Horse Power Sandpoint Draft Horse Event Becomes One Of Best In West

The two Belgians, Jerry and John, could hardly stand still long enough Saturday for their handlers to link their harnesses to the weighty freight wagon.

For days, the beasts had been confined in stalls or trailers and were anxious to exercise.

A ton each and about six feet high at their shoulders, the heavy-muscled horses could have easily taken matters under their own oversized hooves.

But the driver at their reins was no tenderfoot himself.

Lloyd Jones, a 75-year-old rancher, has been driving draft horses since the ‘30s.

On Saturday, he was driving for Adam Van Exel, who had originally planned on competing himself in the senior team driving event at the Idaho State Draft Horse International competition.

“How do they feel,” Van Exel called up to Jones.

“They’re great. They’re in the bit,” Jones called back, grinning as the animals charged off, lifting their forelegs high in the air with each powerful step.

Van Exel, a 70-year-old breeder from central California (but originally from Holland), brought eight horses to the draft horse show, but decided to sit out the senior event because of a cold.

Van Exel’s trainer, Gene Hilty, knew Jones from the days when the two helped launch the draft horse club and competition in Sandpoint 20 years ago.

In those two decades, the show has grown so large that this year organizers ran out of space for all the heavy horses and had to turn some people away. A record 145 horses and mules will be sold Monday. The sale typically draws about 70 animals.

The first year, “we wondered if it would even work,” Jones said. “We stuck our neck out about a mile and a half.”

Now Jones and Hilty see their old friends and other competitors from around the country at the annual event, which is one of the better attended among draft horse shows in the West.

“It’s great because there’s a crowd here,” said Denise Yeck, a driver for another Van Exel team. “The atmosphere, too, it’s like having a reunion.”

Jones and Hilty rode the Van Exel freight wagon together in the senior competition Saturday, while Jones handled the driving.

In the show ring, Jones was up against two dozen other senior teamsters - driving Percherons, Clydesdales and mules.

“It’s good to see them out here, still active, still messing with the heavies,” the voice of announcer T.J. Silveira boomed to the audience.

In the crowded stands, Van Exel worried when the horses lowered their heads, or appeared to be pulling too hard.

He scowled at the mix of mules and draft horses.

“Now how can you judge that, ‘clunkety clunk,”’ he asked, imitating the gait of a mule with his arms.

According to the program, the judge was to consider only the driving skills, not the animal.

Van Exel admitted he wished he was out in the ring, driving instead of sitting in the stands.

Jones and the Van Exel team made it into the final round, but didn’t place.

Jerry and John cared not, and pranced out of the arena just as perky as when they arrived.

Their eagerness was their downfall, however.

“The judge said, ‘I had you in first place, then you let your horses run,”’ Hilty said.

“He just took two jumps,” Jones said, “and she (the judge) saw it.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo