The gentlest of giants

On the Longwarry farm, when I was a very small boy we had three giant horses. I'm a little taller these days but their kind still look like giants to me. Gentle giants. Soft-nosed, feather-footed giants. With shining coats and warm breath. Clydesdales.
There were three, Prince, Blossom and King. They pulled sledges, mowers, hay-rakes, sweeps, carts and almost anything else that needed pulling.
Before I was oId enough for school I could help dad put out the maize. He'd cut a pile of maize and throw it up onto the cart and then I would 'drive' Prince to the paddocks where the cows were. He would walk in a large circle while I threw maize off the back, and when I took up the reins again he'd walk back to the maize paddock where dad would have the next load ready. Yes, I held the reins. No, I never used them. Prince knew the drill and was such a gentle, steady horse that dad knew I was safe with him.
I was never allowed to drive King, because he had blotted his copybook a couple of times. The most spectacular was when my brother, Malcolm, took cousin Norman up to the road with the morning's full milk cans on the sledge. They thought it would be fun to attach a tin pedal car to the back of the sledge and for Norman to drive it.
All was well on the way out to the milk stand but on the way back with the previous day's empty cans the rattling and the sound of the pedal car frightened King and he bolted back toward the shed.
Suddenly that pedal car was travelling much faster than ever before. As King headed through the trees above the shed the pedal car sideswiped a tree, the rope broke and Norman was sprawled on the ground semi-conscious and in a fair bit of pain, but he recovered within a couple of days apart from some significant bruises. Malcolm had bailed out further up the road. He had a few grazes but Dad assured him he was well enough to go back and bring home the milk cans on his back, one at a time. Immediately.
King kept going down the paddocks, still angry but smart enough to use the open gates except for one fence he jumped (I swear that is true) and entangled what was left of the sledge. Dad left him alone to calm down and then walked him back up the cow yard to check him over and clean up his cuts and scratches. He was not a happy man, and he seemed to feel that Norman and Malcolm had pretty much got their just desserts.
Bloss was a bit idle and when she was in the mower with either of the other two she'd do as little work as possible. I remember riding on her very wide back, facing backward, and giving her a little switch every time the trace-chains on her side slackened. It is hard now to believe that I was not afraid of falling off in front of the mower.
Prince was the best of them, because he would ease into the harness and take up the weight before starting to haul anything. King was stronger but started abruptly and broke various part of the harness at times, which meant dad would be sitting in the kitchen that night with an awl and thread and such, repairing whatever had broken.
At the end of a day's work they would roll on the ground and relax, and I thought the ground would shake, though it could not have.
Clydesdales were the most valuable of several types of draft horse in the settlement of Australia. Percherons were brought out and then bred here, as were Shire horses. The Shire was a bigger and more powerful horse but it walked more slowly, not more than three kilometres an hour. That was fine on a smallholding in 'the old country' but on the new Australian farms to acreage to be worked was much more. The Clydesdale walked at anything up to eight miles an hour. It was a smaller horse, but powerful, and we were able to use them readily on everything from ploughing to loads of wheat to brewery wagons to milk carts.
The Percheron was a French breed, originally all grey. They were the horses that carried French knights in mediaeval time. Wikipedia tells us that Percherons were crossbred with local horses in northern Australia to provide large, strong stock horses and it says that in Australian they have been crossed with thoroughbreds to produce police horses, especially greys.
Bringing out these large horses to Australia was difficult. The voyages would take months, and the horses could not be exercised on the way. They were valuable so they were cared for as well as possible but still a significant number died. In a way, that meant that the draft breeds bred in this country from those imports which survived, were the toughest of their strains.
Not only were they an ideal farm horse because of their strength and relative speed, but they are also, almost always, very gentle and very easily trained. To my father, his three Clydesdales were more than just farm animals, more than pets, more than 'machinery'. He loved them.
When we were having a bore drilled in about 1950 the drilling rig got bogged on the 'old road' into the farm. There was much toing and froing and Mr Boxshall brought his grey Fergie but even that couldn't free the rig. Despite some derision from the operators dad hooked Prince to the rig. Prince took up the slack in the chains, dug his hooves into the clay and slowly but surely dragged the rig free. It was an impressive performance but in fairness to the Fergie it could not gain traction the way a Clydesdale could.
The Clydesdale was a Scottish horse bred to handle heavy loads at a good speed. It was heavily built to handle cold weather – it ever had 'feathers' on its ankles for insulation. It was great change for these gentle giants to be in a warmer country with hardened soils, but they seem to have taken it in their stride.
During the Depression and during the fuel rationing of the Second World War farmers again found these gentle giants to be worth their weight in gold, or in wheat.
Now they are kept as novelties, or for showing. When you see one of these big, handsome, gentle, intelligent horses, understand that you are looking at a significant part of Gippsland's past.