Holding the reins as a carriage driver

Sarah Ein­se­len — Staff

Tom Mur­phy, co-owner with Rich Wolfe of T&S Coun­try Car­riage Ser­vice, holds percherons Jake and Jim at a stand­still while chil­dren climb out of and into the car­riage and ven­ture to pet Jake.

By Sarah Einselen

Inquirer Reporter

Each year at Come Home to Galion, one of the most pop­u­lar attrac­tions Uptowne is the free car­riage rides embark­ing from the steps of the Galion Pub­lic Library. Young chil­dren wait in line to sit in the seats behind the dri­ver. But what’s it like to be hold­ing the reins?

Tom Mur­phy, who with part­ner Rich Wolfe owns T&S Coun­try Car­riage Ser­vice and recently pur­chased Pine Acres Rein­deer Farm and Car­riage Ser­vice, drove a white car­riage around and around the library block for about two hours on Sat­ur­day, Dec. 3, trail­ing the larger wagon that the com­pany also brought. Mur­phy launch-ed T&S in 2005.

“I had draft horses and I just decided to start doing it,” he said. He already had a show har­ness, as well, that he’d pur­chased in 1995. That was the har­ness he used to hitch his percherons, a breed of pow­er­ful draft horses, to the lit­tle white car­riage he drove on Saturday.

That har­ness also rep­re­sents what usu­ally sur­prises peo­ple about the business—how expen­sive it is to oper­ate. The har­ness is made of bionylon-covered leather in order to repel water and cost $3,000. Add to that the cost of the two sleighs, two car­riages and two “people-movers” that T&S owns, plus the feed for each horse. Then there’s the time that a car­riage dri­ver spends.

“If I’m doing a wed­ding it’ll take me a whole day just to get ready,” Mur­phy said. He has to clean every­thing, each horse, each piece of equip­ment, each horse stall. He has to make sure the horses stay clean, too, coax­ing them back inside their stalls if they try to explore the dirt and mud outside.

Dur­ing the sum­mer, Mur­phy bales hay and straw and main­tains the stalls for the company’s six horses. The horses’ feet are trimmed every eight weeks through­out the year.

But the work’s worth it when he sees children’s smil­ing faces.

“See­ing lit­tle kids being happy, and if I’m going to a wed­ding, see­ing the peo­ple there,” he said, was the most reward­ing part of being a car­riage driver.

Posted by Sarah Einselen on Dec 7 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.