Letting Horses Do the Work: In addition to being ridden or driven for pleasure, many horses still work for a living. Some of these equines have jobs that do not immediately come to mind when considering horse-powered chores. A number of relatively ingenious methods have been created to convert the considerable strength of horses to augment human exertion.
Generating Power:
Some working horses can generate power by walking in circles to turn machinery. For example, orghum and sugar cane mills, where plants are fed into a set of gears that crush the stalks. Olive presses, water pumps, and sawmills have been operated with this simple arrangement using direct power. There’s a disadvantage to having the horses or other animals moving constantly in a circle. Fatigue, which happens from using muscles to turn in only one direction.
Horses can also be put on a small treadmill that is connected to belts and pulleys. Arrange the belts in various combinations. The power of one or two horse can be multiplied many times to run machines for splitting firewood, working with wood or metal, threshing and cleaning grain, or shelling corn. There are even designs for horse-powered washing machines. With a treadmill, the disadvantage of constant turning can be eliminated.
Walking in a straight line over the ground rather than in a circle or on a treadmill, horses can haul logs, heavy sleds, or wagons loaded with a variety of materials.
Mechanical Devices:
Many mechanical devices have been invented to save human energy by allowing horses to power agricultural work. One example from 150 years ago was illustrated in Scientific American. It utilized a team of horses for harvesting hay. The horses pulled a wagon that included a scoop-shaped blade running along the ground to pick up a line of raked hay. A wheel behind the scoop rotated as it was pulled along the ground. Then, as this wheel rotated, it moved a conveyer belt that raised the hay and dumped it onto a platform above the wagon. A man standing on the platform then forked the hay off the platform onto the wagon bed. Therefore, a much easier task than lifting each forkful of hay from the ground to the increasingly higher pile on the wagon!
Resources:
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Article Sources: Kentucky Equine Research