Plenty of locals are likely heading south for the Calgary Stampede, and Colinton’s Kevin Danyluk is among them.
What sets him apart is the four Belgian horses he has in tow. Danyluk is entering the heavy horse pull at the Stampede for the sixth time, this year with two teams in the middleweight (3,001–3,500 pounds) category.
“We took three pairs last year. We’re only taking two pairs this year,” said Danyluk.
Last year, Danyluk placed third with two of his teams and eighth with the other.
The heavy horse pull will be this Saturday, July 12, in the Agrium Western Events Centre, and Danyluk said there is just one other Albertan competing amongst the 11 teamsters in the middleweight category. Each team will pull increasing amounts of weight until a winner is crowned. To be considered complete, the load must be pulled 14 feet.
Last year, Danyluk’s third-place middleweight team finished by pulling 9,500 pounds 38 inches — about three times each horse’s own weight.
Danyluk has been training for the last four months, averaging four to six miles a day (6.4–9.7 kilometres). That’s three or four hours of training a day on top of his work as a welding inspector.
“Everybody’s helping out,” he said of his family’s role in helping condition the horses.
Preparing a team for a heavy horse pull boils down to “lots of training, lots of exercising — just making sure they understand how to get under the load,” he said.
The early stages of training involve “lugging,” said Danyluk: hitching the team to a big load and making sure they understand how to pull it effectively.
“As we get closer to the Stampede, we don’t lug as much; we just put more miles on them,” said Danyluk.
The bigger horses have gone on a bit of a diet, he said. The reason for the weight watching is two-fold: for one, you don’t want them carrying too much fat, and secondly, you want to be sure they stay within their weight category.
“That’s been the biggest goal for the last four months,” said Danyluk of ensuring the horses don’t slip into the low end of the heavyweight category.
Danyluk and his teams have been to — and won — two pulls this year: Stony Plain and Drayton Valley.
“They’ve been showing really good. They haven’t let me down,” he said.
This is despite the fact that one of his horses, Ace, is around 21 years old this year — far older than the other three horses, who are seven and eight.
“He’s still going strong,” said Danyluk. “He’s very tough.” However, “This will probably be his last Stampede.”
