BIG HORSES POPULAR ATTRACTION AT FAIR

Draft horses have been around for centuries, but their numbers, and workloads, have diminished over the past 50 years.

Draft (work) horses once supplied much of the power needed for jobs that trucks, cars and tractors do today."They once pulled plows on farms, freight wagons from town to town, and provided transportation by pulling trolleys in cities," said Charles Mangels.

Belgian draft horses still provide some agriculture power in the U.S., but on a much smaller scale than in the past."Belgians are great farm animals," said Mangels, who raises, buys, sells and uses them on his 250-acre farm near Oak Ridge."We still use them for certain farm work -- mowing, planting, hay work," said Mangels. But today the Belgians and other draft horses are basically used for recreation, sport, performances in circuses, rodeos, horse shows and fairs.

More than 30 draft horses are on display at the Southeast Missouri Fair this week. They are a popular attraction among fair-goers. Judging of the draft horses starts at 1 p.m. today and continues with hitch classes at 7 p.m. Draft horses have been shown at the Fair since 1969. The draft horse classes had been canceled for lack of interest during a 14-year period from 1955 to 1969.

Three of Mangel's sons -- Weston, Steve and Kent -- are involved in raising Belgians.

Weston Mangels spent five years working with another big-horse breed, the Clydesdales, at the Anheuser-Busch farm in the St. Louis area, before returning to Southeast Missouri to raise his own Belgians."Raising Belgians has been good for me," said Charles Mangels. "I grew up at a time when we used them in the fields."The buying and selling of Belgians has introduced Mangels and his family to numerous people throughout the U.S. "We go to a number of shows and have made some great friends," he said.

And two of Mangel's Belgians wound up at Disney World. "We sold two of the larger horses, 18 hands high, to Disney," said Mangels. He said a hand is about four inches.

Belgian horses, which usually range between 16 and 18 hands, are best suited of the draft horses for farm work, said Mangels, who sells a number of his horses to Amish farmers."The Belgians' feet and hooves are tougher," he said. The Clydesdales, which are used in hitches for parade wagons -- including the famous Anheuser-Busch beer wagons -- have brittle hooves, said Mangels.

Included in the draft-horse group, the tallest, heaviest and strongest group of horses, are Clydesdales, Belgian, Percheron, Suffolk and Shire. The horses descended from the great war horses that heavily armored knights once rode into battle.

The Shire is the largest horse in the group. The Shire group was developed in England after King Henry VIII had all horses less than five feet destroyed as useless.

The Belgian breed ranks as the gentlest and strongest horse, said Mangels.

Stephen Meier agreed."We use Belgians for transportation," said Meier, who owns a number of Belgians and Meier Horse Shoe Pines, a Christmas tree farm."The Belgians pull wagons around our Christmas tree farm during the winter," he said. Earlier in the year, Meier uses his Belgian teams to transport people at Pioneer Orchards at Jackson to pick apples.

The Belgians are as gentle as they are big, said Meier. "They are docile to work with, and they accept commands."Calvin Diebold of Scott City, a conductor for a railroad, has only one Belgian but hopes to get more."I use my horse to mow on a small farm at Scott City," he said. The Belgians are great farm animals, said Diebold. They are still used pretty extensively in the U.S. for farm work, he said. "The Amish still use them every day."Most horse enthusiasts agree that the Clydesdales are the handsomest draft breeds, with their long, flowing manes and hair below the knees, called feathers.

The Belgian, however, ranks among the gentlest and strongest among the big horses. Most Belgians have chestnut or bay-colored coats. Percherons look much like the Belgians but have gray or black coats. The Suffolk, a smaller, chestnut-colored horse, makes an ideal draft horse. It was a favorite in early days for pulling milk wagons.

Horses have dwindled as work horses over the past eight decades. In 1910, farmers owned more than 20 million horses. By the mid-1970s, that number had declined to 20,000.