This week I have stories about three species of animals. No, this isn’t a “Wild Kingdom” television episode. These animals are tame. This week we’ll look into the Budweiser Clydesdales in Hawaii, a mynah bird named Little Doc and a poodle named Gigi.
Clydesdales
One of the most beautiful horse breeds is the Clydesdale. It is among the tallest of horses, generally about 6 feet tall at the saddle, and weighs 1,500-2,000 pounds. It is usually a rich brown with white, feathered legs. It’s stunning to behold.
The breed’s name refers to the Clyde River Valley in Scotland.
For a while in the 1970s, we had several Clydesdales in Honolulu, John Doty told me. His parents, Ed and Norma Doty, owned Eagle Distributors. They were the local representatives for Anheuser-Busch and were given several Clydesdales.
John Doty said August “Gussie” Busch Jr. owned the brewery as well as the St. Louis Cardinals. He came to Hawaii for a 1974 winter meeting of baseball team owners.
Over dinner at Canlis’ Charcoal Broiler Restaurant, Ed Doty mentioned that it was a shame that the Clydesdale horses that Anheuser-Busch owned could visit so many of their mainland cities but not Honolulu.
The brewery was famous for hitching several Clydesdales to a beer wagon and parading them through various towns.
Doty told Busch he always wanted a Clydesdale horse to use in parades and other promotional events for Budweiser.
Nothing more was said until a few months later, when Doty got a call saying Busch would like to present him with two Clydesdales if he could arrange to care for them.
Doty got on the phone with Bud Gibson at New Town & Country Stables. Gibson said he could handle them, especially since Busch was sending its top horse honcho, Berry Farrell, along with them.
“Good,” Doty said, “because they’re on a Matson ship as we speak.”
The two Clydesdales, named Supreme and Concord, arrived, and soon Eagle Distributors started using them to give hay rides to kids.
“Dad had a guy that worked for him in military sales named Smokey Hogan,” John Doty said. “He was an old horseman from way back, and he was the driver.
“We’d offer the hay rides to our customers for store openings and special events. Families loved them.”
Doty had a big Anheuser-Busch beer wagon built, and the horses pulled it in local parades. They were the only individually owned Budweiser Clydesdale team in the country.
The Clydesdales came for tailgate parties for the Hawaii Islanders at Honolulu Stadium, and at the Farm Fair at McKinley High School.
“We even took them to a trade show at the Sheraton Waikiki,” John Doty remembers. “They fit perfectly into the freight elevator, which took them to the second-floor meeting rooms.
“The first horses didn’t adapt well to Hawaii. They were bred in Scotland and put on winter coats that were too warm for Hawaii. A few years later we replaced them with Clydesdale colts, who adapted to Hawaii much better.
“They boarded at the Circle Z ranch in Waimanalo, which built a special pen for them. We were able to get a few more and soon had five Clydesdales.
“We had the Clydesdales for several years,” John Doty concluded. “But eventually we had to cut back on our promotional budget, and the horses were too expensive.
“A few of the Clydesdales were sent to Gaylord’s restaurant on Kauai, where they took kids on hay rides. The others were sent to horse farms on the mainland.”
Big Doc and Little Doc
One of Hawaii’s most interesting residents was a Big Islander named William “Doc” Hill (1890-1970).
He was a businessman and territorial senator. He built the Naniloa Hotel and owned nine movie theaters and 10 other companies.
Doc Hill had a famous talking mynah bird he called Little Doc. Once, when the state Senate couldn’t reach agreement on a new reapportionment plan, Hill offered to bring Little Doc from Hilo to help.
“Little Doc was more capable of coming up with a solution than were the wrangling attorneys in the Senate.”
Every year until the bird died in 1965, Little Doc was brought from Hilo by his master to sit in a cage outside of the senator’s Iolani Palace office — before the state Capitol was built. He would whistle at the wahine and say, “Vote for Doc Hill,” in true campaign style.
“Little Doc was an amazing little fellow who enjoyed everything from handing out advice to puffing cigarettes,” the Honolulu Star-Bulletin wrote in 1965.
The mynah bird was a constant companion to the Hills for 12 years, an interisland traveler and an active participant in the local political scene.
Little Doc, a lava-black mynah bird with yellow beak and a spot of orange, was a gift from William Mullahey, regional director of Pan American World Airways.
Little Doc slept in Big Doc’s room. “I never went into that room that he didn’t talk to me,” Sen. Hill said, “either (saying) ‘Vote for Doc Hill’ or sometimes, ‘I love you, Doc.’”
Dog maternity ward
I wrote about Henry Kaiser a few times recently. Columnist Eddie Sherman and he were friends, and one of the things they had in common was poodles.
“I was living in Kaneohe on the bay,” Sherman said in his column in 1967. “One of my toy poodles, Gigi, was hapai. She was so tiny, I was worried about her health.”
Knowing the love the Kaisers had for poodles, Sherman called Mrs. Kaiser and told her of his concerns. “A few days later, on a Sunday morning, Henry Kaiser came to the house with his wife, their dog handler, the captain of the Kaiser boats, Earl Akana, a new jet speedboat, plus enough picnic food for an army.
“He stayed for many hours, eating my wife’s blintzes (four helpings), and watching his jet boat speeding all over Kaneohe Bay. But his greatest concern was Gigi. Kaiser took her with him when he left to their dog maternity ward at the Kaiser estate on Portlock.
“Gigi returned after being checked out thoroughly. Her batch of poodles were born without any complications.”
Bob Sigall is the author of the five “The Companies We Keep” books. Contact him at Sigall@Yahoo.com or sign up for his free email newsletter at RearviewMirrorInsider.com.
