King dances in place and tosses his flaxen mane. It’s not the Main Street crowds or the children clamoring for Mickey’s autograph that are agitating the usually calm horse. “He doesn’t like the band,” the trolley driver says. “He’s not spooked, he just isn’t a fan.” 
 
King is just one of the 2,000-pound Belgians who pull trolleys full of guests up and down Main. If it sounds like hard work, it isn’t. “Because they ride on rails, it’s only like pulling a hundred pounds,” she tells me, obligingly tightening one rein so King will turn to face a tourist with a camera.

The horses, most of them Belgians but a few Percherons like the glossy black Jimmy and the spectacular silver Rex, only work three days a week—sometimes for as little as two and a half hours. The rest of the time they spend with their buddies in a paddock behind the fire station, in what’s known as the Circle D Ranch.

And unlike Mickey, Goofy and Pluto, when summer temperatures rise too high the pampered equines don’t have to work at all. So as the driver perspires in today’s heat she unharnesses King and leads him away for a cool bath—and perhaps a pedicure courtesy of Disneyland’s blacksmith.