TRADE TALK Te right horse for the right vehicle Wendy Peckham seeks advice from Barrie Luck, Chairman of the BDS Judges’ Committee. I


t was a delight to speak with Barrie Luck, a man with long experience of the driving horse. He is also passionately interested in light trade and likes to see showing turnouts sticking to tradition. Among the


variety of topics on this subject, we discussed the need to have the right horse for the right vehicle. As in any discipline, the horse or pony must


be the right size for the vehicle it is put to and, likewise with private driving and light trade classes, the horse or pony should be the right type for the vehicle. Traditionally, the type of horse used for


deliveries would also depend on the distance the animal would be expected to travel on its rounds. A butcher’s cart, which may only have a delivery round of five miles, would most likely have a Hackney to do the job. Barrie says butcher’s boys liked to look swanky and the Hackney would do the job quickly and in style.


Cobs


Te milk float, on the other hand, is a heavier vehicle and would require a quiet cob to walk steadily round the city streets. However, the churn float – used to fetch milk from the farm to the diary - would require something a bit more forward going; though preferably not a horse with a bouncy movement. Cobs would also have been used by the baker, depending on the weight of the vehicle and how it was loaded. Despite what is sometimes seen in the


show ring, the coster’s horse traditionally was a ‘plodding’ cob that ignored the sound of the noisy bell rung by its master as he plied his trade on the streets. While some may smile at the likeness to Steptoe & Son’s Hercules, he was exactly the sort of horse that would have been used. You may recall seeing images of an ice-


cream van in an earlier edition of Carriage Driving; Barrie maintains that the type of horse


Te delivery horse needed to be able to stand quietly.


Above: Delivering milk in 1930. Right: Where image was paramount, as with this smart Rothmans’ delivery van, a better class of equine was used.


used for this vehicle would have been a good strong, steady cob. Te ice-cream containers would have been made of lead, so were very heavy, and the horse would have been expected to stand still for long periods of time, up to three or four hours.


Friesians and Cleveland Bays


Friesians are becoming very popular as driven show horses and from time to time may appear put to a light trade vehicle. Strictly speaking these are funeral horses and, in Victorian times, would only ever have been seen put to a hearse. Vehicles such as a draper’s van would have


used a nice carriage horse - perhaps one that had been too quiet for a country house owner - though Barrie feels that the Cleveland Bay, which was not really a delivery horse, would occasionally have been used by breweries for pulling bottle vans or driven as a pair when put to a light dray.


Other judge’s views


I am indebted to Jane Brightwell who supplied a copy of an article on light trade from the BDS Newsletter (May 2011). In it there are two earlier articles written by the late, great Sanders Watney and the late highly respected judge, Norman Robarts (both from the BDS Journal 1985). Sanders Watney states that: ‘In addition to


the suitability of the horses to their vehicles, and these varied from sturdy cobs, to the smart Hackneys beloved by butchers and fishmongers, it was important for them to be taught to stand quietly when unattended, and in the case of milkmen’s horses, to move forward on command, and some judges may expect them to do this in the show ring today, although this might be considered unwise’, (and for Health & Safety reasons is not a recommended practice). Norman Robarts takes this further, by


suggesting that the light trade horse should be capable of backing up for at least five yards, preferably ten. However, slightly contrary to Barrie’s comments, Norman states that: ‘I would expect a sharp good goer in a baker’s cart, butcher’s cart or milk float, because in the days when they were in use, the average daily journey could have been anything from 12 to 20 miles.’ However, he does agree that: ‘A heavier milk van or coster’s turnout would probably not be expected to travel more than 10 miles daily, but the load would be much greater and therefore the horse would have to be stronger and heavier and possibly not quite so active.’


January 2012 Carriage Driving 17


Photos: Courtesy Barrie Luck


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