Horses

The Belmont race is this Saturday. I’ll be watching on TV. I’m not a big racing fan, but I always get caught up in the excitement of races like the Derby. Anticipation of the outcome builds as commentators discuss past performances of the horses, interview owners, and coax information from trainers and jockeys.

I admire the ability of riders to contend with the pressure of winning when fabulous amounts of money are wagered on their crossing the finish line first. In my estimation, jockeys exhibit tremendous courage when they sit on a postage stamp size saddle and ride at breakneck speed in a cluster of galloping horses!


I choose my favorites by color of the silks jockeys wear as they parade the horses. As the camera pans from horse to horse, I weigh their chances to win by the way they prance and perk up their ears and choose one to win, one to place and one to show.

I’m not a connoisseur of horse flesh. They all look alike to me. I can’t tell one breed from another, but they capture my imagination in stories and movies and I enjoy reading about them. Horses grazing in a field or colts and fillies running along side their mothers in a pasture are lovely sights, but horses intimidate me. I like having a fence between me and a horse. Unlike my daughter, who inherited my Grandpa W’s way with horses, I am content to be a viewer, not a doer.

Mom used to tell us stories about grandpa and his horses. He had a wide reputation for handling and training horses without abuse and selling them to area ranchers and farmers. When they were on the homestead in South Dakota, a local rancher came to grandpa with a proposition. If grandpa would capture a particular herd of wild horses, he could name his own price and also have first choice of the herd.

Mom said it took three or four days for riders, who took turns around the clock, to keep the herd moving before they could corral them. . The leader of the herd was a magnificent stallion which, of course, the rancher wanted for himself, but, true to his word, he honored it when grandpa chose the stallion.

The horse was so wild that no one could get close to him, not even grandpa. Grandma was the one who gentled him. He was kept in a separate corral without food and water. She started by frequently offering the horse water to drink and gently talking to him. Little by little, the horse began to accept food and water from her and eventually from grandpa. They named him, Doc. The horse was tamed and was grandpa’s pride and joy for many years. Although Doc was gentle around people, he would never allow anyone but grandpa to place harness on him.