An Almost Accidental Snapshot–Penn State Conqueror
by Maurice Telleen
published in The Draft Horse Journal, Winter 2001 - 2002

That May 4 dateline is important for only one reason. May 4 was the photographer’s 89th birthday and I owe him one. His name is Lawrence Dedrick, Belfast, New York.

The horse is the famous Penn State Conqueror, foaled in 1952. He was about as royally bred as a Belgian could be in 1952. His sire was Conqueror himself, the signature sire of Meadow Brook in the late ‘40s and the ‘50s–or until he was replaced by his own son, Conquest. Conqueror, in turn, was a son of Progress–so those three generations of sires and sons, in large measure, were responsible for the bulk of those famous Meadow Brook horses with names that start with “Con.”

Penn State Conqueror taking some exercise on a brisk winter morning at the Charles Orndorff farm in 1959. If Lawrence Dedrick hadn’t taken this snapshot, we would have been skunked on a picture of this great sire.

Here is our Winter 1977 cover, taken at Beldale Farm, Belfast, New York. Lawrence Dedrick had bought three mares at the 1975 Eastern States Sale in Columbus, Ohio. Pictured here are two of them; the blaze faced mare, May Queen, was consigned by Dr. A. D. Allen, Plain City, Ohio and the plain-faced mare, Orndorff’s Lark Jane, was consigned by Donald Wack, Zelienople, PA. Both mares did well for Lawrence and both carried Orndorff breeding. This photo first came to us in the form of the Dedrick Christmas card. Here is what Lawrence had to say about it: “It was just good luck that we had one of those early November snowfalls, awakening one morning to find the ground blanketed with snow and as the poet John Greenleaf Whittier wrote, ‘Every pine and fir and hemlock wore an ermine too dear for an earl, and the poorest wig of the elm tree was ridged inch deep with pearl.’ “So, I called our son, Dave, whose interest in pictures started long ago, when he was enrolled in a 4-H photography project. We headed down toward the creek which meanders through our small farm, and found two of our friendly mares willing to pose. Hence the picture.”

Beldale Perky Polly, a grand champion mare at the New York State Fair for Kenneth L. Spingler & Family, Weedsport, NY. That looks like Doc Sears on the lead shank. I understand Polly won that award more than once.... She was the kind Lawrence had set out to breed.

Penn State Conqueror’s dam was Lisa Farceur, the sensational yearling filly of 1949, junior and reserve grand champion mare and winner of the King Albert cup at Chicago that year. She was also reserve junior champion at Ohio and Waterloo that same year. She was a daughter of Master Farceur Jr., and was bred by Charley House of Indiana. So two of the greatest architects of the modern Belgian were breeders of the sire and dam of Penn State Conqueror.

He was foaled at Penn State University, where Elmer Taft–another great horseman of that era–was presiding over the last great collegiate stable of draft horses. Michigan State may dispute that claim, or at least say it was a dead heat. In either case, both programs were near death in 1952.

In better times, this colt surely would have been headed for a life of opportunity and privilege. But 1952 was not a good time for draft horses, whether they be commoners or royalty. But Penn State Conqueror got lucky. He was discovered by Charley Orndorff, another of that small cadre of dedicated breeders who took breeding great horses personally–in spite of the lousy market and public indifference. When Charley found the horse, he was owned by a fellow named Ennis Himelick, Losantville, Indiana. Both Charley and Mr. Himelick were horse traders, born to the trade. So they swapped a couple of mares and the one Charley got was carrying a foal by Penn State Conqueror. The resulting foal was Dixie Conqueror, one of Penn State’s first registered sons. Dixie Conqueror was an impressive colt, winning his class at Harrisburg in both 1957 and 1958 as a yearling and two year old. So Charley tried to buy the sire. He recalled that Himelick was standing him at $25 and getting mighty few takers. One of the reasons being that Modern Trend, also a famous horse at that time, was standing in the same area at $15. Not only was he cheaper but he was a smaller, trimmer kind of horse and more in tune with the fashion of the ‘40s and ‘50s. In fact, Himelick’s best offer, prior to Charley’s, was from a puller who wanted a heavyweight pulling horse. To heck with the papers.

Charley couldn’t get him bought outright so he leased him, bred 14 mares, got 12 foals and when they hit the ground he was determined more than ever to own him. So he traded Dixie Conqueror and a six year old mare to Himelick, and Penn State Conqueror came to the hills of western Pennsylvania. And there he spent the rest of his life.

Charley recalls him as standing over 18 hands at five years of age and weighing 2,765 pounds over the scale. He took breeding seriously, wouldn’t eat much during the breeding season and would “get poor as a snake.” Breeding season over, he would go back to the dinner table and by the time the next breeding season rolled around he was, again, a different looking horse.

As we stated in the Spring 1982 DHJ–in an article on Charley Orndorff and his Belgians, “The 1960s were a triumphant march for the Penn State Conqueror foals.” Not bad, for a horse who might have become a heavyweight puller. He was famous but I had never seen a picture of the horse.

Now the scene shifts to a 25 acre place called Beldale Farm up in Allegany County, New York. The proprietor was a man named Lawrence Dedrick, who was engaged in extension work, primarily 4-H. He was keen on horses and numbered people like Doc Sears, Jack Briggs and John Beard among his friends and home state colleagues, all great horsemen. He resolved to breed some good ones himself. He, like many others, decided to go to the place where good Belgians were being bred, for his foundation animals. That is usually a good idea.

So in 1959, Larry went down to see Mr. Orndorff and he came home with a couple of weanling fillies, both sired by Penn State Conqueror. He took his camera along, I would guess a long standing habit from extension work. He wanted a picture of the sire. Charley told him he had a professional photographer engaged to come out and take a picture of Penn State Conqueror because he wanted one, too, and he would send Larry a print. That was all good and well but since Larry had a camera along, he just shot a couple frames of the horse taking some exercise at the Orndorff farm on a brisk winter morning.

Good thing, because before Charley got that professional out to take his picture, he came out one morning and found the stallion “dead at my feet”–as he put it. So the photo you see here (as in the Winter, 1977, DHJ) is–so far as I know, the only picture ever published of that breed-building sire. He was not, to my knowledge, ever shown.

Larry recalls him as a big horse, long-necked and strong topped–but he would not have been a top show horse. He travelled wide behind and his hocks were not ideal–as he recalls. So that is the story on this, more or less, accidental picture of a great breeding stallion.

As for Larry Dedrick, he continued with this line of breeding. After he retired from extension 25-26 years ago, he started frequenting the Columbus sale. In 1975, he came home with two mares, also carrying the Orndorff breeding. And those two mares became the subject of our Winter 1977 cover.

Dedrick continued to breed Belgians in a modest way. One of which he recalls with great pleasure was Beldale Perky Polly, shown to grand champion at the New York State Fair a couple of times in the late 1980s by Kenneth L. Spingler and Family, from Weedsport, New York.

We will run her photo (from the 1990 Belgian Review) and that cover photo on the Winter 1977 DHJ taken at Beldale Farm itself. Larry isn’t breeding horses these days but, an educator first and foremost, he takes pride in the Belgians being bred by his friend, protege and neighbor, David H. Spencer. So, as with anyone who puts their hearts, as well as their time, into their work–it lives on.

I believe that desire, to have your work live on, has always been one of the strong inducements to breed good livestock. It tends to attract outstanding people. The same sort of thing motivated him in his extension work with 4-H. When we first met him, some thirty years ago, he was concerned with who was going to serve as mentors to young people with an interest in heavy horses–with so many of their one-time mentors such as dads, uncles, neighbors either gone or no longer horse-minded. The universities, 4-H and FFA had also given up on them. This was Larry Dedrick’s concern before “teamster schools” had popped up all over the country. He was, as they say, ahead of the curve with his concern.

If you would like to send him a belated card wishing him a “Happy 89th Birthday,” his address is 6801 Gleason Hill Road, Belfast, New York 14711. It would be a day late and a dollar short, but that is scarcely a new experience to most of us.

And if you don’t have a “professional” picture of old Captain or Dolly, maybe you better take one yourself. It is called “insurance.