Scores of heavy horses have been harnessed together at a heritage festival in southern New South Wales in what organisers say is a world record.<\/p>\n
It took more than two hours to harness 62 Clydesdale, Australian Draught, Suffolk Punch and Shire horses to an antique Bennet wagon loaded with six tonnes of wool.<\/p>\n
“To\u00a0see those 62 horses walk off the way they did, it was just magic,” Lake Cargelligo breeder and trainer Steve Johnson said. \u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The teamsters wave to the crowd at Barellan. (ABC Riverina: Emily Doak)<\/p>\n
He was one of the wagon drivers, or teamsters, who took part in the record attempt at the Good Old Days Festival at Barellan on Saturday.<\/p>\n
“We’re horsemen \u2014 we’ve been doing it for a lot of years and we pride ourselves in being able to have our horses stand when they’ve been harnessed and put into a wagon,” Mr Johnson said.<\/p>\n
“Also the fact that they can drive off without anybody having to hold any ropes \u2014 we can operate the whole thing from off the wagon.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Aleks Berzins leads horses out for the record attempt. (Supplied: Kim Woods)<\/p>\n
Thousands of people watched and cheered as the 80-metre line of horses did two laps of the show ring.<\/p>\n
The previous Australian record of 50 horses was set in Queensland in the 1980s.<\/p>\n
The Guinness Book of Records includes a 50-horse team in Canada in 1995.<\/p>\n
Saturday’s record was not being officially certified but teamster Aleks Berzins said the aim was to showcase working horses.<\/p>\n
“We’re just so passionate about the horses in Australia and the history involved and really wanted to knock off the Australian record and bring it back to New South Wales,” he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It took more than two hours to harness the 62 horses. (ABC News: Emily Doak)<\/p>\n
‘One beautiful big team’<\/p>\n
Some large teams of horses are led by people on the ground but this one was controlled entirely by voice commands from the driver on the wagon.<\/p>\n
“We really wanted to\u00a0showcase that we’ve got these horses working and that they’re up for the task,” Mr Berzins said.<\/p>\n
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get to do this.”<\/p>\n
The mega-team was comprised of horses from four different owners.<\/p>\n
Owner Bruce Bandy said the group had been training for the last fortnight to ensure all the horses could work together.<\/p>\n
“I felt very proud of the whole thing \u2014 we’re all helping each other and the way all our horses went, they all worked like one team,\u00a0one beautiful big team,” the Barellan resident said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Bruce Bandy and his grandson Beau take in the view from the wagon ahead of the record attempt. (ABC Riverina: Emily Doak)<\/p>\n
The Good Old Days festival has been showcasing agricultural heritage and heavy horses since 2010.<\/p>\n
Committee member Allison Prentice was pleased to be part of the historic event.<\/p>\n
“It’s a special thing, and the older generation, they just love it,” the Kamarah resident said.<\/p>\n
“Memories of what they used to do with their families, picking fruit or ploughing paddocks, you know, milking cows and making butter \u2014 we don’t do that anymore we just go into a shop and buy it,” she said.<\/p>\n
More than 10,000 people are expected to attend the event over the long weekend.<\/p>\n
Organisers say the festival injects about $2 million into the regional community.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Steve Johnson says working the horses by voice alone is a point of pride for the owners. (ABC News: Stuart Carnegie)<\/p>\n
Mr Johnson said it was a fitting place to set a heavy horse record.<\/p>\n
“We are known here in this area for big teams,” he said.<\/p>\n
“They’d haul their wool in, they haul their grain into the silos just behind us.”<\/p>\n
Mr Johnson said after months of preparation it was time to celebrate.<\/p>\n
“I’m sure there’ll be a few drinks tonight, and the horses will have some more hay.<\/p>\n
“We’ve put in hard yards, but the horses have too.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scores of heavy horses have been harnessed together at a heritage festival in southern New South Wales in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,120887,99,120885,120890,120891,120886,120889,120888],"class_list":["post-190896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-draught","tag-business","tag-clydesdale","tag-good-old-days","tag-good-old-days-festival","tag-heavy-horse-wagon-record","tag-shire-draught-horse","tag-suffolk-punch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}