working-horses.com
the website of William Castle
This site is mostly about the practical aspects of using horses in harness, focussing on how we can and how we do use horses today. Some of the writing is easy reading, some of it is more technical, intended for those who already use their own horses for doing their work.
On some pages I delve into the historical use of draught horses, sometimes I explore the interrelated subjects of farming and the environment, but the relevance of the cart horse and its application in today’s world is never far away…
Enjoy!
Articles
Read some of my many articles about the practicalities and the thought processes of working with horses, complete with numerous pictures of horses at work.
Books
Find out about my new book –
‘Working Horses: Tradition, Innovation and Sustainability’
and my first book, ‘Ron Creasey: Last of the Horselads’
What’s New
See the latest content added to this site.
This site is all new, so all the content is new!
Working Horses in the Modern Day
My aim with this website is to further the spread of good information about using draught horses for work, and to encourage people to do more with their own horses, both safely and usefully.
Working with draught horses is a complex and subtle craft. To be comfortable and successful we need to understand horse behaviour, know how to guide them and respond in a wide range of situations. We also must understand how the harness, hitch and implements work and how using horses affects our area of activity.
Some of these aspects of working horsemanship can only be learnt through hands-on interactions with horses, but there are other aspects, such as fitting harness and understanding machinery which can, in part, be learnt by observing, listening and by reading.
There is therefore a lot about these technical aspects on this site, but also, woven into the stories, explanations and descriptions is an approach, you might even call it a philosophy, which I first imbibed on the farm where I started out with horses, an approach defined by the expectation that you can do work with horses, and do it well.
New Book
William Castle’s new book ‘Working Horses: Tradition, Innovation and Sustainability,’ was newly released in 2025.
This book explores the world of the draught horse in different ways, through the eyes of farmers who use horses to run their farms, by examining some of the ‘harder-to do’ tasks such as ploughing, and by digging into the author’s own experience of working with horses, much of it with a single horse.
Alongside the thoroughly practical chapters, are others which take a step back from the furrow to look at the wider world and the working horse in relation to it.
Although there are some references to the past, ‘Working Horses…’ places the workhorse in a contemporary setting; it is both a practical book and one which inspires us to appreciate the connections between nature and farming, between soil and sustainability, and the beneficial effects of using horses on the environment and ourselves.
