discovered was he definitely did not like metal buckets. Having found that out we never took one near him again.

Next came the discussion on how we were going to cope. A bit of feed in the hand may not be sufficient to tempt him and it might make him more suspicious. Then someone remembered there was an old leather bucket up on the scaffets (loft), that no one ever remembered being used. Perhaps it had been for a trap horse or a carriage horse; nobody knew. Without more ado, the old leather bucket was rescued, cleaned up and tried out.

The horse took to it straight away and so, for him, we never used anything else. In time it became referred to as "Duke's bucket".

This big-hearted horse often took on jobs that were usually done by a team and not only did he manage these jobs with ease, but he seemed to revel in his work.

Dialect word: Clam, meaning to fast, starve or keep off food.

May 1, 2003 11:00