25 Years Ago
Late Autumn/Early Winter 1977
by Maurice Telleen
published in The Draft Horse Journal, Winter 2001 - 2002

Presidential campaigns had changed greatly since Harry Truman barnstormed the country in 1948 on a train–of all things. The campaigns were now shaped by televised debates. Jimmy Carter, a fresh face from the Old South who had never served in Congress, versus Gerald Ford, our only unelected president, who had been a Republican wheelhorse in the House of Representatives for years before being appointed president. That was the menu. Ford, because he was the incumbent, had some baggage, as does anyone who has been in office.

Ford had been sworn in on August 9, 1974, after Nixon’s resignation. About five weeks later, he issued Nixon an unconditional pardon to “spare the nation additional grief.” About the same time, he also granted immunity to Vietnam-era draft evaders, no doubt with the same rationale. He figured it was the time for the acrimony to end and healing to begin. These two actions, no doubt, cost him votes from both ends of the political spectrum, come 1976. The guy making the decisions is often at a disadvantage.

Carter, on the other hand, was a fresh face, also a more nimble debater and had little baggage of any kind. Both were, I feel, good and honest men. Carter won in a close election and attributed the margin that provided his victory to the television debates. I suspect he was correct.

As mentioned last time, Mao Tse-tung, chairman of the Communist Party in China, and long time leader of that successful civil war, had died in September. His chief colleague in that long struggle, Chou En-lai, China’s prime minister, had died in January. Mao had been the poster boy revolutionary while Chou had been the diplomat and pragmatist. Rather suddenly, both the old wheelhorses were dead. In late October, that vacuum was filled by Hua Kuao-feng, who assumed both positions. All three, he also headed up the military. He had been fairly obscure just a few years prior–now suddenly, he was the top dog. I’m sure governments all over the world pondered just what this guy would be to deal with.

They didn’t have to wait long, for even the day before it was announced that he was the new strong man, the widow of Mao-Tse-tung was jailed along with three others and dubbed “the gang of four.”

That was a mighty unsettled region twenty-five years ago. At about this same time, in October, the fragile three year experiment with democracy in Thailand ended when a military coup took over the reins of government.

Down in South Africa, Premier Vorster said he could not foresee a day when blacks would share power with whites in that country. This proved to be rather nearsighted–twenty-five years isn’t that long ago.

Meanwhile, up in Quebec, the Independence Party headed by Rene Levesque won 89 of the 110 seats in the provincial assembly. The French were feeling their oats. The maple leaf came down, to be replaced by the fleur-de-lis on a good many flag poles–especially in rural areas. The more things change, the more they remain the same. Sometimes.

While on the subject of elections, the Swedes surprised everyone by throwing the Socialists out of office for the first time in 44 years. As for junking the welfare state that had been created, that wasn’t about to happen. The Swedes had grown accustomed to it–but wanted a little less of it. But they still didn’t want anyone to be down and out.

One of our country’s most controversial secretaries of agriculture, Earl Butz, resigned under pressure. It had to do with his mouth rather than farm policy. Butz was a gifted and merciless debater and when speaking off the cuff was known to shoot from the hip. It was some racial remarks, off the record, that did him in. It just removed him from office a little prematurely, as Carter certainly wasn’t about to keep him around.

On December 20, long-time mayor Richard Daley of Chicago died. He had been mayor of America’s second city for over twenty years. In 1960, he had been accused of tinkering with ballots in John Kennedy’s squeaker over Richard Nixon. The ballots in Cook County, Illinois, received almost as much attention as Florida’s in the last election. Daley ran Chicago and was no doubt the most important and powerful political figure in the state of Illinois during that period. He was the last of the old time, brass knuckle, big city bosses. But as for his city, I’m sure he loved it, and enjoyed a lot of genuine popularity.

We can sum up the sports picture in about three sentences. The Cincinnati Reds won the World Series in four straight over the New York Yankees. That sort of thing wasn’t supposed to happen to the Yankees, but it did. And on January 1, U.S.C. defeated Michigan 14-6 in the Rose Bowl, casting doubt on the “three yards and a cloud of dust” approach to that game.

As eras, or years go, it was only so so. The horse business was more fun and that is where we hung out. On to our Winter 1977 issue of DHJ.

Our cover photo came from the farm of Laurence Dedrick, Belfast, New York, and the accompanying article about him and his Belgians included a hitherto unpublished picture of Penn State Conqueror. We’ve recycled that elsewhere in this issue.

Miles McCarry (you’ll find him in just about every recent issue) was still working for Curtiss Candy’s once famous bull stud. Living in Northern Illinois where Curtiss was located, Mac slipped over to Mark Dunham’s old Oaklawn Farm in that area and did a good retrospect on the most famous real estate in the history of the Percheron breed in this country. Mac now lives in Florida and got a new typewriter for Christmas last year. We look forward to helping him wear it out. Mac has a good story on some neat people and fine Percherons in this issue.

It was the stallion issue, but I didn’t do “a horse.” Instead, I spent a couple days knocking around Eastern Ohio and managed to picture ten of the leading Belgian and Percheron stallions standing in that great horse breeding area. Of those ten, the four that stand out in my memory are the Belgians: Contractor, being stood by Jake Miller and Conel Jay, at Monroe Miller, Jr.’s, and the Percherons: Pat LaRex at Levi Yoder’s and another Percheron named LaRick, up at John Hay’s farm. LaRick had the longest pasterns I’d ever seen on a Percheron horse. In that respect, he was more Clydesdale than a good many Clydes.

Contractor	Pat LaRex	LaRick: Look at the length of those pasterns

There were orphan foals back then, too. Mrs. Jack (Marilyn) Green of Middletown, Indiana, shared her experience (and recipe) with us. Marilyn is the daughter of the late Howard Gale, a great old Belgian breeder, so she had literally grown up with Belgians.

We were still carrying a lot of state columns at that time so the number of feature articles wasn’t as great. One little notice of interest was entitled, “PMU CONTRACTS CANCELLED IN U.S.” So now you know when the PMU business packed up and moved to Canada. There was no PMU market in the U.S. that winter—for the first time since about the WWII era.

There were only three fall sale reports in that 124 page issue. They were Howard Johnstone’s 8th annual fall sale at the beautiful old Kansas Free Fair grounds in Topeka; Hexom’s annual fall sale here in Waverly, and the 2nd annual Buckeye Colt Sale at Dover, Ohio. Howard had consignors from twelve states and buyers from ten, with a top stallion at $1,675 and a top mare at $1,425.

The big one was Waverly with around 1,000 horses, mules and ponies, about half of which were draft animals. Nine head, all Belgians, reached the $3,000 mark with the top team being a pair of registered mares from Jr. M. Miller, New Philadelphia, Ohio, to L.D. Massey, Gadsden, Alabama. There were consignors from 24 states and Canada.

There weren’t as many draft horse auctions so they drew both buyers and sellers from quite a ways. Still do, but in 1976, it was a necessity.

The second annual Buckeye Colt Sale featured 159 head of young Belgians and Percherons averaging close to $1,000, with a $4,700 top in Belgians and $3,500 in Percherons. Naturally, I took photographs of most of the top sellers and ran them. One of them was advertised in that same issue, with a different photo, by the buyer with a price tag of better than twice what she had just cost. Quite a disruption occurred, but it was established that “public sales meant public.” We carried advertising, but we served the public and that meant our readers.

I recall a similar instance in one of the dairy breed papers. There was quite a squawk about laundered sale reports in the interest of the order buyers for export. The same old battles, fought and refought.

Chicago’s International had become just a distant memory–the great final gathering of the clan was at Canada’s Royal Winter Fair. Here you could depend on strong shows in the three major breeds–one about as stout as the other. And always a few surprises. Such as Doug Palmer, Belgian stalwart from Schomberg, Ontario, having the junior champion Clydesdale stallion. That is what it says!

Palmer was doing his showing under the Carlsberg Brewery label and doing it mighty well, winning both the four and six horse Belgian hitches, as well as light draft team. Beattie Bros., Stayner, Ontario, and Walter Sparks, Hazeldean, Ontario, took the heavy draft and team of mares classes. Those same three exhibitors, plus J.M. McKeehan, Greencastle, Indiana, dominated the halter show of breeding horses. McKeehan had both purples on R.K.D. Bruce and Master’s Donna. Eddie Freitag, Alameda, Saskatchewan, had junior champion stallion and Sparks had senior champion mare on Marquette’s Kelly du Marais, with Carlsberg in reserve senior with Helga du Marais.

In the Clyde ring, Jim Picken came all the way from Torrs, Kirkcudbright, Scotland, to allocate ribbons. I’ve already mentioned that Palmer had the junior champion stallion, an imported colt. The senior and grand horse was Doura Perfect Motion, owned by the Quebec Clydesdale Club and shown by John Heatlie, who really liked that horse on a personal basis. In the mares, Wreford Hewson, Beeton, Ontario, showed old Queen of Carrick to her sixth win at Toronto. But I don’t know if she ever raised a foal. He also had reserve on Bardrill Gypsy–so the Scottish-bred horses wound up with most of the championships. W.J. Taylor, Grand Valley, Ontario, took the junior champion mare rosette home on Clydeslea Lucky Lady. She may have been the only Canadian bred champion. In the hitch classes, it was all Hewson. Don Castagnasso, Charlotte, Michigan, did a right good job of upholding the American end in the line classes.

It was apparently Eddie Freitag’s year to bring good young studs to Toronto. He had the junior champion in the Percherons, as well as the Belgians, on a colt named Ellis La Rex. Lucasia Ranch from Claresholm, Alberta, had the grand on Lucasia Big John. The junior champion mare also came from Alberta. Earl James from Balzac won with Crystal Lois Laet and Mrs. R.L. Robinson (Marilyn) from Richland, Michigan, was in reserve with Princess Grace. It was Alberta’s year–Wm. G. Young from Cayley, Alberta , had senior and grand mare on South Valley Miss Showtime with Reg Black, Moorefield, Ontario, in reserve with College Lynda–both great mares. The hitches were not dominated by anyone–it was a donnybrook, but when it came to the sixes, it was Yankee Doodle time as the grey six of Arnold Hexom from Waverly, Iowa, won the class. The other hitch victories were distributed between Donamerr Markham, Ontario; Don Robertson, Lindsay, Ontario; Hughes Bros., Stroud, Ontario; and Reg Black. But the real celebrating was with the Iowa contingent. There were lots of camp followers around that fire that night. It was the first time an American six-up had won in the Percheron division at the Royal.

I think that is also the year that Hexom unwittingly inconvenienced the Percheron judge–at the hotel, not in the ring. The judge’s name was Bexson–remarkably similar to Hexom. When Arnold checked in, apparently not enunciating too clearly, he was assigned Bexson’s room. See the cut line under Hexom’s photo for full particulars on how this Yankee appropriated the judge’s room.

As years go, 1976 was not a bad one at all–considerably better than 1951.