Cher valley (Loire)
More and more growers rely on horse power for plowing in winter and hauling the grape boxes out of the vineyard at harvest, these are usually people who farm organic, want to limit the compacting of their soils and the parcels are often unfit for tractors because of the narrow space between the rows. They also want to help the area revive the use of these farm animals
and the age old savoir-faire going with them. Some growers own their own horses like Olivier Cousin or Sébastien Riffault but
many more use third-party services for that, which is wise when you have a small surface. I made a story years ago on such a business, with Francis Dopff who worked for some of the best domaines in Alsace. He was at the time training a young guy who hopefully does it by himself now. Very recently I profiled another professionnal doing plowing for organic growers in the Loire, Philippe Chigard, who also trained quite a few trainees eager to learn these skills, and surprisingly many young women had applied.
Here is another young woman, Estelle Mulowsky, who with several associates manages such a service company centered on draft horses, particularly from the iconic Percheron breed. Agil Percherons is the name of this company, it is based in Saint Agil, a small village in the north of the Loir-et-Cher département where coincidentally there's a nice yearly tasting event centered on natural wine, Poison d'Avril which you should not miss. Here are a few pictures and videos about Estelle and her draft-horse job for growers.
I saw Estelle bringing back her horse (named Amourette) after a day in the parcels, she had parked her trailer van in front of Les Capriades (she was working for Pascal and Moses for a few days), there was a piece of fallow land on the other side of the road where the black Perceron could graze, rest and sleep until the following day. Estelle says she has always lived with horses, she has a farming status with her associates. They have some 10 horses at Agil Percherons, they also do a bit of horse breeding, keep horses (not exclusively draft horses) for owners who haven't the time to tend their animals and also do horse carriage and tours for events and weddings. She has a 4-hectare piece of land for the horses plus the use of 10 additionnal hectares which is important for the grass.
Speaking of horse tack, Estelle told me these very innovative collars she uses are made by La Sellerie Percheronne, a small company that designs and manufactures tools and accessories for draft horses, the funny thing being that she lives one kilometer from the company grounds. Also, it happens that this collar was designed, using modern materials, along a model that was widely used in the 19th century by the Compagnie Générale des Omnibus in Paris (ancestor of the RATP) which had 10 000 horses to pull the capital's buses then. The original model in the late 19th century was itself the result of extensive research because the draft horses had to efficiently pull buses and trams all day along the streets of Paris. The modern version is made with an aluminium frame with leather cover to make it easy for the Percheron. Using aluminium instead of wood you get a better hygiene and there's the possibility to adjust them to the horse's exact size. She's very happy and she feels the horses like it better, especially that their weight is half the traditionnal ones. Also she says that the old models don't fit anymore to the modern Percherons because the horses of say, the early 20th century worked everyday and were leaner, thinner than today. Also many horse breeder later raised these animals for the meat, not the draft work, so the animals evolved in weight and measurements. Today for example the Japanese have become fond of horse meat and there are plane loads of Percheron foals heading for Japan for that purpose and some horse breeders in France are switching to adapt to this demand.
Side notes : I myself love horse meat even if I eat it rarely - And if you're in Japan, here are 7 horse-meat restaurants in Tokyo...
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