Even though my childhood home was in the middle of a big city, I was crazy for horses ever since I was a toddler. There was a depot for one of the two Danish breweries in one of the many basement commercial outlets in the huge apartment complex where I grew up. Both breweries still used a few teams of horses for deliveries, mostly for the advertising value I suppose, and some of my earliest memories are of one of those teams, which would stop in front of my apartment building every day as part of their delivery route. They were either Belgians or Jutlands; I am not sure which, but they were so big that I could easily have walked underneath their bellies without ducking my head. How I loved those giant beasts! I couldn't have been more than 3 or 4 years old. I would beg bread scraps from my mother so I could give them to the two horses, and we became fast friends. I had to make sure I'd stand out in the street in front of them. If I stayed on the sidewalk like I was supposed to, they would follow me in across the curb, and then they would get scolded by the driver when he returned from his errand in the cellar depot.
There were several such hitches in and around Copenhagen. The one in this picture, though not the actual horses I knew, will give you the idea. This was one of the teams of Belgian horses from Tuborg, one of the two main Danish breweries. Great advertising, but they weren't just for show; they actually did deliveries all around town. The straw hats were red and green, the Tuborg colors.
Here is hitch from the other Danish brewery, Carlsberg. Quite spectacular; these are Jutland horses.
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