Matt Flumerfelt
Walter Byrd has been involved with horses all his life. He used to attend the horse and cattle auction in Quitman.
When a sulky type horse carriage came through a few years ago, Byrd said, “It just kinda grabbed me.” He thought that driving a buggy and using it to transport passengers would be a neat thing to do. He was the high bidder on the buggy that day, but the auctioneer “no-saled’ it because it didn’t fetch a high enough price.
Byrd later went to talk to the buggy’s owner about buying it, and they worked out a deal. He bought two buggies. Byrd had a lot of experience riding horses, so he figured learning how to operate a horse-drawn carriage would be a cinch. He refurbished and reupholstered the buggies, bought a pulling horse, acquired the necessary license and began offering carriage rides.
Byrd was surprised by the reaction of patrons to his horse and buggy service. In Valdosta, when he parked near Hildegard’s on the corner of Central Avenue and Patterson Street, he said people were asking to ride right and left.
“I felt like we should be paying them,” he said, “we were having so much fun.”
Byrd thinks the buggy rides are a great way to promote Valdosta’s historic downtown area.
“If you go to Charleston, S.C., or Savannah, or St. Augustine, you think of these buggy rides,” he said.
Byrd said kids today have lost touch with the kind of outdoor life he enjoyed growing up and thinks being involved with horses is a great way to reconnect them with their environment.
“If kids would get more involved with nature and animals, the jails wouldn’t be so full,” he said.
When he was young, Byrd’s uncle Charlie owned a horse named Maud. He said he went to Uncle Charlie’s every chance he got to ride Maud. His uncle later acquired a colt, which he named Stormy because it was born during a stormy night.
Byrd spent considerable time in Pompano Park in Pompano Beach, Fla. Over the past 40 years the track has played host to many world champion horses and race events, including the prestigious Breeder Crown Championships, according to information found at www.horseswild.com. He owned and raced quarter horses and Appaloosas. He bought his first racehorse at the Quitman horse auction. Quarter horses run short distances, he said, usually 440 and 880 yards. At one time he owned and raced nine horses.
Byrd rode a lot when he was, in his words, “young and foolish,” and took some chances he wouldn’t take now.
“I’ve broke a lot of horses,” he said, “and I’ve been on some I shouldn’t have been on.”
He’s had various injuries as a result of trying to show horses who’s boss, including a concussion and broken elbow.
Byrd said it’s not necessary to break horses the old fashioned way, in a sort of showdown or contest of wills. A couple times a year, he travels to Perry to buy buggies and tack, i.e. harnesses and other equipment from his Amish friend Alvin Yoder. He said Amish horses are often trained to respond to simple verbal commands, so they seem almost “remote-controlled.” The Amish don’t have electricity and the kinds of distractions others do, so they have plenty of time to devote to things like training their horses, he said.
“You have got to have a lot of love and patience to work with horses,” he said. “You don’t have to be violent with them. These horses I’ve got are like family to me. I’m over six feet tall, and if anything happened to one of them, I’d cry.”
Byrd leaves most of the driving to Leonides Orizaba, a native of Mexico who also lives in Hahira. Running his buggy service is more expensive than folks realize, Byrd said. Horses that work on the street must be shod every six weeks, which costs between $90 and $150 each time. Then there are the encephalitis shots two or three times per year and the horse trailers to transport them. Horses also have to be wormed and groomed regularly.
His main buggy horse is named I Am A Hercules, but Byrd calls him Bob. His other horse, the brother of I Am A Hercules, is named I Am A Samson, but they call him Sam. Sam worked at Universal Studios pulling the Cinderella carriage before Byrd acquired him.
He uses Percherons — also called Belgians — to pull his buggies because they’re draft horses and have greater endurance than other breeds. Other horses are physically shot after a couple hours, he said, whereas Percherons are just getting warmed up.
Byrd, Orizaba, and his horse-drawn carriages participate in First Thursday events in Nashville, Third Thursday events in Quitman and Hahira, and the Hahira Honeybee Festival. He also acts as Santa’s sleigh in the annual Hahira Christmas parade. He is a photographer and wants to expand his services to include offering photos and postcards to patrons as a souvenir. At one time he owned a photography studio in Adel called Photography By Byrd and did school pictures, weddings, portraits, etc.
Altogether, Byrd owns five Vis-a-vis white buggies, two wagonettes, and a black buggy built in the 1800s. He also owns a machine used to mount buggy tires that he got from his Amish friends, who taught him how to use it. He owns his own farm in Hahira. He has two brothers, neither of whom cares anything about horses, he said.
