PERU, Ind. (AP) - Parker Shinn knows a little something about Percheron draft horses. After all, he’s been raising and breeding them for nearly 50 years on his 80 acre farm in southern Miami County, located just south of Grissom Air Reserve Base.
And he hasn’t just been doing it for a long time. He’s also done it exceptionally well.
Last month, the 70-year-old Shinn was inducted into the Percheron Horse Association of America’s Hall of Fame for his lifelong dedication to the animal.
He’s the first guy in at least three years to receive the honor from the association, which was founded in 1876, the Kokomo Tribune reported (https://bit.ly/1FjESXa ).
It was his grandpa who first introduced Shinn to the horse breed known for its size, alertness, intelligence and work ethic.
During World War I, his grandpa used French-bred Percheron horses to pull artillery machines around the battlefield. After returning to his Miami County farm, Shinn’s grandpa used the same breed to harvest tomatoes.
Shinn said even from an early age, he liked the temperament and disposition of Percherons.
“They were steady and weren’t flighty,” he said. “They got the job done, but they weren’t jumpy about it. They’re a quieter, more settled breed.”
Shinn was used to using the animals as work horses growing up, but in 1965, when he was 21 years old, he and his dad decided there could be good money in breeding.
“We got to fooling around, and thought we’d get ourselves into the purebred business,” he said.
And that’s just what they did. They bought their first mares in Farmers City, Illinois, and hauled them back to the farm.
For the first two years, Shinn and his dad pulled the mares to Swayzee to use another breeder’s stud. After that, they decided to buy their own stud, and their purebred business was off and running.
“That first mare that I bought ended up paying for two of my pickup trucks,” Shinn said with a laugh.
Since 1965, Shinn said almost 200 colts have been born on his farm, and they’ve been sold all across the country to people in states like Iowa, Idaho, West Virginia, Kentucky and Michigan.
He also has sold them to the Amish, who use the large horses for field work and to pull their buggies.
“Those horses went everywhere,” he said. “People bought them to play with, to work with and to breed.”
But raising the horses isn’t all about business for Shinn. He said one of the most fun parts of the job was hitching them up and trotting them for parades.
He said for 18 years up until 1986, he used his Percherons to pull circus wagons and carriages in Peru’s annual circus parade.
In fact, Shinn said, Percheron horses have a long history in the circus and a long history in Peru.
In the early days, circuses always used the horse breed to haul its cargo and perform in the ring, he said. When Peru served as the winter quarters for circuses like Ringling Brothers, Shinn said, there’d be hundreds of Percherons in the city.
He said one old photograph shows more than 700 of the horses grazing in a pasture near the city.
Besides the circus parade, Shinn has also used them in parades in cities as big as Chicago and as small as Twelve Mile.
One thing Shinn hasn’t used his horses for is riding or pulling competitions, although he did enter some of them in county and state fairs up until the 1980s, when he said competitions got too expensive.
“Today, you got to be getting ready 365 days a year for a show,” he said. “It’s more work than this old man wants to do.”
But work is something Shinn is still used to. At 70 years old, he’s still grinding feed, putting up hay in the barn and doing all the other chores required to take care of the seven horses he’s still raising.
“The horses aren’t dying out, but in this area, most experienced horse guys are,” he said. “I’m about the last experienced guy left in the draft horse industry around here.”
It’s that experience that landed Shinn in the Percheron Horse Association of America’s Hall of Fame this year.
Shinn joined the group back in 1965, when he bought his first horses. He ended up serving on the board for more than six years up until 2009. Before that, in 1997, he was a founding member of the Indiana Percheron Association, where he served as both vice president and president.
Elaine Beardsley, the secretary for the national organization, said Shinn was inducted into the hall of fame because of his deep knowledge of the breed and his service to the organization.
“Anytime we need him, he’s right there,” she said. “He’s someone who’s always willing to help. He’s a good fella, and those are few and far between sometimes.”
Shinn said it was a real honor to be inducted into the hall of fame during the ceremony in Shipshewana.
“I thought it was great,” he said. “I never expected that it’d come my way. It really vindicates all that hard work of waking up in the middle of the night to take care of these horses and delivering mares sometimes at 2 a.m. It feels good.”
And as long as it feels good to take care of his Percheron, Shinn said, he’s going to keep doing it.
“When I can’t go to the barn to feed them anymore, I’ll quit, but until then I’ll hang in there,” he said. “I guess I’m just too bullheaded to quit. I feel like I have knowledge of it and I’m good at it and only a few people do it anymore. Maybe somebody will remember me for this down the road.”
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Information from: Kokomo Tribune, https://www.ktonline.com
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