Graham and Ebony

In the afternoon we headed to Brownhills to visit a canal festival put on by the Lichfield and Hatherton Canal Restoration Trust.  Lots of boats there, selling wares, despite the recent pollution of another section of the canal navigation nearby.  Thankfully this part of the canal is higher than where the pollution occurred, so was not affected.

Amongst the attractions was Ebony, an 18.2 hand shire horse, complete with the paraphernalia needed to pull the canal boats before engines were the norm.  Graham, the owner, told us that the horse would pull a canal boat weighing in excess of 35 tonnes, using a rope that was 100 feet long.  
There is quite a skill to the task as the rope would initially stretch when the horse started to move forward, before reaching its limit when the boat would start to move slowly away.  At times the elasticity in the rope might make the horse have to back up before the boat even started moving.  The person leading would have to encourage the horse to take small steps to begin with before the boat was underway at a typical speed.