“What do you do with an old Texas rodeo cowboy when he marries a Jersey girl, he’s up in Jersey, and he has no place to keep a horse in Cranford? You make a mechanical horse!”
Steve Bacque, aka the Crazy Cranford Cowboy, is that Texan and he did indeed make himself an electric horse. Four golf cart batteries power his not-street-legal e-horse, which he calls "Charger."
According to NJ.com,
Charger can do up to 40 miles per hour (though he has a governor to rein him in to about 15 miles per hour) and can handle up to 600 pounds. Charger even has a wheelie bar in the back, which is “not just for show,” Bacque warns. Yes, this motorized horse can pop a (small) wheelie.
Charger turns left and right with the reins and even brakes when you pull back on them. A key turns him on, and a gas pedal sets him in motion.
Bacque first caught attention in town when he rode up on Charger to his bank's drive-thru window:
When Mindy Weiss Affronti pulled up to the bank drive-thru two weeks ago and saw a man atop a robotic horse at the teller window, she did a double take.
Then she took his picture.
The friendly cowboy smiled, happy to oblige, before riding off. Left in the stupor of what she had seen, Affronti did what any other rational person would do: She posted the photo on social media…
After Affronti shared her photo and a video in a neighborhood Facebook group, there were others. Bacque and his horse had been spotted at the nearby Home Depot. Rolling along near the train station. Galloping through errands downtown.
Read more: A guy riding a motorized horse is the new hero of this quiet N.J. town
