The most recognizable of all gentle giants must be the Budweiser Clydesdales. The Clydesdales have been an integral part of Anheuser-Busch for more than 80 years. But they are also ambassadors for the Clydesdale breed and have shined a light on heavy horses and brought joy to millions. There are three traveling hitches, each working year round, attending events.
And while the audiences see just a short presentation or parade, what goes on behind the scenes takes hours of work. It’s a job from sunup to well after sundown. Here’s a day in the life of the Budweiser Clydesdales. We caught up with them as they made an appearance at Billy Bob’s Texas in the Fort Worth Stockyards.
We came out this morning, fed the horses first off, got all their stalls clean, then we jumped on legs, washed all the legs up, blew dry them because the humidity was up a little bit, got them all ready to braid it up to come over, and then we vacuumed them off, get their coats nice and shiny, loaded them up, and then we brought them over to the world famous Billy Bob’s and hitched up and showed the day.
A typical day for us you know it starts usually by seven if not earlier and just like everybody else you know we got to muck them stalls out and get them all cleaned out and generally we take the horses for about an hour
walk in the morning, loosen them all up. When they come back, then we’ll start grooming on them, you know, washing their legs or giving them a body wash. And if we don’t wash their bodies, then we groom their bodies. And just kind of after that point, that’s, you know, four or five hours, then we just kind of keep them clean until performance time. Like two other people during the day, you know, they’re working on the harness.
polishing it all up. So it keeps us pretty busy. You know, it’s about eight hours of time per performance for us to get the horses and the harness and everything ready to go.
So this week we’ve had shows every day, and as you mentioned, it’s sun up to sun down. We start work at 7 a.m., exercise the horses, groom them, wash them, and then show from 3 to 5. And after the show, people’s conception is, oh, you’re done, you put the horses back, and that’s it. When actually we go back to the barn, re-groom the horses, rinse them if needed, feed them if we haven’t fed them already, and we send people in the harness truck and start cleaning harnesses.
So before you know it, it’s 8 or 9 o’clock before we’re done. And then back up the next morning to start it over for the next show.
Country Music Award winner Easton Corbin is performing at Billy Bob’s tonight, and he hitched a ride to the world’s largest honky tonk on this famous eight horse hitch.
Thousands of families from Fort Worth and beyond enjoyed a glimpse at the impressive gentle giants. It’s a good feeling. You know, that’s what we’re here for. You know, the horses have been going for about 86 years now, so we like to keep that tradition alive and well. And when you pull in and the folks are excited to see them, it’s a good feeling for us to, you know, hook them up and show them here.
DROVERS FROM THE FORT WORTH HERD DAILY CATTLE DRIVE HELP WITH CROWD CONTROL AND THEY WELCOME THE BIG HORSES TO THE HISTORIC STOCK YARDS.
Well, Red’s one of our big guys, but he’s one of our most gentle. And nothing seems to rattle him. He’s just a really great horse. So we did a little promo picture with him. And like I said, he’s big. He’s beautiful. He’s one of those laid back, beach bum type horses. Doesn’t get rattled about nothing. So he’s perfect for when we want to do some of the special shots with one horse.
When we return, we’ll take you behind the scenes at the making of a recent commercial. Clydesdales and Dalmatians, what could be better? Stay with us.
Welcome back to Gentle Giants. Making a 30-second commercial actually takes days getting just the right shot. And it’s made even more complicated when working with live animals. Here’s a look behind the scenes with Shelby and Todd
Todd’s the assistant driver and supervisor and Shelby is our third driver. They will both be featured in the 2019 Super Bowl ad that we shot. We have a crew of seven. Todd and I usually go on the wagon with anybody else coming up to drive just because of the experience. And then now like say Shelby’s our third driver and she’s been doing it, she’s been raised around it, has a really good aptitude for knowing how the horses are gonna drive and handle. So that’s what we look for and then we can train her
and she’s young enough she can replace us old guys.
Four years later and I’m still with the West Coast team. It’s even more awesome that I’ve been starting to learn to drive the horses over the last six months. And then being on top, like in the Super Bowl commercial on top of that is pretty much the icing on the cake.
Well, a commercial, if you’ve seen it, is the team driving through the barley field with windmills in the background and our dog riding on top. The horses are used to pulling the wagon, so it’s no different than a parade route, except we were on remote location.
We filmed for two days for two hours a piece. That’s the normal time that we are hooked and harnessed. So they just waited until right before the sunset to get the perfect lighting. And we did about five or six passes in front of the camera each day. It was a little bit different. They made sure all of our
Uniforms were identical and we did have hair and makeup. Both myself and Todd did receive makeup. And it was just a pretty awesome experience to be a part of making something as great as our Super Bowl commercial.
Well, you know, it’s two long days. You know, everybody sees it as one shot, and they see maybe 30 seconds of the horses driving, but it’s actually two 12- to 14-hour days, you know, to put that together. We work the dogs in the morning solo, so we work them for about four hours. Good boy. Good boy. Good boy. Good boy.
And then in the afternoon, then we roll into the horses and we drive them for about two, two and a half hours each day to get that footage for that minute commercial. It’s a good feeling. You know, it’s nice. You get to see yourself on TV. You know, everybody likes that. So, you know, it’s a good feeling to do a commercial and then be able to see it and let your friends and family, you know, view it on the television. And they all give you a call and tell you how.
For draft horse lovers, working with the Budweiser Clydesdales may seem like a dream job. And it is. We’ll hear more when we return. Stay with us.
Welcome back to Gentle Giants. Imagine growing up, loving horses, and then finding yourself getting paid to take care of these gentle giants. For each of the hitch teams, it means life on the road, but they say they wouldn’t change a thing.
They are pretty surprised. I’m the only girl on the West Coast team. We do have another gal on our St. Louis team, but when they come out and you jump out of the semi truck, they really have to do a double take because they don’t expect a woman to be driving this big 18-wheeler.
I’d say the hardest part of the job is all the travel. I mean, I have a really great group of supportive family and friends at home that do encourage me to keep being on the road. They take care of my horse, personal horses at home, and it’s just a really great support system back home.
I’ve been on the West Coast a little over 15 years now, heading into my 16th year, and basically I started driving kind of right out of the bat. Had a good teacher in Lloyd Ferguson that was here many years before me, and he taught me all I needed to know to kind of survive with eight horses out there.
We are the face of the company. We are their ambassadors of excellence, as they call it. So we try to keep everything as neat and tidy as we can. So that’s a lot of work.
horses do really good now we’ll be out on the road around 310 to 340 days a year that’s the crew but the horses will come in we’ll we’ll send a trailer either back to st louis or have them meet us a couple times a year and we’ll rotate the horses out so most of the horses are doing six to seven months on the road for the the time frame where the crew stays out so horses handle it pretty well and
Like today, if you figure out how much time they actually pulled the wagon, it was probably less than 30 minutes, so pretty light work day. With our breeding program, we really strive for the black mane and tail, bay in color, and the white blaze and four white leggings with the fetlock hairs. We match them up as best as possible, and then what we also do, even though they all match up really, really well,
Our bosses in St. Louis travel out to each of the teams and look. So when we have a new recruit coming in, they look to see who has what needs. And even just the slightest shade difference, like we’re just a little lighter than St. Louis, and they’re just a little lighter than the East Coast. Now, most people will not notice it, but that’s how particular they are. So they’re all just a tad bit different. 95% of the people wouldn’t know, but that’s the detail that they put in at Budweiser.
So typical week on Sunday, we went to an NBA basketball game. For us, our Budweiser Convention was in town. We showed there a few days. We went up to a major grocery store that was just opening up and showed there one day. We went out to the Naval Joint Air Force Base outside of town, showed there, and then over to Billy Bob’s today.
Some weeks, St. Louis crew is at the Florida State Fair, so their prep day will be Monday, and then they’ll hitch at the fairgrounds every day, Tuesday through Sunday. So it just varies, but usually you’re hooking anywhere from three to six times a week.
When we travel, we’ll be leaving Dallas-Fort Worth area and going to San Antonio. So that show has already been lined up and approved through our office. They have all the hotels, the feed store, the stabling all lined out for us. We’ll have our hay all comes from Idaho. It’s all drop shipped in each week for us. The shavings will be drop shipped. So we have five office personnel that coordinate for the three teams.
They do handle all the legal work beforehand. They do all the prep work. They send a sheet out to us. We know where we’re going, where we’re stable when we get there. And then we’ll get with the local wholesalers, confirm all our shows, figure out where we’re showing, how we’re gonna hook up and go through that. And then we go to our normal routine of getting the horses ready, harness ready, trucks prepared for the show.
Clydesdales have a very rich history. They date all the way back to 1933 when August Bush Jr. presented them as a gift to his father to celebrate the repeal of prohibition. And today we still go around, carry on that tradition of bringing the Clydesdales into local communities and towns. And a lot of people have seen them on TV commercials and this gives them an opportunity to see them up close and personal.
For us to work here, it’s really rewarding to be able to bring them into towns because the people get to interact with them and truly see what a magnificent gentle giants they really are. And a lot of times when they come up to take pictures with them or pet them, they are amazed how magnificent and just gigantic the Clydesdales really are because they weigh about 2,000 pounds.
It’s pretty awesome. The Clydesdales, you know, represent our heritage. They’re an American icon. The best part of this job is pulling into a new town and, you know, seeing everybody excited that you’re here to spend the week. The best part of working is probably meeting the folks and, you know, seeing the smiles, knowing you can still put smiles on people’s faces. So that’s a pretty good feeling.
I mean, can you get a much better job? I mean, I don’t know how many times a day you’ll hear you got the greatest job and they’re not lying. And we’re coming in, people are happy that there’s generations, grandkids to grandparents seeing them. The horses are there, they’re glad to see the dogs. So I mean, it beats the heck out of going somewhere where no one wants to see you.
We want to thank each of you for joining us this time on General Giants. Pam and I had a great time here in the Fort Worth Stockyards, not to mention Billy Bob’s Texas. It was so much fun bringing Red the Clydesdale inside the showroom here at the world’s largest honky tonk and entertaining thousands outside. They got a glimpse of the famous Budweiser eight horse hitch. What a memory it was for those folks. We want to thank Doug, Todd, Shelby and Rudy for giving us a look inside a day in the life of the Budweiser Clydesdales.
Join us right back here next week on Gentle Giants. Or in the meantime, see what we’re up to on our Facebook page. Bye now.
Thank you.
