NO HORSEPLAY HERE; EQUESTRIANS PULL THEIR WEIGHT AT FAIR.Byline: Sylvia L. Oliande Daily News Staff Writer After several classes of show horses - coats shined to perfection Adv. 1. to perfection - in every detail; "the new house suited them to a T" just right, to a T, to the letter and wearing brightly colored ribbons and bows in their hair - walked away with their prizes, the big boys and girls boys and girls mercurialisannua. took the arena at the Ventura County Fair Saturday. The Draft Team Pulling Contest, held late in the morning at the Morgan Arena, drew five teams of horses who weren't afraid to get down and dirty. Their specialty is pulling nearly twice their combined weight in feed. They are work horses "Work Horses" is the second episode of the first season of The Saddle Club. Plot Trivia , born and bred Born and Bred is a light-hearted British drama series that aired for four series on BBC One from 2002 to 2005. It was created by Chris Chibnall and Nigel McCrery. The cast was led by James Bolam and Michael French, who played a father and son who run a cottage hospital in . ``These boys use those horses in orchards and break them on farms,'' said Merlin Merlin, in Arthurian legend, magician, seer, and teacher at the court of King Vortigern and later at the court of King Arthur. He was a bard and culture hero in early Celtic folklore. In Arthurian legend he is famous as a magician and as the counselor of King Arthur. Carlson, the judge of Saturday's event. ``They are bred to pull, and they get them into condition. These horses are very athletic.'' Draft horse breeders, like their animals, were a marked contrast to the show breeders. Smoking cigars and pipes, they sat on small wooden sleds behind the horses as they put them through their paces before the competition. One of the old-timers said he began competing 22 years ago. ``I got out of it for a time, but I came back and decided to play again,'' Art Wollesen, a farmer from Modesto, said as he filled his pipe. ``I just love horses. And it gives me something to do.'' Wollesen said the horses pull several thousand pounds each day in the course of their work on the farm. He said farmers look for stout stout, alcoholic beverage: see beer. horses with large muscles, and often the animals eat their weight in food each month. All agreed that the best competitors are the Belgian and Percheron breeds, which were once bred as war horses but have been used on farms in the last century. In the competition, the two-horse team is hitched to a 1,000-pound sled initially weighed down with bags of feed totaling 2,500 pounds. Those in the lightweight division - weighing less than 3,300 pounds combined - start first. After all the teams have pulled, 500 pounds is added. When the sled load reaches 3,500 pounds, the heavyweights begin their competition. A team must pull the sled 15 feet to have what is considered a clean pull. The horses have two tries to pull the sled as far as they can. The farther distance counts. Some of the horses were old hands; as soon as they were hitched to a sled they took off down the track with ease. But one team, first-timers driven by Steve Ferrasci, decided they didn't want to pull and were out of the competition after two rotations. The winning team in the heavyweight heavyweight - High-overhead; baroque; code-intensive; featureful, but costly. Especially used of communication protocols, language designs, and any sort of implementation in which maximum generality and/or ease of implementation has been pushed at the expense of mundane division was Lisa and Bob, driven by Steve Bettencourt, which pulled 5,500 pounds. The lightweight division winners were Queen and Bud, driven by George Rocha, at 3,000 pounds. Carlson said the state record was reached in the late 1980s, when a team pulled 7,200 pounds. Wollesen, whose horses Joe and Rocket came in second in the heavyweight division, said a good draft horse can compete until he's 20 to 22 years old. ``It used to be up to 14 or 15 years old, but they just don't get worked like they used to,'' he said. CAPTION(S): 3 Photos PHOTO (1--Color in Simi and Conejo Editions only) Art Wollesen of Modesto urges horses Rocket and Joe during the Draft Team Pulling Contest on Saturday at the Ventura County Fair. (2--Color in Simi Edition only) (Ran in Simi and SAC Sac: see Sac and Fox. SAC - 1. An early system on the Datatron 200 series. [Listed in CACM 2(5):16 (May 1959)]. Editions only) Steve Ferrasci of Clovis reins reins pl.n. The kidneys, loins, or lower back. in his horses during Saturday's Draft Team Pulling Contest. (3) (Ran in Conejo Edition only) Modesto farmer Art Wollesen participated in Saturday's event. Michael Owen
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