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The 2019 Eastern Kentucky Draft Horse and Mule Association held
it's annual horse pull on Saturday, July 13, 2019 at the Owingsville Lions Club Park in Bath County. The event was moved from it's historical Friday
evening time to late Saturday afternoon this year with the hope that this would increase the number of participants. As with many draft horse
activities, the number of participants has shrunk dramatically over recent years as older teamsters pass away or are no longer able to compete and
few young folks find these types of activities interesting and/or affordable. In addition to the time change,the prize amounts were
increased substantially.
This event is a "farm pull" with containers holding tennis balls attached to the sled. The balls can pop out of their containers if the sled is jerked
too hard. When this happens, that particular pull is disallowed. The idea is to allow farm horses that do not regularly participate in horse pulls, to be
able to compete. Competitive pulling horses are like professional athletes. They tend to be high strung and are trained regularly. They are usually trained
on how to jerk the sled to get it started while farm horses tend to be more docile and are trained to start pulling farm equipment with minimal jerking.
There were 5 teams that showed up to compete for the prize money. Two of those teams had not been worked much and both were pulling a sled for the first time.
The pulling track had been recently covered with fresh gravel and that made the sled pull hard. In fact. the winning team only had to pull 6,500 pounds in
order to win. This is the lowest weight for a winning pull at this event that anyone can remember. I have no doubt that the winning team could have pulled
much more weight if it had been mecessary.
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