wheel horse

Also called wheeler. a horse, or one of the horses, harnessed behind others and nearest the front wheels of a vehicle.

Chiefly South Atlantic States. the left-hand horse of a pair hitched to a wagon or plow.

Chiefly South Midland and Southern U.S. a reliable, diligent, and strong worker.

Origin of wheel horse

First recorded in 1700–10

He was instantly met and borne to the snow by Bones, the second “wheel-horse.”

On the Yukon Trail |Roy J. Snell
Had the other wheel-horse not been as steady as a rock, we would have gone right over.

Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. |Various
Garrett one day, "every church has to have a wheel-horse, and I might as well be the wheel-horse as any body."

Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler |Pardee Butler
One gun upset when a wheel-horse was shot, and had to be abandoned, together with a waggon, the horses of which were killed.

South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 6 (of 6) |Louis Creswicke

As a leader he was fine; as a wheel-horse, he was not always just to himself.

From Manassas to Appomattox |James Longstreet

wheel horse

another word for wheeler (def. 1)

US and Canadian a person who works steadily or hard