Obituary by Sue Day
Jayne Bradley’s horse PRINCE, a Clydesdale at 16.3hh, had to be put to sleep on the morning of Sunday May 16th. Prince will be sorely missed by all who knew this gentle giant.
Prince was well known at the Black Country Living Museum where Jayne had been head horse-keeper for 8 years, and she worked Prince there in many ways, pulling a cart, dray, omnibus, or the ice-boat Ross. He gave the horseboating demo with Ross at the first Horseboating Society AGM at the BCLM in 2002.
Out of the museum, he had pulled both steamboat President and horseboat Kildare to a local yard for repairs.
He attended the Parkhead Festival every two years where he worked on the top lock, demonstrating the use of a pulley wheel to send a boat out of the lock in the opposite direction to the way the horse was walking.
Prince worked under the HBS banner in September 2009 when he pulled a loaded boat of the Coombeswood Trust to the Windmill Festival. Loaded with about 17 tons, Prince travelled 3 miles in a charity pull, comparing times with a bow-hauled boat (manpower) and a motorboat (motor power). The boat was legged through Gosty Tunnel en route. To Jayne’s delight, Prince put in a winning time.
The report came to HBS:
“Prince had been out in the field with Shire horses Toby, Polly and also Barney but had been unable to get up in the morning of Sunday May 16th. We got the JCB and lifting ropes and the vet and seven people but he just could not put any weight on his legs once hoisted up. We all tried and tried but in the end the vet said that there was nothing more that could be done.”
Prince at Delph Locks in 2008.