Welcome, Percheron Kartel!
Majestic appearance at Gut Aiderbichl Henndorf
Many of our society’s achievements would have been unimaginable without the horse. Many magnificent buildings and bridges that we admire today would probably not exist without the horse. Logging, for example, for which forestry tractors, winches and cranes are used today, would have been inconceivable in the past without horsepower. You could almost say that the horse was the engine of our early civilisation before industrialisation began its triumphal march.
Horse logging and carriage driving have survived into modern times. Despite the introduction of modern machinery, horses are still an important support in forestry today. Then as now, they enable sustainable and careful management of the forest and are considered an environmentally friendly alternative. The art of logging requires many skills that humans and animals have to learn together.
– Xenophon
“Let your horse be your trusted friend, not your slave!”
Sometimes a horse that is big and strong seems to be made for use as a logging horse – like the Percheron called Kartel. With his size, stature and strength, you would think he was predestined for this task. Like his mates, Kartel also underwent the challenging training and was trained both for logging work and as a carriage horse. However, it soon became apparent that something was wrong with the magnificent stallion. He was repeatedly lame and had to be treated. He also stumbled frequently. When Kartel fell while he was harnessed to the carriage, it was a turning point for everyone involved.
The brave stallion had already cost a lot of time and nerves and they didn’t want to invest any more in him. So he was discarded and sold to a cattle dealer – a death sentence for such a large horse that had no use.
But Kartel was lucky. The cattle dealer showed compassion and contacted Gut Aiderbichl. When Dieter Ehrengruber heard about this, he called the horse farmer Eva Zach:
“Hi Eva, I have just agreed to take in a horse. I’m so sorry and I want to help him. Can you take care of the pick-up? Oh yes, and – by the way – it’s a stallion,” he added with a laugh.
“Challenges are like opponents in the ring. You never turn your back on them.”
– Dr Wladimir Klitschko
Keeping stallions involves challenges that you have to be up to. First of all, castration is unavoidable. So we took Kartel to the clinic to have him castrated. To avoid any possible “accidents” up to that point, we temporarily took him to an outside yard where he had no contact with mares. Gelding Mundl kept him company during this time. During his stay at the clinic, it turned out that Kartel’s stumbling was possibly caused by arthrosis and laminitis. Unfortunately, he also suffers from laminitis.
We are grateful that we can now care for Kartel at Gut Aiderbichl and look forward to accompanying him in the years to come. We want to spend many more wonderful years together.
