Those Memorable Mine Ponies

Mine ponies were the same as any other ponies while
they were colts growing up. They were all shapes and
colors but all in small sizes. It was after they had proved
their worth for a few years that they moved into a class
of their own, many of them didn't get that far. It was a
tricky job buying these horses and a lot trickier making
mine horses of them later.

If the coal mine in question had lots of head room like the
Shaughnessy mine, then horses could be picked up from
farms, because there were lots of good medium sized
horses available. They had proved themselves on the
field and they had already had a few years in the harness.
All they had to learn was to do everything on command,
not with a pair of reins. Another thing that made it bad was
that many farmers had worked in the mines at some time
and felt sorry for the horses there and he wouldn't sell the
mine company a good horse, but they would sell one that
they couldn't do anything with themselves, and ask a
good price for it too.

It was those little one's like Welsh and Shetland ponies that
gave the real problems and yet some of them turned out to
be real loveable characters, each in a different way. No
matter how good or how bad a horse was, the driver made
a lot of difference too. When I look back on it now, I think
the horses taught the drivers to some extent and some of
them taught drivers to seek employment elsewhere. However,
some of the drivers learned easily and after a while they got
along just fine. I think this was the case when I first started
driving in about 1936, because that little white mare knew
all there was to know about pulling cars and keeping herself
out of the way.

If we were to speak of a mine pony among a group of men in
Coalhurst fifty years ago a vision of the animal would flash into
the minds of ninety per cent of the people. Today it would only
register on a few old men who remembered them.

Mine horses didn't wear bridles with blinkers to keep them from
seeing behind. They had to see behind for their own protection.
They wore helmets with ear holes and straps to hold up the bit.
The rein, if any, was usually a piece of light rope running
alongside the horse, through loops on the harness, just around
the rump and forward on the other side. The hames were only
to the top of the collar and the traces were chains all the
way to the butt stick. The harness had no back band or
belly band, but a pair of breaching straps ran from the hames
back to a leather pad on the horse's rump. Two small straps
ran down each side from this pad to carry the trace chains
and the butt stick, a short, stout wooden cross piece carried
a few inches above the hocks and below the tail bone so as
not to be in the way.

A stronger chain, but light as possible ran back about five feet
to the clevis. The clevis had a ring on the top of the pin large
enough for the driver to grab with two or three fingers and the
pin had a slight flair on the bottom to keep it from coming
completely out of the clevis. This was quite necessary as
their driver had to be able to unhook the horse on the run
and turn it into a slant and let the cars roll on by. The
driver simply swung the tail chain gently over the horse's back
and let the clevis dangle on one side. If the chain was left to
drag it may get caught under a car wheel and drag the horse
backwards. The butt stick and tail chain remained as part
of the harness even when it was hung up for the night.

We are all somewhat aware of the methods of driving horses
on the farm, but mine horses had to learn a lot more. The
farm horse could learn his giddup, whoa and back-up by
working with others, but the pony in the dark had to learn it
all by himself. He also had to know "gee," (turn right), 'haw"
(turn left), "haw, come here," (turn around completely and
come back) and many other little signals. Some horses
learned it all quite easily, especially if it had a good trainer
and the horse gained confidence in him.

Albert Deitrich got a raw young horse, only halter broke, and
in about one week he was hauling coal with it. He just
talked gently to it always and his brother Frank, kidded
him about whispering secrets into the horse's ear. It wasn't
too long before he had the horse opening doors by
ducking its head and pushing the door with the helment.

One thing most of them learned quickly was how to start off
with several cars. Any experienced driver would hook his
trip together and make sure all the cars were bumper to
bumper, "Bumped-up," as we called it. This meant there
was almost two feet of stock chain between each car and
the next. Then he would hook the tail chain to the first car,
point his spot light straight ahead to show the horse all the
light he could and say "giddap" quite sharply.

The horse knew by the way he spoke that he meant "hit it."
The horse would find good footing between the rails and
lunge forward so the the first car had enough speed to
start the second and then the weight of the two would
start the third and so on. It helped a lot if the horse would
slow down if you said "easy now" or something soft, but
most of them never did. I drove a few horses that needed
no slowing down, they were slow enough.

I don't remember all the horses I knew but a few had some
memorable characteristics. Susie, the first one I drove
would move the first car ahead about a foot so that I could
couple the next, all I had to say was " giddap a step."
She was so gentle that at quitting time in warm weather
she would walk onto the cage and come out for the night
and go back down with us in the morning. The laziest was
Billy, fairly large for a Welsh pony. If I wanted to stay
behind a couple of cars so that I could hook another one
on further along, he wouldn't tighten the chain at all, I'd
have to climb past the cars and get right behind him where
I could encourage him with a sprag.

Timmy was ornery, small, mean and useless. He didn't stick
around long. He got another job feeding foxes. Sammy
was just the opposite, full of fire and vinegar. He was a
small black stallion with sharp ears and every ounce solid
muscle. The top of his collar was level with my belt buckle,
but when he started out with a four car trip his back was
about two feet from the rails and he was trying to push the
ties out with his powerful hind legs. He would follow all the
commands instantly, except " whoa. " As long as the cars
came behind he tried to go faster and had to be held with
the rein. I used him one winter in an area almost completely
mined out and the roof was pressing down so heavily we
had to dig holes between the tips for Sammy to put his
feet in. There was about two or three hundred feet like
that and it was hard for me to run between the horse
and car so I just shone the light ahead and sent Sammy
down alone. Sylvia Bridorolli was loading down there
and he would set out a carrot for Sammy as a reward, then
he would hook him up to the two cars and let him go. I
would show Sammy some light and by the time he got up
this hill I really had to move fast to get him unhooked
and into an old room niche before the cars flew past. I
had to put two sprags in the wheels of the second car as
it passed, to slow the trip down for the next incline.

That horse had a lot of smart built into his head. Sometimes
at quitting time I would bring four cars out with me as far as
the stable. There was a swag or low spot in the main entry,
so I cut Sammy off and let him run ahead and I eased the trip
down with some sprags in the wheels. He would wait for me
at the bottom and I removed the sprags and hooked him on
and he could pull the four cars up the slight hill.

One day I tried to bring five cars and all went well till we tried
to go up the little hill. When Sammy felt the jerk of each
car starting off, there was one "bump" too many. He just
stopped and looked back at me. If he had said "look, Buster,
go and unhook that last car," I wouldn't have been surprised.
I unhooked two cars just to make him happy.

Most horses wouldn't wander away in the darkness, but if
Sammy got loose from the inside stable, he occasionally
wandered all the way to the pit bottom just by staying between
the rails. Sammy wasn't the only horse that liked lettuce
sandwiches nor was he the only one that knew how to get
them out of a lunch pail. Down the mine, you put your lunch
pail where the horse ain't.

There were always long tales about those noble little beasts
with the short tails, but now there are fewer people to tell them
and even fewer to appreciate their contribution. When I think
of the few horses I've known compared to some of the drivers
who worked in Coalhurst mine or No. 6, dozens of horses
working every day, all day, some of them must have been
almost human. I don't know the record time that any particular
horse stayed down below, but it may have been years without
seeing daylight. Some were taken out for the slack time and
Coalhurst mine had a section of land for pasturing the horses
southwest of the village. It was not the easiest thing in the world
to bring horses out either, especially if they were the scary
type. These horses were valued very highly and there was a
risk of injuring them on the cage.

These wonderful animals are now extinct in this area. They will
no longer trot merrily along a dark entry with the tail chain
just tight enough to know they are out of the way of the
bumpers, banging on the switch plate with their steel
shoes and watching the room necks go by, ever ready to
step out of the way if driver decides to cut the cars into
one of them. They drifted unheralded into the past never
to return.