Ledyard drafts muscle
,Continued from Page Al 6)
and commented the team he
drove at this year’s Expo
was the toughest team he’s
had to work and tram
Although the Benham’s
did not take the heavy
weight championship trophy
with them, they did succeed
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m capturing the lightweight
championship, out-pulling 32
other teams.
Their champion team,
Don, 5 years old, and Duke, 7
years old, had only pulled
together once before. In
lightweight competition in
Toronto, Canada, the 3210
pound team succeeded in br
inging home first place
honors.
John Benham explained
his horse Duke was the son of
the world champion puller,
also called Duke. He pomted
out the second place
lightweight team.had a half
brother to his horse, both
sired by Duke.
Benham noted the high
Pennsylvania team m the
lightweight contest also had
a horse with Duke
bloodlines. A daughter of
Duke, at two years of age,
was making headlines in the
horse pulling world.
As if the statistics weren’t
impressive enough, Benham
added a Duke horse helped
to set the 1979 world record
in dynomometer pulling.
Pat, a brother of Duke, and
his teammate, Popeye, pull
ed 4050 pounds on the
dynomometer, equivalent to
14,000 pounds m the stone sl
ed pulls.
The Benhams, a family of
eight brothers and eight
sisters, have always used
Belgians. “They’re a stouter
bloodline,” John said.
“They’re stronger.”
He explained it takes
about sixty days to tram a
“green” horse to pull. “We
tram them with another
horse that’s broken because
a horse will leam more by
watching what the other one
does and then doing the
same,” Benham added.
Once trained, he exercises
the horses four hours every
day on a drag to build and
tone their muscles.
The Benham Brothers
team was one of three that
pulled against a load of 8300
pounds, dragging the sled 20
feet.
The second place team,
owned by Jim Hmshaw, of
Winchester, Indiana, was
taped m at 15 feet, 11 mches
on the same load. And, the
third best pull in the contest
was 11 feet, 4 mches on the
8300 pound load by a team
owned by Beeman
and Lawson, Osseo,
Michigan.
Fourth and fifth places
were decided at a load of
7800 pounds. Greg Schlrb,
Baltic, Ohio, pulled 25 feet, 4
inches with his team; and
Young Brothers,
Uhnchsville, Ohio, came m
at 19 feet, 4 mches.
The top Pennsylvania
team and the horsemanship
award were awarded to Tom
Brown, Stahlstown. He plac
ed twelfth in the over-all con
test with a pull of 2 feet, 7 in
ches at 7800 pounds.
This was Brown’s second
win this year under the
Lancaster Farming, Saturday, March 8,1980—A17
Farm Show arena’s roof. His
pair of Belgians was the top
team at this year’s Farm
Show.
Brown’s team is unusual m
that the horses are young,
Bud is 4 years old and Kit is 2
years old. Another thing that
makes it unusual is the fact
that Kit is a mare, daughter
of Duke. “It’s unusual to pull
as a two-year-old and do
well,” Brown said, “and this
is only her second contest. ’ ’
When asked what he did to
be selected as the best
horseman. Brown stated
that good horsemanship is
habit-forming when it’s
practiced every day.
“It means no rough abuse
just normal work. And
when I reset the horses, I get
down and fool with them.
That’s the way I like to
work.”
Brown, who started driv
ing when he was twelve
years old, has been driving
for 25 years. He has com
peted in Maine, Maryland,
West Virginia, and Ohio as a
puller.
Brown said he prefers the
27% feet pull with increasing
Broiler council
more birds in
processed products
COLUMBIA, S.C. - If
present trends continue,
consumers will be seeing
less chicken in whole bird
form and more in the form of
convenience and further
processed broiler products.
Of the 48.8 pounds of
chicken American con
sumers ate in 1979, about
five pounds, or more than 10
percent, was in further
processed form. These
products range from
breaded pre-cooked frozen
cup-up fried chicken to
chicken pot pies to chicken
hot dogs to breast fillet sand
wiches.
The National Broiler
Council predicts that by the
end of the 1980’s further
processed products will
constitute about a fifth of
broiler consumption.
Already chicken franks have
captured about eight percent
of the total hot dog market in
the few years they have been
marketed.
Lake the whole broiler and
cut-ups parts, convenience
or further processed chicken
weights between pulls over
the type of pulling done in
Maine. There, he explained,
a team is given five minutes,
with as many stops and
starts as they like, to pull
double their weight as far as
they can.
“That’s like a man train
ing for a race it takes a lot
of wind. The horses have to
be in great condition and
have good wind. They need
to be slim, with more muscle
and no fat, to work like
that.”
Brown said he felt the
draft horse industry was
becoming greater and
greater, with more people
becoming involved in pulls.
He voiced his encouragment
that with the mcreased de
mand over the past five
years, the quality of the
draft animal has gotten bet
ter through the efforts of im
proved breeding.
And with competition as
keen as it was on Friday dur
ing the Farm Equipment Ex
po, the crowd cheered its
agreement that horse pulling
was on the move in Penn
sylvania.
sees
products are significantly
less costly than comparable
red meat items. With in
flation continuing to shrink
the consumer’s food dollar,
economy alone could con
tribute to increased sales.
However, the industry is
quick to note that chicken
products are also
nutritionally comparable to
red meat items, providing
the same high quality
animal protein but with less
fat content and fewer
calories. They hope to
educate first-time customers
to the fact that lower price
doesn’t mean lower quality
or flavor.
Both adult members are
working in an increasing
number of households. They
are inclined to seek foods
with built-in time con
venience but are unwilling to
sacrifice value and good
nutrition. Further processed
chicken products provide all
three - the council says
time-saving convenience,
quality nutrients and
economy.