Page 4 - The Donald Rankin Family and Harness Racing

ISSUE : Issue 45

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1987/6/1

When the pulp mill got going good, the fel? lows then got bigger. And they'd get clear of their horses and they'd be into buying tractors. It got that there was no busi? ness--! mean, the farmers all had tractors. British-Canadian were the last people to go out of the horse business. (Was there then an abundance of horses, just too many around?) No--the Newfound? land trade took them. A lot of fellows kept a team when they got a tractor. (Would you sell horses to mink farmers for feed?) Oh yeah, I did. In the fall of the year, you'd have to clean up. I shipped to Ballards--I shipped carloads to them--for dog feed. But later on, 10 years ago, it got to be the mink horses were high. They were using them for feed--they were ship? ping them, I guess, to Belgium. (But) I was kind of backing off then. I was into the racehorses more. But we sold some. They were butchering them and killing them in Quebec. But they were paying good money. But that's gone now, too. They're not pay? ing anything for them. But you'd get 3 or 4 hundred dollars for a good horse to kill. We were butchering beef then, and we were killing for the Jews, the rabbi business. Kosher they called it. We had a slaughter? house and a walk-in fridge to keep the beef. Number one, they'd have to come and the rabbi would inspect the beef. So you'd have to blow up the windpipe, and they'd put the lung in the water. If there were any holes, if it was leaking, they wouldn't take it. Or if there was a nail or any? thing in the beef, in the stomach. Some? times you'd have to kill 3 or 4 or 5. The least little thing, they wouldn't take it. Ashby Medical Supply We Rent, Sell & Repair Hospital Equipment: wheelchairs, commode chairs, walkers, beds, canes (WALTER'S RENTALS) 4 SHERIFF AVE., SYDNEY (539-9616) They had a lot of theory was right, too. They didn't knock them out, they bled them a different way than we used to. They hung (the animal) in the air. We sold quite a lot of cattle at one time. They were shipping from one province to the other. When they built the abattoir in Halifax, they passed a law that you couldn't ship beef from one province to an? other without being government inspected. So we were shipping--everything changes so much. The coal piers were in North Sydney. So a fellow would come up for coal. And you'd be around. Like everything else, you'd build up. So he was taking his coal to some fellows, and you'd put your beef on top of the tarpaulins. You'd wrap it up, and he'd take it down for you to those (Newfoundland) outports. When he got the coal loaded, he'd take beef. And maybe his company would want a side or a carcass. Some of the fellows on the boat would want a quarter, two quarters, between them. In the fall of the year, when it got cool. Selling a lot that way. (But then they passed a law.) You couldn't do that. They seized it. Started going through the meat down there--their fridges--and they'd say, "Where's this gov? ernment stamp?" So they started seizing the beef. We were kind of bootlegging it for quite awhile. We even tried making stamps and stamping it ourselves! Then the coal pier went out of business. So our shipper was gone. Once you started going through the C.N.R. you couldn't ship it, they'd catch it right away. (Were you raising them or just buying?) No, I wasn't raising them: buying and selling them. You'd buy a bunch sometimes in the spring, and turn them out for the summer. You'd have them then if you needed them. We had a couple of rented farms. (Was that EASTLAND Plymouth chrysler ltd. "We Make Them the Best, So We Back Them the Best" Dakota 4 x 2 SE 7 Years/115,000 Kilometres 'The Best in the industry Lease a New Car for As Low As * $37.50 a Week * EASTLAND Plymouth Chrysler Ltd. Weiton Street, Sydney 539-2280 "Where You Can Lease for Less" P. O. Box 422, Truro, Nova Scotia B2N 505 FOR A SUMMER OF GREAT RACING Atlantic Grand Circuit Week July 29 to August 2 Lots of Parking Fully Licensed Dining Room Grandstand Seating for 1000 Reservations: (902) 893-8075 (4) The Home of (4) Rothman Sires Stakes in tRURO

Cape Breton's Magazine