The Capall Awards section of the website is now live.
First Assessments will be at the end of May 2016 so now's the time to start planning.
Any questions just ask George!

Got a real shock when we saw in this 1915 American catalogue that anvils were sold by weight! The heavier Trenton weighed about 150 pounds so that would have cost  $16.

The Ohio Carriage Manufacturing Company's factory at Columbus covered 3 1/2 acres and produced 20,000 horse drawn buggies made from split hickory in 1912.
All of their buggies were sold direct to the customer through a catalogue and some of the promises they made suggest how times have changed in the intervening century. Every order came with a "thirty days free road test" and if the customer was not happy for any reason, they could get their money back in full, including all freight charges!

January 1826 was very cold in London with a lot of ice on the river Thames where on the 17th January at low tide, it was almost frozen bank to bank at Deptford!

The picture shows how on the same day, for a bet of 100 guineas, Henry Hunt  drove his father's cart, drawn by four blood horses across the ice over the Serpentine lake in Hyde Park at its broadest part. The image shows his safe return fo the North bank from which he had set out. The ice must have been really thick to take the weight.

In 1917, the cost of running a farm tractor for a year in Pennsylvania was $495 and each tractor did the work of almost 2 horses. The tractor also did the work much faster so there was less labour cost for the farmer. Horses cost about $200 a year to keep and between that and the reduced labour needed the savings were $580 from each tractor so horse use on farms started to reduce.

The tractor in the photo is a Fordson Model F from 1917 and here in Ireland Henry Ford established a factory in Cork to manufacture tractors in July 1919, employing about 1800 by 1926. When the demand for tractors fell the factory manufactured components for Ford cars.

Here's an interesting graphic from a book written in 1906 called Horse Breeding in England and India and Army Horses Abroad. Today's thoroughbreds average 16 hands so they have "grown" about 8 inches (20cm).

Stop worrying about the weather for a minute and see if you can read these without laughing!

Why did the show jumper have a sore head?
Because he was jumping against the clock.
 
What disease was the horse scared of getting?
Hay fever!  
 
What did the mother horse say to her foal?
Its pasture your bedtime
 
What food do race horses like best?
Fast Food.
 
How long should a horse's legs be?
Long enough to reach the ground
 
What's a horse's favourite game?
Stable Tennis.
 
What breed of horse can jump higher than a house?
All breeds! Houses can't jump.
 
What kind of bread do horses eat?
Thoroughbred.
 
Which side of the horse has the most hair?
The outside!

Can you find the names of all our horses and ponies. It's quite hard. Just drag your mouse through the letters . . .

Nothing to do but go for a quick snooze . . . here's Foxy in dreamland!