Big Hitch plans still on track

Andrea Roberts
Times Intern

 

The Big Hitch event is drawing near, but organization of the event has been anything but seamless.
Neil Dimmock and Bill Engman are preparing to recreate the 1925 36-Percheron horse hitch of cowboy Ralph ‘Slim’ Moorehouse, but they have experienced some hiccups along the way.
According to the organizers, two of the Big Hitch’s major sponsors dropped out to help with the Fort McMurray fire, which has set them back. They are also having trouble getting permission from Wheatland County because of health and safety concerns.
The procession plans to follow in the hoof prints of Moore, who in 1925 drove a hitch of 36 Percheron horses pulling 10 grain wagons loaded with 1477 bushels of wheat through the Calgary Stampede Parade. This year’s event will see the re-creation of the event, driving from Gleichen to the Calgary Stampede Parade.
The plan is for the hitch to stop in Strathmore on July 4 to showcase an attempt to break the North American record of 52 horses in a hitch.
“Like everything else it is the politics of doing the job,” said Dimmock. “We have had lots of discussion with the County on OHS and all that sort of stuff. But we have had a lot of good help from the volunteers and the organizations who will help along the way.”
Despite setbacks, the horse team will still make their trek. Dimmock set the world record of a 46-Percheron horse hitch in 2003, but it’s the re-creation of Moorehouse’s hitch that has Dimmock the most excited.
“When I was a young man I saw Moorehouse’s picture in the Gleichen restaurant one time,” he said. “As I got older and I got more interested in big hitch and draft horses, I always thought it would be cool to re-create it.”
Dimmock met with Moorehouse’s family to learn more about the man, and learned he was a WWI survivor who came to Canada and began hauling grain for local farmers. Over time his hitches got bigger until he drove a 30-horse hitch into Vulcan. However, with more farmers turning to freight trains to haul their goods, Moorehouse saw his business dropping, and so in 1925 decided to go out in style when he set the world record of a 36-Percheron horse hitch at the Calgary Stampede.
The Big Hitch will arrive at the Strathmore and District Agricultural Grounds on July 3 and the record-breaking attempt will take place on July 4.