Man brings horse hobby to downtown Christmas event

With a grunt and a light haunch-smack, the 1,400-pound half-brothers Tucker and Ray jingled back into downtown traffic.

An hour into the Downtown Christmas Open House festivities in Cape Girardeau, carriage driver Steve Stroder of Marble Hill, Missouri, said his draft horses know the drill.

"It ain't like driving a car," he said. "But I don't have to worry about my horses. It's these stupid drivers."

Stroder, a genial 65-year-old, has been in the horse-and-buggy business for about 10 years and said aside from pulling the buggy for the holiday open house, he does mostly funerals.

"I had my hearse built," he said. "It had to be bigger. Wouldn't have been able to shut the door on a modern casket otherwise. Back then, you know, 5-(foot-)7 was a big ol' man."

For funerals, he said, he wears a period costume.

"Long black coats, top hats, that sorta thing," he said.

His bushy white mustache and occasional grandpappy-like chuckle are passable from the circa-1860s as well.

He's done parades in the past, he said, but it costs too much to insure his rig for a parade run. Apparently the thought of a spooked horse on the parade route spooks insurers.

But Stroder never was in it to make money in the first place. He's retired, and carriage-driving is a hobby.

He made a living making neon signs -- which he still does, just as another hobby -- for businesses from St. Louis to Memphis, Tennessee. Rolling down Cape Girardeau's Main Street, he can point to several of his pieces in the windows of Broussard's, Hot Shots and others.

He's able to do the yearly open house with the horse and carriage, he said, because Ray and Tucker -- half quarter horse, half Percheron -- are pretty even-keeled. Their biggest fear is being apart from each other.

"You can't separate 'em," Stroder said. "You don't even want to tie one up and take the other to where he can't see. They're just buddy-buddy like that."

Together, they pull at about 6 miles per hour and mind their own business, mostly.

Stroder puts special Amish-crafted shoes on his horses to keep them from sliding.

"Oh, they'd muss their butt if they had regular steel shoes on," he said. "But you bring 'em around the block a few times, they'll get it."

After three hours of carriage-rides, Stroder said, Ray and Tucker will be exhausted and looking forward to dinner.

"Horses are very easy animals to care for," he said. "That's 'giddon o'er here!' I'll feed 'em twice a day and that's it. All you gotta do is have water and grass, and a horse is content."

As for the carriage riders, contentment comes seeing such giant animals walking right down the street.

"We had a lot of fun riding and seeing the lights," said rider Becky Hann.

Her 4-year-old daughter, Gracie, thought Ray and Tucker were a bit stinky, but also offered praise.

"Yeah," she said. "I want to go again!"

tgraef@semissourian.com

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