Winning continues for ZD Pickering Family Farms of Prince George

They claim heavy horse hitch reserve championship in Minnesota

Days after winning the World Champion Heavy Horse Hitch title at the 2026 Calgary Stampede, the ZD Pickering Family Farms Big Six team from Prince George created some hooved thunder south of the border. Driven by teamster Tim Sparrow and his wife Britney, the Pickerings’ black geldings trotted into the arena at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds in Saint Paul, Minn., and were judged reserve champions of the supreme Six Horse Hitch competition. The overall winner was Wilson Farms of Vankleek, Ont.

The World Percheron Congress event on Saturday, July 11 drew 32 entries. The event was livestreamed and is available on You Tube. The Pickering victory lap is around 2:43:00 into the video.

The awards continued to pile up for Pickering Farms when they entered the heavy horse pulling events on the final weekend of the 10-day Stampede. On Saturday, Stoney and Bill, two of the prize pupils of Pickering’s stable in Pineview, won the Calgary Stampede middleweight division and they teamed up to pull 11,500 pounds. Lenny and Goose claimed the lightweight event, dragging a stone-boat loaded with 11,000 lbs.

The heavy horse competition involves teams of two horses dragging a steel stone-boat weighed down with cement blocks. If none of the teams can reach the required 14 feet, the winner is whichever team can pull the weight furthest. Teams are also judged on their overall appearance.

The Pickerings finished second in the heavyweight pull at he Stampede. Draft horses were the working animals of Canadian farms in the early decades of the 1900s. The heavy horse breeds — Clydesdales, Shires, Belgians and Percherons — were essential to grain farmers for their ability to move heavy loads and plough fields.

The heavy horse pull started out as a way for farmers to settle bets as to who had the strongest team and it’s become a staple competition at fairs like the Calgary Stampede and BC Northern Exhibition in Prince George.