Zane and Diane Pickering know they’ve got a good thing going with their experienced team of draft horses.
Those big guys are putting Prince George on the map, performing arena magic in some of the biggest horse shows in North America.
That started in early July when the Percheron stars of the ZD Pickering Family Farm flexed their muscles and dug in their hooves at the Calgary Stampede, winning the middleweight title at the at the world’s richest, most prestigious heavy horse pulling event.
After pulling in their prizes they packed up and went to Lloydminster, Alta., where they hitched up for the Lloydminster Exhibition and cleaned up, winning the ladies cart, men’s cart, youth cart classes, as well as the big-six hitch, four-up hitch and unicorn (one horse leading a team of two) wagon classes. The Pickering clan also placed second in two senior team events and were awarded the Rusty Bexon Memorial Man and Horse Award.
The winning continued July 24-26 at the Vermilion (Alta.) Agricultural Fair with the Pickering team capturing the big six hitch event, with Tim Sparrow of Indiana holding the reins, and they won the ladies cart class, driven by Brittney Sparrow of Cromwell, Ind. The Sparrow children, Rylen and Brynn, also drove carts and posted two-four placings in their respective junior and intermediate classes.
The Pickerings also placed second in the four-up class with Aaron Bonsburger of Indiana as the teamster.
All of the Pickering Percherons are boarded with the Sparrow family in Indiana. With the majority of horse shows each summer on the Canadian prairies or U.S. Midwest, the Percherons owned by ZD Pickering Family Farm in Prince George spend most of their downtime in Indiana, where Tim and Brittany Sparrow breed horses.
“We have nine horses, we bring younger horses that we’re training as well for exposure and we put them in the mix and keep rotating them in,” said Zane Pickering. “It we don’t feel a horse is up to snuff in a cart class then we’ll put another horse in, so we have options.”
Hitches in draft horse competitions are judged based on the physical conditioning of the horses, equine conformation, hoof size, cleanliness and overall appearance. Points are awarded based on the movement of the horses while following specific patterns in the arena and how they respond to the driver’s commands to initiate turns, stops and backward and forward movements. The appearance of the wagon/cart and how it performs is also evaluated.
“I always consider the cart class the most prestigious class of the show,” said Zane Pickering. “It’s the best horse of the bunch and it’s easy for the judge to single his concentration on one horse instead of six, so it’s tougher for him to make a mistake in that class than if he was judging six horses in a class.
“It gives the opportunity for the exhibitor to put their best horse, their best driver, their nicest cart up front to be judged, it’s a one-off thing.”
The Pickering horses got back to Indiana Thursday and they’ll have a week to get rested before their next event, the Indiana State Fair in Indianapolis. The Percheron/Clydesdale horse show starts Thursday, Aug. 7 and runs through Sunday, Aug. 10.
