Ellie’s Furcast: Horse Drawn Carriage Co.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - If you’ve ever spent a day in downtown Anchorage, odds are you have seen giant black horses trotting through the streets, giving people carriage rides. These horses belong to a man named Jon Nauman, who says he has spent his retirement “horsing around.”

“I like all horse as long as they are draft or work horses, and I like all breeds as long as they are Percherons,” Nauman said. “And I like all colors of horses as long as they’re black.”

Not at all picky about the type of horses he likes, Nauman says he started the Horse Drawn Carriage Co. LLC in 1983.

“We like to think we make people happy and we give them a chance to experience a little bit of how life used to be,” Nauman said.

People can go to his website and make a reservation for a carriage ride at any time of the year or rent for any occasion. There are sleighs, wagons, even an antique carriage — the Falling Front Brougham — built in 1893.

“I was told Liberace rode in this,” Nauman said about his Falling Front Bougham. “It’s over 130 years old and I don’t know if this is true or not, but somebody told me that there’s only five of these left in the country and they’re in museums, but I still use mine.”

Pulling carriages of this size might be a heavy task for smaller breeds of horses, but not for Percherons. According to the Percheron Horse Association of America, Percherons originate from France and have gone from being a war horse, to a diligence horse, to now a draft and working breed.

“We call them the gentle giants,” Nauman said. “And you have to remember they’re gentle some of the time, giants all the time.”

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