By Daniel Hartill,Staff Writer
The Budweiser Clydesdales will visit L-A for first time in 24 years

LEWISTON – Giant 2,000-pound draft horses – the famous Budweiser Clydesdales – will soon be seen all over Lewiston-Auburn.

The beer company icons will appear next week at the Colisee, Auburn’s Festival Plaza, the parking lot at Wal-Mart and the front stoop at the Franco-American Heritage Center.

“It’s been so long since they’ve been here,” said Mike Klemanski, marketing director for Lewiston-based Federal Distributors. “We’ve been trying to get them here for, literally, decades.”

A Clydesdale team last came to Lewiston in July 1982.

So Klemanski and his company, which distributes Anheuser-Busch products across central and mid-coast Maine, have booked the horses to a tight schedule during their visit.

Besides the Lewiston-Auburn appearances, they are due to appear at the Topsham Fair, the Maine Lobster Festival Parade in Rockland and the parking lot of the Shaw’s supermarket in Bath.

They will be brought to Maine in a custom caravan of tractor-trailers, a mere piece of the Clydesdale operation.

The ride ought to be smooth. The tractor-trailers are rigged with air-cushion suspensions and thick rubber flooring. They also sport cameras, through which handlers can monitor the horses as they ride.

Anheuser-Busch draws teams of horses from five farms around the United States. The animals travel at least 10 months of the year.

The horses will come to Maine from an Anheuser-Busch farm in Merrimack, N.H., where 30 Clydesdales are kept.

During their local stay, the horses will be kept at the Topsham Fair Grounds, arriving two days before they begin their appearances. One full day will be used to bathe and groom the 16 horses that will make the journey, said Hans Jager, Budweiser’s East Coast hitch supervisor.

Of the 16, not all will be in the spotlight.

Eight will be used in the team that will be hitched together at the Colisee Aug. 3. Four other horses will be shown individually. And four more will be kept as spares, Jager said.

The aim is to have content, impeccably groomed animals to interact with the public.

During one-horse shows, like those planned at Festival Plaza and the Franco center, people will have the opportunity to pet the Clydesdale and appreciate their size up close.

Each stands about 6 feet tall at the shoulder and weighs as much as 2,300 pounds. Each eats 20 to 25 pounds of feed and drinks 30 gallons of water each day, according to a Budweiser news release.

Such numbers – and the expectation of giant-sized poop – led Franco center director Rita Dube to wonder, “Where do you put a Clydesdale?”

The answer, she discovered, is right in front of the former church. A Budweiser scooper will come along.

Klemanski plans to set up a horse on the stone platform at the corner of Cedar and Oxford streets.

Dube hopes the horse will draw people to the center’s paid events, scheduled that weekend as part of the Festival FrancoFun.

“Anyone driving by won’t be able to miss the horse outside,” she said.

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