HELENA — Their size may be what first catches your eye, weighing in at around a ton and standing about 6 feet tall, but the Budweiser Clydesdales have a history that goes back more than nine decades.
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“It all started in 1933 when August Busch Jr. gave his dad the present of the Clydesdales to celebrate the end of prohibition,” Todd Radermacher, the Budweiser Clydesdales West Coast supervisor, said.
Since then, the Clydesdales have become one of the most recognizable symbols associated with the Budweiser brand.
They’ve appeared in parades, special events, and generations of television commercials, including their first Super Bowl appearance in 1975.
“It is a pleasure, and it is something not a lot of people get to do, and it is something you can do to put smiles on people’s faces,” Radermacher added.
This week, the tradition is making its way through Southwest Montana. The Clydesdales stopped in East Helena, Townsend, and downtown Helena, giving people the chance to see the horses up close and delivering the beverage to bars.
“Well, it is a part of tradition; you know it is something you don’t see anymore,” Radermacher said. “These were the working horses that did the work before there were semis and everything else, so it is a piece of history.”
The horses travel with handlers who oversee their care on the road, and the hitch includes the famous horses, their traditional beer wagon, and the equipment needed to keep them moving from community to community.
“There are seven handlers that take care of 10 horses and two dogs, and we travel on the road a little over 300 days a year, and that all requires 3 semis and a van that goes down the road to get everything moved,” Radermacher said.
And although their work is for marketing and meeting the public, teams include extra horses so individual animals can rest and rotate off the road to stay healthy.
The tradition continues in Montana with stops in Bozeman and Belgrade.
