Southern York County Life

Newcomer takes top prize

East Hopewell Twp. stallion an international champion

An 8-year-old working horse from York County who until this year knew only a life of labor showed that fairy tale dreams can come true.

Alex upset an international competition at his first show ever earlier this month. He took home the grand prize in the Haflinger breed with his “marvelous personality.” If you were to try to feed most stallions by hand, they’d likely take your hand along with the grass, said Andrew Mychalus, Alex’s owner.

But Alex isn’t your typical stallion. He isn’t even the boss on Mychalus’ 6-acre farm in East Hopewell Township, which includes a 21-year-old Arabian gelding named Hamdan and a 6-year-old Haflinger gelding, Amarillo, who is his half-brother. Amarillo has that job. And now, after the international competition in Harrisburg earlier this month, Alex’s cool temperament is likely to be known throughout the country.

Alex took home the Grand Champion Haflinger Stallion award at the 50th annual Keystone International Livestock Exposition in Harrisburg—even though he and the person who presented him had never been in a show previously.

The show was attended mostly by people from the mid-Atlantic region but attracted some from as far away as western Canada.

“It’s really a Cinderella story,” said Mychalus, who presented Alex at the show. “When they announced it, I swear, you could have knocked me over with a feather.”

Mychalus and his wife, Kathleen Florio, bought Alexander KCH—the acronym stands for Keim’s Corner Haflinger, the Ohio breeder’s name—in January from Alvin Beiler, an Amish man from Lancaster County.

Two competitions: They decided not to neuter the horse—which would make him a gelding—and were later encouraged by the Keystone Haflinger Association to enter their horses into the competition. Amarillo took fourth in one competition. Alex went all the way.

“I didn’t think he’d go far. I mean, here’s all these professionals and then there’s me with Alex, an unknown horse with a backyard hobbyist,” said Mychalus, a teacher in a Maryland school district. “I mean, we know our horses, but the show ring is a very distinctly different world.”

Before they married, both Mychalus and Florio were interested in horses and owned a few that were boarded at farms. The couple fled Delta three years ago when it became too much like “suburbia,” Florio said, and found a small 6-acre farm, with a house dating back to the American Revolution and a barn converted into a garage in serious need of repair.

Getting to Alex: Florio traded a mare with whom she was not getting along for Amarillo, a horse found by Beiler. Later on, when the Amish man told them about his retirement and sale of his horse, Mychalus said he wasn’t sure about whether he wanted a Haflinger. But since Alex came from the same father as Amarillo—whose name is Aladdin—he decided to check the horse out.

“Right away I could tell Alex was a magnificent horse,” Mychalus said.

Alex had never been shown in a competition before because he was foaled and raised by the Amish, Mychalus said. Participating in shows is considered worldly and not allowed by the Amish.

Haflingers—a breed that originated from Hafling, a town in Austria—are judged by their physical attributes, their temperament and their appearance. But Mychalus said they didn’t put bows or other fancy accessories on Alex for the show as other owners do. And that apparently didn’t matter to the judge, he said, who called Alex a “wonderful horse with a marvelous personality.”

Though the purpose of the competitions is to promote the best horses for the breed, Mychalus said they won’t be doing any artificial insemination, as many breeders do now. However, he said, they’ve left the opportunity open for natural breeding.

-- Reach Charles Schillinger at 505-5431 or cschillinger@yorkdispatch.com.

Source: The York Dispatch (we obtain permission for external material)
by CHARLES SCHILLINGER
Posted by Dan Baldwin on 10/24/2006 at 10:48 AM in News

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