YORKTON - The big horses were put to work over two nights at the Dave’s Diesel Heavy Horse Pulls at the Grain Millers Harvest Showdown.
The big horses getting into the traces and pulling thousands of pounds is a long time highlight of the Showdown in Yorkton, and this year nine teams – all of them Belgian horses – did not disappoint.
The teamsters and their teams, all members of the Qu’Appelle Valley Horse Pulling Club competed in three categories; lightweights with teams under 3200 pounds combined weight, medium weights teams under 3500 pounds and heavyweights.
Among the teamsters was Jonny Luster, barely a teen at 14, but already becoming a veteran of the sport, including pulling at one of the premier events in Canada, the Calgary Stampede.
For Luster it was a record-breaking summer in 2021, when he became the youngest teamster to ever pull at the Stampede at 13. He was still the youngest this year at 14.
Luster, from Montmartre, Sask., said he started after helping his dad when he first started in the sport.
“He (Jordan) started four or five years ago, and I’ve always helped him,” said Jonny Luster.
So it wasn’t too surprising he would eventually get a team of his own to drive – his team is now Jimmy and Rogue, although he was driving Tom and Stormy in 2021 at the Stampede.
Now the father-son team train two teams spending countless hours getting their horses in shape and ready to pull.
“We work then every day,” said Jonny, adding when school doesn’t get in the way he’s right there usually driving the teams five miles a day “to get them in shape.”
So Jonny became comfortable around the big horses at an early age.
“I was putting in six hours a day standing right beside them,” he said.
So what makes a good pulling team?
Luster said it is very much up to the horses themselves.
“They’ve got to have the heart. A horse that wants to do it,” he said.
Then it’s training, getting the team to lean into the harness together so they pull as a team.
“You want the bellies down in the dirt for good pulling,” offered Luster.
While Luster followed his dad into the sport, he stays because it’s something he has found a real passion for.
“I love it. It’s my favourite thing to do,” he said.
So he and his dad stay busy pulling.
“There’s a pull every weekend somewhere,” said Luster, adding unless things like haying get in the way they take in a lot of events each year.
Of the many shows the Stampede does stand out.
“That’s the biggest one,” offered Luster, adding he hasn’t done well on the big stage just yet.
“I got last, but I did get the teamster award,” he said, adding he’s proud of that award as it goes to the teamster who presents his team looking good in the arena, and do as they are supposed, not jerking the sled on pulls, or stepping over the lines.”
