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Taylor Noll is what some might call a long drink of water. The tall, lanky 23-year-old Oregon resident keeps his shock of brown hair tamed beneath a white cowboy hat and describes himself humbly as “just a pig farmer.”
Noll is charming and personable, welcoming and deferential. He is upfront with all aspects of his operation, which is pig racing, a family business he was born into.
He is not what you might expect.
Animal advocates who rail against rodeos, circuses and other forms of animal entertainment might see him as an adversary. And Noll, taking a break between races on opening day at the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton, says he has had a few encounters with people who believe pig racing and other events that feature “performing” animals for our amusement are cruel and exploitative.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals condemns all traveling animal shows in general, saying animals often are trained through punishment and mistreated on the road.
“These highly intelligent, sensitive animals,” PETA says in regard to pig racing, “are also stressed by the constant travel and the large, boisterous crowds.”
Noll enjoys trying to dissuade his critics. He shows off the All-Alaskan Racing Pigs’ brand new trailer that features large pens, pressurized water drinking lines that allow the pigs to drink even when in transit, extra insulation in the walls and ceiling and the shiny new air conditioner that keeps the trailer cool.
“Just because it looks like they can’t run,” Noll says, “doesn’t mean they don’t like to run. We give them the best life possible. If we don’t take care of them, then we aren’t doing our job.”
Noll’s dad, Bart Noll, started All-Alaskan Pig Racing 31 years ago. He was the entertainment director at a fair in Fairbanks, Alaska, and when he saw how a traveling pig-racing operation based in Florida was pulling in the crowds, he tried to get the owner to bring the pigs to Fairbanks. The owner refused to make the long trip, so Bart Noll did the next best thing — he bought eight pigs and started his own racing team.
It took off from there, Taylor Noll says, and All-Alaskan Pig Racing, now relocated to Eugene, Oregon, hits the fair circuit from April through October every year. Noll’s unit is at the Alameda County Fair for the entire run, while another unit is racing pigs in Colorado. From here, Noll and the pigs will move on to Orange County for a month.
Pig racing has put most of the Noll siblings through college, and Noll hopes when his dad retires, he’ll let him take over the business.
The Nolls use a breed of pig called Gloucestershire Old Spots, which are native to England. While once a popular pasture pig in the United States, by the 1950s, there were only two breeding pigs known to exist. Farmers were moving on to breeds that didn’t need as much room to roam as the Old Spots did.
The Livestock Conservancy, an organization that works to preserve “heritage” breeds such as the Old Spots, has worked with the Noll family to preserve the breed, which remains on the endangered list, even though there now are about 10,000 of the pigs in the U.S. Noll says they are not as fast as some other breeds, but they are playful, friendly and loyal, and with their floppy ears “they put on a good show.”
The pigs, which are from a breeder in Salem, Oregon, are about 10 weeks old when they begin training at the Nolls’ farm. Noll says the training is all through positive reinforcement. The intelligent animals learn that running out of a chute and around a track — the one at Alameda is about 120 feet long, but Noll builds the track to fit the space the venues give him — earns them a reward, typically a chocolate-chip cookie.
All-Alaskan Pig Racing travels with 10 pigs — eight for the daily races and two for spares. If one becomes injured or isn’t interested in racing, Noll says, they are not forced to compete.
The pigs race four times a day at 1 p.m., 3:30 p.m., 5:30 p.m. and 8 p.m., and they always manage to fill the stands, with more spectators standing in the aisles.
When not racing, the pigs loll around their air-conditioned home on beds of wood shavings. The pens are cleaned twice a day, and the pigs are bathed daily. Contrary to popular belief, Noll says, pigs are very clean and only wallow in the mud to stay cool — pigs don’t have sweat glands.
The pigs stay on the circuit for only about 3 months, then they are retired to Club Mud — a joke, Noll says, that resonated more when Club Med was a bigger thing. The pigs are returned to Eugene, where most are sold to breeders and farmers.
What happens to them next draws a shrug from Noll, who says some of them do become bacon and hams, but not by the Noll family.
Although some critics maintain that pigs are not built for speed and only run when chased, making pig racing an unnatural act for the short-legged, low-slung porkers, Noll says from his observations, pigs love to run.
“They’re playing, bouncing around,” Noll says. “They need activity. The bigger the brain, the more stimulus it needs. The Old Spots especially like exercise and having their space.”
The pigs, which are little more than piglets at this stage, are retired so young, Noll says, because as they get older, they tend to put on weight rather quickly, making them too large to comfortably transport.
Plus, he says, people like seeing the young ones.
When the Alameda County Fair closes in early July, these racers will be sent back to Oregon.
There are several pig racing companies in the United States and in Europe. Activists have managed to shut down a few performances, including one in Kent, England, after it was learned the company planned to butcher and barbecue its 8-pig team on the last day of the celebration.
“We’ve never eaten any of our own pigs,” Noll says. “I couldn’t. You learn their personalities, where they like to be scratched. I tell people I treat my dogs like people and my pigs like dogs. They’re special.”
