By Rebecca Goldfine,Staff Writer
At the Fryeburg Fair, horse judges look for beauty, grace and presence.

FRYEBURG – You should not be able to take your eyes off them.

“Just look at them, ma’am,” Robert Sparrow said Thursday, the judge of the draft horse competition at the Fryeburg Fair. The tone of his voice indicated that looking should explain everything.

The horses thudded by, the bells on their harnesses jangling and the wheels of the painted wagons spinning fast.

“The right word is,” Sparrow began, trying to sum up what he looks for in a winning team of horses. “You love to look at them. You can’t take your eyes off of them.”

Throughout the morning, men and women perched in high wagons drove variations of draft teams by an eagle-eyed Sparrow, hoping to capture prize money ranging from about $20 to $576.

Two ponies in tandem, four ponies, two mares, four horses. The climax event was the eight-horse hitch, when eight enormous harnessed draft horses rolled around the track, making a dull thunder of clattering hooves laced with the tinkle of silver bells.

Sparrow said he looks for style, grace and presence in horses – and the details that create these abstract qualities. “Look at where their heads are. They’re really animated. Look at the legs below them,” he said, pointing to a winning team of four Haflinger ponies.

Judging an animal for beauty is about as difficult as judging anything for its beauty – it’s hard to pin down. And different judges have certain preferences.

Nancy Deschambeault, the fair’s assistant horse superintendent, said she noticed that the Missouri judge, who is new to the fair this year, liked high-stepping horses. Every year the fair hires a new judge with a fresh perspective to assess the horses, many of which come back repeatedly over the years, she said.

“He likes high action,” Deschambeault said. “The horses have got to be smooth and pretty. And he likes them moving. They better be sound and they’ve got to have good feet.”

Sparrow especially liked the horses belonging to Kirk Fenoff of Sugar Ridge RV Village in Danville, Vt., who placed first in several of the morning’s events, including the finale, the eight-horse hitch.

Fenoff won, among others, the contest of paired mares. Deschambeault said these horses were judged for a certain horsy femininity, as well as for the many things Sparrow looked for.

Sparrow, who wore a cowboy hat and cowboy boots to the event, said, “It’s something you grow up knowing.” He was raised in a household where “draft horses were never out of our family.”

Ken Wheeling of North Ferrisburg, Vt., a longtime show announcer at the Fryeburg Fair, explained over the microphone to the audience that one of the components the judge looks for in a beautiful horse is “confirmation,” which he defined as how well the horse is put together and how well it is muscled and boned up. And the second thing a judge is after is how well the horses work, how they use that muscle and bone. Finally, the judge wants to make sure the steeds fit to breed standards, Wheeling said.

But Sparrow was not so categorical in his breakdown of taste. Basically, he did not like horses that were blas or lacked presence. He also did not like horses that misbehaved by leaning their heads to the left, or by putting their ears back indicating displeasure, or ones that moved around too much.

“The last one was doing really good,” Sparrow said, until one mare in a pony competition started “ramming and jamming.”

And “the next ponies don’t have class,” he said as another team trotted off the field after being placed low in the ranking.

Of another non-winning team: “They don’t drive on like I want them to drive.” And another disappointment: “They drive perfect but they don’t have flash.”

But when a winning team trotted off the far end of a field after a competition, Sparrow said, his drawl mixing with pure appreciation, “They’re flowing down there.”