Equine ambassadors Pistol and Pete celebrate 10 years at UW
Like many educational institutions, the University of Wyoming (UW) champions new innovations and discoveries. However, UW has a unique respect for keeping traditional technologies alive, too.
In 2016, UW acquired a team of Haflinger horses dubbed Pistol and Pete.
For the past 10 years, Pistol and Pete have served as ambassadors for UW’s College of Agriculture, Life Sciences and Natural Resources.
The two horses make appearances at parades, field days, campus celebrations and many other events. They also haul food to farm animals and help students across the state learn about horses.
“Their purpose is to promote agriculture, education, Extension and teaching but also give a name to a face and a point of contact when it comes to our history, what agriculture is in this state and why it’s so important to us,” says Elias Hutchinson, Pistol and Pete’s teamster and assistant farm manager of the Laramie Research and Extension Center (LREC).
Pistol and Pete were first brought to UW as a celebration of the Wyoming Agricultural Experiment Station’s (WAES) 125th anniversary.
WAES is dedicated to conducting research throughout the state to help Wyoming communities thrive. At WAES research and Extension centers, researchers study everything from drought tolerance in field peas to rangeland management and pesticide usage.
Pistol and Pete live at LREC, one of WAES’s four research hubs.
Haflinger lingo
The original Pistol and Pete were in their late teens when they arrived at UW. They were Amish horses accustomed to farmwork. The current team began training in 2018 and fully took over for the old team in 2020.
Haflingers are a versatile breed of horse that can vary in appearance. UW’s first Pistol and Pete were shorter and stockier. The current Pistol and Pete are taller than their predecessors and have the refined, arched neck characteristic of Arabian horse breeds.
Haflingers were initially developed as farming horses in Germany. They may have been bred to be ridden and plow fields, but these days, Pistol and Pete excel at pulling a carriage in the Jubilee Days parades.
But Pistol and Pete are not just parade animals. Throughout the year, they help feed livestock at LREC. The team spends many winter mornings hauling hay to hungry sheep and cattle.
The team’s adaptability lends itself well to a university context. UW is one of the few universities in the U.S. with a teamster club. A “teamster” is the person driving a team of horses.
Every year, about 15 to 20 UW students work with Pistol and Pete at various events – helping push the wagon in and out of the trailer, showing kids how to pet the horses and even driving the team themselves.
Pistol and Pete also participate in animal science classes at UW, allowing students to learn about equine care, behavior and feeding.
Along the way, some students have gotten to know Pistol and Pete’s distinct personalities.
Meet Pistol
Pistol makes up his mind and then sticks with his opinion.
If he doesn’t want to go over a pothole, he’ll steer the whole carriage – and his friend Pete – around it.
“I call him a coward,” says Hutchinson. “But he’s really afraid of nothing.”
Rather, he’s simply opinionated and straightforward.
Hutchinson describes Pistol’s personality as “business, business, business.” In the harness, Pistol is focused on his job – parading gracefully while hauling a carriage.
Pistol is a little shorter than Pete, and he is the younger of the two horses by a year. This year he turned 10.
Meet Pete
Hutchinson calls Pete the “class clown” of the duo. As a colt, Pete was energetic and social, always wanting to nicker at other horses to invite them to play.
Despite Pete’s class-clown personality, the horse is usually at Hutchinson’s trusted left side.
“He and I have a lot of history,” says Hutchinson.
After years of working with his teamster, Pete is reliable and consistent.
In 2023, Pete got cancer behind his left eye and is now blind in it.
At first, Hutchinson tried driving Pete with his good eye on the outside so he could watch for obstacles, but Pete kept getting distracted trying to find Pistol. Nowadays, Pete’s good eye stays trained on the middle of the road, with Pistol in view.
“They do all that they do even though one of them has no depth perception,” comments Hutchinson.
The next 10 years
In the next decade, Pistol and Pete – along with their friend, a pony by the name of Cowboy Joe – will move into a renovated barn out at LREC.
The current Haflinger team will likely keep appearing at parties, fairs and field days for another 10 years. Meanwhile, a third Pistol and Pete team could begin their ambassador training at UW by 2030.
“It’s no small deal UW chooses to prioritize this tradition,” says Hutchinson. “We choose to do it the old way, and we choose to bring this tradition back and keep it alive.”
Maya Kate Gilmore is a writer and editor for UW Extension. This article was originally published by UW Ag News on Aug. 20.
