LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Gerald and Kevin Claunch of Harrodsburg and Williamstown, Ky., are the nucleus of the Claunch Brothers draft horse pulling team. They participate in 10-11 official Bluegrass pulls throughout the state each year.

Rules allow for up to two more helpers during an actual pull. This year the Claunch Brothers entered two teams of Belgian horses in the Draft Horse Pull event at the Kentucky State Fair. This event was managed by the Bluegrass Horse Pulling Assoc. (BHPA) of Kentucky, which has managed it for several years. In fact, this was the group’s final championship pull.

Gerald and Kevin are both officers of Bluegrass Horse Pulling. Gerald’s wife, Trish, expressed her sorrow the day after the tournament about the family’s poor finish in the competition that Sunday afternoon.

“We had done well all year long and for some reason Sunday just wasn’t our day,” she said. “I was disappointed because Gerald and Kevin put their whole heart into working the horses.”

In 2009, the Claunch Brothers won the Kentucky State Fair competition, which the BHPA considers to be its annual championship. This year, a couple of Claunch Brother horses named Gabe and Jim partnered to pull 7,700 pounds of stone and metal for 25 feet, 3 inches, for which they earned the sixth-place finish out of 11 teams in the Lightweight Division.

The Claunch heavyweight team entry, Mike and Bill, pulled 8,450 pounds or 23 feet, 11 inches, for the eighth-place finish out of 11 contestants.

In the BHPA style of pulling, besides the team of two horses there may be 3-4 human “teamsters” who hold long leash-like reins to help settle and guide the powerful beasts that, together, must drag a deadweight sled behind them in the dirt. All of the teamsters walk behind the horses, two of them along the sides of the metal sled.

“Everybody that pulls around here has Belgians,” Gerald said. “And very few pull mares because they just aren’t as stout as the geldings.”

Vickie Lance-Zibell is a friend and acquaintance of the Claunch family, and Trish communicates with her on the Internet. Lance-Zibell is the author and creator of a website named Horsepull.com

Her father was a draft horse puller and her husband is one, as well. Lance-Zibell’s website has allowed her to become a central figure in the sport of draft horse pulling. She knows pulling families all over the country.

According to Lance-Zibell the draft animals that compete need to be worked every day in order to keep muscle tone and their tendons in shape. She said the horses are no less athletes than a weightlifter or football player preparing for their given sport.

The Claunch Brothers, who work full-time jobs, still have to give their teams a daily workout afterwards. But it is not all work, Gerald said: “Sometimes if we work them all week, we will give them off on a Sunday.”

The first-place teams were James, Carpenter & Floyd from Versailles and nearby Nicholasville, Ky., in the Lightweight Division, with horses Norm and Pete; and in the Heavyweight Division, the Humphrey and Heightchew team from Wilmore and nearby New Castle, Ky., took first place with Belgians Jim and Mike.