Susan Finnerty

WHETHER it’s their classic Yuletide scene of its eight-horse team trotting through the snow or mischievous Clydesdale youngstock having a snowball fight, no Christmas advertisement season is complete without Budweiser’s annual offering.

This year’s vintage-style commercial features scenes from the Budweiser Brewery stables in St Louis, where Scott Smith patiently fields a frequently-asked question.

“No, the puppy isn’t here,” he smiles, when asked about the adorable Labrador star of their most recent Superbowl advertisement campaigns, “but we do have Rascal.” A typical 30-second TV advertisement slot during the National Football League championship game each February costs $4.5 million to air and Budweiser have knocked it out of the proverbial ballpark with their standout ‘Puppy Love’ and ‘Lost Puppy’ advertisements of the past two years.

The Clydesdale breed originated in Scotland and was introduced to Canada and North America by Scottish settlers. Several Irish-bred show jumping stars such as Ryans Son and Lisnamarrow have also featured Clyde breeding and Rascal showcased the jumping ability of the breed when he cleared a 4ft 6” post and rail fence during the 2014 ‘Puppy Love’ commercial. This gentle giant is one of several Clydesdales housed in the historic stables at the brewery, where the flags are flying at half-mast this morning.

September 11th happened to be the date of the visit to the St Louis landmark, home to the Budweiser Clydesdales since 1885. And the horses featured once more in the brewery’s somber 9/11 commercial, rated as one of the most all-time iconic television advertisements. Aired only once, its closing shot of a New York backdrop, showed the Clydesdale team bowing in tribute.

That the horses are regarded as a popular part of American culture is clear by the constant stream of visitors taking part in the brewery guided tours which pass through the stables every 20 minutes. The red brick structure, with its stained glass windows, tiled floors and mahogany loose boxes, is registered as an historic landmark and also houses three Budweiser beer wagons on display in the rotunda-style building.

One of the Clydesdales is being groomed and skillfully plaited nearby in preparation for an appearance at the opening of a local bar later that day. Coordinating these local and national appearances by the in-demand Budweiser Clydesdales, who make an average of one public appearance every three days around America, is one of Scott Smith’s chief responsibilities.

“I started with Budweiser as a summer job in Tampa and here I am years later,” he says proudly.

Display teams are also based in Merrimack, New Hampshire and Fort Collins, Colorado with St Louis as the midwestern base. According to Smith, the cost of a public appearance by the eight-horse team is met by Budweiser’s local wholesaler and with thousands of requests received each year, the various display teams can be on the road for up to 10 months each year.

Each team is accompanied by their trademark Dalmatian, who sits up on the driver’s seat. Dalmatians were historically used as coach dogs and in the brewery’s case, were used to guard the wagon’s contents during delivery rounds.

A wagon and team of horses weighs in at 12 tonnes and so drivers undergo an intensive training programme before becoming a “Budweiser Clydesdale Hitch Driver”.

All their horses are bred ‘in-house’ with 30-40 purebreds foaled each year at the company’s 300-acre Warm Springs Ranch in nearby Booneville. Scott explains that fillies are typically retained as future broodmares while geldings which meet the criteria for a Budweiser Clydesdale – bay with a blaze, four stockings and black mane and tail - are earmarked for that future role.

A typical display horse measures 17.2hh (178cms), although even these gentle giants can be overshadowed. “One of our visitors was LeBron James,” says Scott, recalling the visit by the 6ft 8” NBA basketball star to the stables. “He made these guys look like ponies when he stood beside them!”

At the end of their hitch team career, the horses are retired to the brewery’s farms, which also includes Grants Farm near St Louis, which is another open to the public.

“Teddy”, “Thomas” and “Murry” are some of the nameplates hanging over the current residents’ stables on the brewery’s 100-acre complex, where the smell of fermenting grain hangs in the air. The team horses’ names are typically kept short for the driver to give commands to individual horses.

The harness room cabinets are filled with gleaming patent leather harnesses and collars which Scott explains are custom made for each horse. Each set of harness, including the bespoke collar, weighs up to 130 pounds and costs an average of $60,000.

Another essential piece of equipment is horseshoes and the nearby farrier’s workshop has a stack of the massive shoes – a typical shoe measures 20 inches from end to end and weighs around 5lbs - used by the draught horses, descendants of the Great Flemish Horse.

The substantial cost of keeping the iconic Budweiser Clydesdales operation running is one regarded by the company, the leading US brewery since 1957, as outweighed by the priceless and unique form of advertising it provides. “And,” reasons Smith, “it’s part of American heritage.”

THE BUDWEISER STORY

Eberhard Anheuser was a German immigrant who became part-owner of the Bavarian Brewery which opened in 1852 in St Louis where he had settled. His daughter Lilly married Adolphus Busch in 1861 and the company was re-named Anheuser-Busch in 1879, three years after the brewery invented its signature lager beer ‘Budweiser’.

In April 1933, Adolphus Busch’s son August A. Busch senior was given a surprise present of a team of six Clydesdales by his two sons to commemorate the repeal of Prohibition. And so began the long-running Budweiser Clydesdales story.

MEET ME IN ST LOUIS

  • Founded by French settlers, St Louis was once home to over 50 breweries in the mid-1850s of which only Budweiser survives. The city, situated on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River between Missouri and Illinois, was often used as a jumping-off point for pioneer wagon trains moving west.
  • The midwestern city’s railway station was once the world’s largest and during the 1940s, 100,000 passengers passed through Union Station daily, another of St Louis’ landmark buildings. St Louis was the third largest city (after Chicago and Los Angeles) on iconic American highway Route 66.
  • Another landmark the Gateway Arch celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. German and Irish immigrants flocked to the city in the mid-19th century. The city houses the largest Bosnian community outside Bosnia after many refugees settled there in the past two decades.
  • On the German-Irish connection, pride of place is a bronze statue of St Louis Cardinals baseball legend Stan Musial. ‘Stan The Man’ was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama in 2011 two years before his death. The stallion Stan The Man (TB), who stood in Limerick with the late John Shorten before moving to Germany, is the sire of Michael Jung’s European, World and Olympic gold medal La Biosthetique Sam.