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DUBLIN -- Steve Hutton couldn't help but bluster like a horse.

"Tension," he said.

Hutton's Belgium horses, Pete and Joe, competed in Tuesday night's horse-pulling contest at the New River Valley Fair.

Pete and Joe pulled 6,000 pounds of concrete 27 feet across the fairgrounds in Dublin.

"They're still in the contest," said Hutton, sitting and watching hundreds of feet away.

A man driving a yellow tractor picked up a slab of concrete that weighed 500 pounds and added it to the 6,000 pounds already sitting on top of a wooden sled.

"I'll say this load will catch them," Hutton said ruefully.

Though, he was optimistic about his horses' chances.

"You have no way of knowing until it gets down to the end," he said. "You really can't tell. They'll load a thousand pounds till they get to where no one can pull it. It may be 6, it may be 7, it may be 8. If the ground was wet, it could be high as 11 or 12,000 pounds."

The rules of horse pulling are simple. Two horses pull concrete weights across a strip. The horses that can pull the most weights across a specified distance are the winners.

Many of the New River Valley Fair competitors traveled from the New River Valley and North Carolina to compete. Most of the competitors inherited the sport from their parents.

Hutton, for instance, remembers watching his father get the horses ready on their Marion farm when he was a child. The horses wear bridles and a metal hook attaches them to the weight so they can pull.

"My dad and his dad always pulled horses," said David Estep, who also drove from Marion to bring his horses, Jed and Job to the competition. "To me it's a very expensive hobby. But it's really fun to see how strong the horses are."

The winner gets $300. However, Hutton and Estep said the price of gasoline and hay has gone up in recent years, making the prize money a secondary consideration for competing.

"I've been doing it probably 20-plus years," Hutton said. "Enjoy the horses. Enjoy the people. Enjoy the same folk. Meet a lot of people. Talk to people.

"The best moment I guess is if your horse has done all it could that day."

Pete is 14 years old, and Hutton hopes to retire him soon. Pete has been competing since he was 2.

Joe, on the other hand, is 4 years old and has pulled weights in contests only three times.

"The colt's still not staying with Pete," Hutton said of Joe. "But he's learning."

Pete and Joe competed in the fair's lightweight category, where horses that total less than 3,400 pounds compete. Heavyweights, such as Estep's, weigh more than 3,401 pounds.

The lightweight competitors had a hard time pulling the concrete when it weighed 6,500 pounds.

Hutton's horses finished in fifth place with a distance of 23 feet 7 inches at that weight, 4 feet shy of advancing.

Hutton wasn't disappointed.

"We're satisfied," Hutton said. "We got to go home and work on it. Just try a little harder next time."