Identifying the Thoroughbred: The horse isn't talking...

[image: wikipedia commons]

When the world produces far too many brown horses:

That of course means that somebody has to referee the process.  Yes, Thoroughbreds do have VIN numbers of sorts, that being the age-old lip tattoo, but somewhere between birth and the equivalent of being either initiated into a motorcycle gang or The Jockey Club, some poor soul has to make sure that Brownie doesn't become Blackie, or worse yet, that Mrs. Brownie doesn't become Mr. Blackie or...God forbid, force a racing secretary to write a $4000 claiming race for hermaphrodite non-winners of two.  Don't laugh until you have spent an afternoon trying to 'identify' a horse.  I mean the TSA has enough trouble identifying humans and most of them can speak one language or another.  A horse...well, he just stands there having a good laugh to himself.  You see, he doesn't really give a shit who he is.  Self-identity is purely a human process and is normally conducted in the lobby of the nearest Lexus dealership. 

So if you want to sell a Thoroughbred yearling at a public auction you will need irrefutable evidence as to the genetic purity of Brownie.  Or Blackie.  Of course, it is important to realize the origins of this tedious process and naturally it had to do with people:  Humans are really, really, really obsessed over identity -- and secondly, they very often misplace their honesty, unless the IRS happens to be on the phone.  So...certain kinds of twisted logic evolved to try and overcome the obvious pitfalls of too much honesty, not enough honest, a failure to embrace common sense or simply a case of bad eyesight.  And it is here that The Jockey Club (an organization similar to a Turkish Court, but with more paperwork and fewer executions), struggles mightily to insure that Blackie and Brownie aren't really Bob.  Or worse yet, Shirley.

In the beginning, Thoroughbreds were kind of visually identified.  Everybody got a handy little guide that would fit on a clipboard.  The owner would then wander out in the pasture with new Sharpie pen and the proper form.  An hour later he'd be back in the house phoning The Jockey Club for more forms.  At least two-dozen.  Oh, and maybe a pencil instead. 

Most people that own racehorses tend to be rich...if not rich, then they have access to more ready cash than I do.  You know, captains of industry, investment bankers, divorce lawyers, movie producers...movers and shakers.  As such, they never paid much attention in third-grade art class.  And without those particular skills, they're doomed. 

[image: equnest.com]

 

The forms indicate that the artist should approximate the areas of white (as opposed to brown -- we're trying to keep it simple here), by drawing a line to separate the division of color.  The form goes on to suggest that you do the left-side first.  Whose left, you ask?  Yours or the horses?  And is it a right leg if you're standing on the right side?  The front and hind part seems simple enough.  The one end is liable to kick you if get too curious about a little white spot on the heel.  Hell, it's probably bird shit.  Better to move on to the face.

Pretty doesn't matter here.  The Jockey Club tries not to be too subjective on this matter.  You can't write, "Looks just like Secretariat.  Very cute horse."  They frown on commentary.  All of these markings (believe it or not), have a specific title.  If you're lucky, your horse is identical to the one on the bottom/right image below.  Of course, that brings up a whole different can of worms.  Brown horses that have no white whatsoever.  Whenever I got one of these, I'd spray-paint fluorescent markings on their side, photograph the horse and send that to The Jockey Club with something like, "fluorescent pink stripe to left, descending to a dot, mid-stifle to hock."  That always garnered a call from New York.  Same thing happens if you include your favorite dog, wife or child in the picture.  They are very fussy people at The Jockey Club.

[image: wiki commons]

The research department at The Jockey Club finally came up with a system to deal with one-color horses and art school flunkies.  Equine fingerprints.  No, not the hooves.  They decided that chestnuts (also called night-eyes or mistaken fungal infections), were unique to each individual horse.  Chestnuts are actually left-over appendages from when the horse sprinted around on three-toes, instead of just one.  But some horses don't have them -- probably the same ones that got short-changed on white markings.  Aha, you say!  Foiled again!

Well, not quite.  The Jockey Club also decided that whorls (equine cowlicks) were unique to individuals.  Hell, so were intestinal polyps.  Pretty soon, the search for honesty would end on the coroner's slab.  And besides, all these systems were analytical, not empirical -- and each horse would have to be identified by a different individual at least three times prior to being tattooed -- the tattoo only administered if the horse made it to the racetrack.  Sooo...

[image: wiki commons]

[image: bozo_z_clown/flickr]

....Plan B, or maybe C actually.  Blood-typing.  Science to the rescue at last.  Maybe.  They didn't consider my farm during that particular brain-storming session.  See, my farm was owned by a veterinarian...and veterinarians are sort of do-it-yourself types.  So...

[cooperative extension]



[image: howstuffworks.com]

"The spring months gave me the opportunity to attach a new name to each of Doc's broodmares.  Sure, I used their registered names whenever Elaine was around, which wasn't too often, or when The Jockey Club called for some form of clarification, that normally being twice a day.  Clarification was important.  Between me, Doc, and The Jockey Club, none of us were capable of matching the paperwork with a likely candidate.  The high-court of paperwork in New York noted this fault in their system and finally initiated blood-typing for all Thoroughbreds.  That led to some brilliant conversations around the farm:

 

 

"Say Doc.  Says here that that horse isn't Spit.  It's some horse named...I can't read this.  What does that say?"  I'm trying to read the fine print.

 

 

"It says 'sterile.'  That's the label thing."  Doc had glasses, I only had eyes.

 

 

"Well, if it's not Spit, then who is it?"  I was thinking we'd just call one horse 'Sterile' and mail the shit back.

 

 

"Ah, you know I think it might be the neighbor's horse.  When we took the blood samples I only had fourteen kits and there were fifteen horses in the barn if I remember right.  Or it could be one of the dogs.  I had a lot of samples in the refrigerator."

 

 

"So..."  I wondered how this filing system worked when he was neutering a cat.  "What do you think we oughta do?"  And here The Jockey Club thought they had finally closed the last great loophole.

 

 

"Why don't you give 'em a call.  Oh, here's another one.  I don't think I own this horse either."

 

 

"Really?"

 



 


  

A New Kind of Timeline...

I was born...soon, I was shaving regularly.

My looks improved.  Doctors attributed it to a diet of Wonder Bread, Spam and Velveeta cheese.

Timeline: 

Eat your heart out...Zuckerberg

I also remember being born.  The experience was very disturbing for me.  Some woman was screaming incessantly and this guy with a bad haircut was pulling on my head.  His breath smelled like sardines.

Later, I heard my first swear word.  Pretty sure it was me talking.

When I was floating around the uterus, my mother was apparently watching old Roy Rogers films.  I was born very bow-legged and developed an abnormal interest in horses and sweaty leather.  Since we couldn't afford a horse, I had a turtle.  It took a month for it to follow me home.  I named it Trigger.

 

 That's my Sis and I with Mom.  We did this a lot when the TV news guy said an A-Bomb might be coming.  We also ran in the hole when Dad drank too much.  Seems we stayed in the whole a lot back then.  One day, Mom forgot to close the lid and Dad fell in it.  We never went down there again.  Mom said  that we didn't have to worry about A-bombs anymore.  Pretty soon we moved to another house. 


In high school, I mostly dated lesbians, girls with eating disorders and ones that didn't bathe regularly, shave their legs or wear underwear.  I experimented with sex, but it was mostly by myself.  Well, sometimes the turtle would join in.  He finally ran away, though it took him three days just to get down to the corner.

This was my high-school sweetheart.  Her name was Rocky.  She let me feel her up sometimes.  I kinda liked her, but one day I left her alone in my room and afterward I noticed my hamster was missing.  I'm pretty sure she took drugs a lot because she always smelled like formaldehyde.  Maybe that was okay, because I used to have a cockroach problem until she starting coming over.  She left me her collection of Frank Zappa albums and moved to France.  I think it was France.  Maybe Nebraska.  I did learn later that "brown shoes don't make it."  So I don't wear them.

After to listening to Frank Zappa for a couple of hours, I became a radical.  Pretty sure I was on the left side of things, but some days it was hard to tell.  I lost my draft card somewhere, so when we demonstrated about stuff, I burned my library card.  The other hippies said that didn't count so I wasn't allowed to have any solidarity with the brothers and sisters.  So I became a party animal instead.  That made me throw-up a lot.

                                                               It was hard to be a party animal in Seattle.  Maybe it was the building code or something, but I kept having to move shortly after I had a party.  So I bought a bus.  I filled the back of it with couches and foam rubber and invited people to come over for Ripple and LSD.  They didn't know I was going to actually drive the bus in my condition, so it was very exciting for everybody.  We all wore different costumes and in the summer we sometimes just drove around naked since it was pretty warm.  The police would look at us kind of funny, but most of the time they just asked us
to go somewhere else.  We weren't sure where that was exactly. 

[image: lolpix.com]

Some time later, I left politics and formed a grunge band for cross-dressers with my sister.  She had recently flunked out of beauty school and seemed to have a lot of issues.  We couldn't play guitars or anything, so we just growled a lot.  Mostly people threw food at us, but at least we ate regularly.  Sis didn't sleep much due to an amphetamine habit, so she took to practicing her beauty school skills while I was sleeping.  Then she switched to dental college and I had to kick her out.  The neighbors didn't like all the screaming.

Then I had to go to jail briefly.  It was a nice jail.  On Sundays we had something yellow for breakfast.  I didn't do it -- whatever it was.  I shared my cell with a famous arsonist.  Actually, I think most arsonists end up famous one way or the other.  I had the top bunk.  He had matches.  Sleep was difficult most nights.  Eventually they released me for 'lack of evidence.'  I told them I'd take a look around.  See if I could find it.

They kept my fingerprints though.  The guy was having so much fun that we decided to do my whole hands.  Of course in all the excitement, he did my left hand twice.  That might be a problem later.

[image: wiki commons]

The saga continues...one day Don Quixote's horse speaks to me in a dream...in Italian.

Can't tell you what he said cause...hell, I don't speak Italian.  I was pretty sure it was something like, "Go west young man and date better women."  Since I lived in Seattle, he must have meant Japan or someplace like that.  Or, the horse was speaking metaphorically.  Horses do that sometimes.  But since the turtle wandered off, I was back on the notion of getting a real horse.  Thought it might improve my image.  I know that sometimes guys get cute dogs just to meet women...so, tie my horse outside Starbucks and wait for a pretty woman to say, "What the fuck!?"  However...this horse wasn't Starbucks material as it turned out.  He didn't stay anywhere for too long.  Apparently, he required heavy doses of tranquilizer in order to hang out around people.

Sadly, like Dad, he wandered off and fell in somebody's bomb shelter.  I never did get a new girlfriend, but I did meet a lot of nice people from the fire department.  They kept telling me how lucky my horse was, not knowing the horse in quite the same context as I did.  They said they'd have him out in a 'jiffy.'  I figured that was just long enough for me to catch a bus. 

Some days I miss him, but mostly I don't.  Then I decided to go to horseshoeing school.  No, I don't know why.  At first I thought it might be fun and I'd get rich, but it was a little like my sister's adventures in dental college.  A lot of blood and not too much repeat business.  So I became a 'horseshoeing advisor' instead.




I hired some assistants and mostly we drank beer.  Sometimes the horse drank beer too.  Then we'd have the horse look through a Sears catalog and pick out some nice shoes.  Horses can't seem to hold their liquor so we'd end up with pizza, magazine subscriptions and boxes of Enzyte.  Business was bad.

But then I discovered polo shirts.  Seems that intelligent people always wear polo shirts and dark glasses -- even in winter.  I advertised myself as a 'sensitive' farrier and only accepted women clients.

Mostly I got crank calls, but every so often I'd get a real customer.  Trouble was, they'd end up doing most of the work since I didn't want to get my polo shirt dirty and it was really hard to figure out all that proper balance stuff with dark glasses on.  So I took a break and became a Thoroughbred farm manager.  Not sure how you manage a farm with no employees and seemingly fewer horses, but figured it was worth a try.  



The owner of the farm sent me a photograph and said, "Well son, it kinda looks like this here."  So I figured, boy this job should be a cinch!  Turned out he lied more than I did.

[image: depts.washington.edu]

This fellow was the old manager.  Turned out he had been dead for close to a month.  The only horse I could find on the place was one that spent all day walking in circles.  Mostly backwards it seemed.  The vet said it might be rabies.  Or not.

Once again, Rocinante came to me in a dream...no, more like a hangover.  He said...

Never mind what he said.  It was kind of personal and since he was a horse, he didn't talk in English, Italian or much else.  But it seemed that he was strongly suggesting that I too, go on a quest.  Quests are a little like occupational scavenger hunts only you don't have a specific list.  So I went off and joined a circus.  Trouble was, it was a Russian circus.  Being new, I got all the hard jobs.  I had to ride a horse upside-down, which might have made me a better horseshoer, only I couldn't really take notes during the show.  My boss told me it was okay to fall off sometimes because the audience really enjoyed that part.  I didn't though.

Then one day, I found the boss's sword.  Seems in the Soviet Union that whoever has the sword gets to be the leader.  In America, it is much more complicated.  You have to vote for a bunch of people you don't like, just so you can impeach them later for doing a terrible job.  They call it democracy.  Not sure what that really means.
Once I became boss, I demanded a cut on the action.  They told me I was "being a bad little communist," so they sent me to China where they said I needed to be 're-educated.'  So now I think "socialism is good" for the Chinese.  Personally, I'd rather have a percentage of the gate...or maybe a gas station.
So I moved to New Zealand and became an exotic dancer.  Mostly I danced with older, thick-ankled women who were overly curious to know if I wore underwear.  Actually I did, but that was because...well, wool itches.
Turned out to be a lot like socialism though.  The tips were terrible and everybody seemed to smell like wet sheep.


Since exotic dancing is fairly strenuous I was able to lose a lot of weight.  So I went back to America and became a jockey.  It was hard since most of my riding experience was upside-down.  That made it difficult to get regular work.  Since I could only afford the $1 menu at McDonald's, I quickly became too fat to be a jockey.



So I joined an Islamic militant group for white guys who were too fat to be jockeys.  The outfits were nice, but we had  a lot of trouble around airports and nuclear reactors.  However, when we went to Mississippi, people kept taking us out to dinner and buying us drinks.  We didn't all sit at the same table.  Instead, they'd sit across the room and wink at us all the time.  Figured it was some Islamic custom we didn't know about, what being new to militant stuff and all.

So, I moved on to journalism and sometimes I'd have to interview myself because a lot of people were reluctant to talk to me "on the record."  That was okay, since I was more interested in myself anyway.

And then one day, I decided that being a grown-up wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

Just maybe that was Don Quixote's whole point.  Quests are wasted on adults.


So...feel free to create your own timeline!



[images: wiki commons & the author]



Shoein' For a Living -- The Whole Sordid Tale!

Anvil Magazine Archives [anvilmag.com]
Publisher: Mr. Rob Edwards

From a Series First Published in the 1980's
Anvil Magazine

A Parody on Perpetual-Motion Professions:

(And Coincidentally, Surviving Recessions)

     NATCHEZ, MISSISSIPPI, August 12, 1982.

Nobody needs to tell you how hard it is to make a living during a recession.  As a reporter for The San Francisco Business News, my assignment had been to search the back roads of this country for the American Dream -- the entrepreneurial spirit that had always made this nation great.  I had heard about two Mississippi horseshoers (farriers), who got the idea of forming a business partnership that was not only recession-proof, but required no labor and no raw materials.

According to Harlan Ginder, the self-proclaimed brains of the outfit, this odd business arrangement allowed them to go fishing whenever they wanted, drink beer when they felt like it, and as Ginder told my editor, "to ponder the important things in life, like golf.  Soon as Natchez gets a golf course."  As such, my editor, Billy Bob Edwards sent me on down to Natchez, Mississippi (economy-class, with a layover in Fargo, North Dakota), to take a look at this unique segment of the American Dream.  Billy Bob also suggested that I make the story a New Journalism piece since nobody on staff knew what the hell that meant and that it might make us seem either liberal or smart.   

7:45 AM:  I wake up at the Three Fingers Motel about ten miles outside Natchez.  The air-conditioner is busted and a large cockroach stands between me and the bathroom.  Odd noises filter through the wall from the adjoining room:  a man and a woman arguing, a lot of howling, like a sick dog and the sound of some kind of machinery, maybe a diesel engine running.  I dress and head for my rental car.  A scrawled note stuck in the wiper says to meet Harlan at Smokey's Bar out on 41.  As I pull out of the motel, three State Police cars race in, screeching to a stop in front of the room with all the strange noises.  Shots ring out, followed by the sound of breaking glass.

8:15 AM:  I take a seat at the counter of Smokey's Bar.  A tattooed guy with a shaved head wanders down to my spot and opens a beer.  He stares intently at my Carpe Diem T-shirt, lights a Lucky Strike and belches.

"You from France or somethin'?"

"Uh, San Francisco."

"You a fag?"

"Uh, no.  Friend of Harlan Ginder, the horseshoer."

"Harlan ain't got no friends.  Not alive anyway.  You want the special?"

"What's the special?"

"Grits and bacon." 

"Got anything else?"

"Grits and sausage."

He lights another Lucky Strike, blowing the discharge into my face.  As the sleeve of his T-shirt creeps up, I see part of a knife tattoo and the word 'Kill.'  Kill what I wonder.  I order the grits with sausage.

Outside, heat waves are shimmering off the gravel parking lot.  A bead of sweat rolls down my temple.  August in Mississippi is a slow, uncomfortable dance with your underwear.  Even the flies suffer, willing to die for a chance to rest in somebody's grits.  As I peer out the front window, I spot Harlan next to a brand new Chevy Dually pickup, his lips surrounding a quart bottle of Bud Lite.  My grits arrive, all white and slippery, floating in a puddle of lard.  They smell like air that's stayed in a tire too long.  I slap five bucks down on the bar and scurry out into the heat.

9:00 AM:  As I get near Harlan, he sticks out a big wet hand.  "How ya doin' there," he smiles.  Around the corner of the truck, Emmet appears -- skinny, about twenty-something, in need of a shave and probably a few other things.  A large skinning-knife is strapped to his belt, a cottonmouth-skin affair decorated with beer openers and bits of human hair.  When I greet him, he just drops his eyes in the direction of his well-worn boots and mumbles.  Then he disappears in the cab of the truck.  Harlan slaps me on the back.  "Ah, don't worry about Emmet.  He's kinda shy, what with a club foot and all.  He'll warm up.  Just don't mention women.  He's real sensitive 'bout women, especially his mother, God bless her."

"Huh?"

"Hop in, got an appointment to keep."

9:30 AM:  We head back down Highway 41, past the Three Fingers Motel.  Now there are six patrol cars and it appears my old room is on fire.  A woman in a black negligee is handcuffed to the mailbox.  Harlan waves and the woman gives him the finger.  Emmet is engrossed in a Victoria's Secret catalog.  I decide it's a good time to probe the secrets of his success as a horseshoer.

"How long you been shoen' Harlan?"

"Shoen'?  You mean actually nail'n 'em on?"

"Well, ya."

Emmet, who is riding in the middle, spits out my window.  The brown projectile almost makes it outside.

"I don't actually do the work -- I mean, the physical labor part.  You've probably noticed that it's a little warm 'round Natchez.  Emmet and I have found that doin' a lot of heavy work is quite uncomfortable.  That's why we got air-conditionin' -- see, if ya turn this dial toward the blue mark, even the flies get kinda friendly."

"But I see you have some tools in the back."  My curiosity was now fully piqued.

"We like to think of ourselves as consultants."  Harlan elbowed Emmet in the side.  "Right, Emmet?"  Emmet just grunted.

"But what about the tools, that anvil?"

Harlan sighed, a degree of frustration hanging on his words.  "I inherited that anvil and stuff from Puck Marshall.  Puck used to shoe in these parts until..."

"Until?"

"Well, Puck was a little hard on his wife.  What you guys in San Francisco call 'insensitive.'  'Bout ten years ago, the little woman got fed up with Puck and stuck a butcher knife in his neck.  He'd a probably survived if we hadn't a run outa gas on the way to the hospital."

"You ran out of gas?"

"Actually I didn't.  Emmet here was supposed to have gassed up the truck, right Emmet?"  Emmet's face turned bright red, his hand sliding down around the sheath of his knife.  "Well anyway," Harlan continued, "Puck left me his tools and a few other things.  I took Emmet here under my wing cause he was orphaned and all by these unfortunate circumstances, and what havin' a club foot and all, we went into business with Puck's old tools."

"Uh, what happened to Emmet's...uh, Mrs. Marshall?"

"Oh, I believe they hung her.  Puck was kinda popular hereabouts."

"You mean Puck was Emmet's..."

 "Now, yer catchin' on."  Harlan reached under the seat, producing a handful of Advil and another quart of beer.  I could feel Emmet starting to vibrate next to me.  He kept flipping the catalog pages back and forth.

"Nice butt," I said, pointing to a woman on page 12, sporting little more than a purple napkin.  I expected Emmet to nod in agreement, figuring that once we had bonded on some subject, he might warm up to me a bit.  Instead, he mumbled something about nose hair and dead chickens and tossed the catalog out the window.

10:23 AM:  "Well, here we are," Harlan shouted, as we pulled into the driveway of a small farm.  Tied next to the barn were a pair of brown mules.  A young man in weathered chaps was trying to hang on to one of the mule's hind legs.  After a couple of seconds, the man went flying through the air.

"Well, that's better than last time!"  Harlan shouted.

The man smiled in agreement as he rose stiffly to his feet.  Emmet set Puck Marshall's old anvil on the tailgate and place a hammer and a couple of shoes next to it.

"Listen, why don't we try shoe shapin' today, Bub?"  Harlan handed the hammer to Bub, whose eyes lit up as if he was about to receive the holy sceptre.  "Bang that shoe around a little and get 'feel of the metal.'  We professional farriers call that 'the feel.'  A man's got to get a good feel fer it.  I'm gonna check your trimming."

As Bub bent the old shoe, Harlan kneeled down next to one of the mules.  "I'm gonna check your medio-lateral balance, Bub."  Harlan pulled out a Finnegan Gauge, pointing it at the snortiest mule, a little like a sailor navigating with a sextant.  "Aha!  I thought so.  Too much medial imbalance, Bub.  You remember what I taught you about strokin' the rasp?"  Harlan crouched slightly, miming smooth strokes with an invisible rasp.  "Smooth, smooth, smooth."

"Smooooth," Bub mouthed back.  "Smoooth."

"You keep a workin' on those strokes, Bub.  I think a few more sessions and we can think about doin' some nipper work."

Bub grinned so wide I thought his face would bust.  We piled back in Harlan's pickup.  I was totally confused over what I had just seen.  I thought about asking Emmet, but he was back to fondling his skinning knife.

11:45 AM:  An hour later we were back at Smokey's Bar, a pitcher of beer sweating comfortably in front of us.

"Harlan," I started cautiously.  "I've been with you since nine o'clock this morning and I've yet to see you shoe a horse.  I don't understand what's going on."

Harlan took a long swallow from his glass.  "Okay, I'll tell ya what's goin' on, but this has got to be one of those off-the-record kind of things.  See, if this got out, I'd be in a world of hurt."  Emmet stood up and limped to the opposite end of the bar where he stood glaring at Harlan.

"God-dammit Emmet!  Ah, hell with him.  Ya see, when Puck Marshall got that knife in his neck he told me to take care of Winnie, his wife and Emmet there."

"But I thought his wife stuck him with the knife?"

"She did indeed, but this is Mississippi.  We let families work out their problems without a lot of meddlin.'  Some folks figure Puck had it comin.'  Course, then they hung Winnie anyhow and others figured she had it comin.'  Balanced out sort of.  So Emmet there ended up livin' on my back porch."

"So?  What's that got to do with horseshoeing?"

After the trial, I got Puck's tools.  Ya see, somebody had to feed Emmet, and what with those lawyer fees and all, and I just had the tools.  I saw this advertisin' fer a shoein' school -- one of those two-week jobs.  Figured I'd go up there with Puck's anvil and learn how to do it -- you know, become a professional farrier."



"Did you?"

"Well, not quite.  When I got there, there was a waitin' list.  Lot of guys from 'Bama, Arkansas -- hell, even places like Canada.  The boss of the place had a bunch of students from the previous class teachin' us new fellas trimmin' on these old slaughterhouse legs and what not.  It was pretty awful.  But the boss had this brand new Chevy Dually with chrome wheels and a cellular phone.  Everybody wanted that truck and they figured that shoein' horses was the way to get it."



"So you decided to become a real professional farrier?"



"Well, not quite.  You see, I figured there was a lot more money in teaching shoein' than actually doin' it, especially with the weather down here.  So I cashed in some bonds my momma left me and..."



"Bought Harlan's tools?"



"Nope.  Leased that Chevy Dually and went into the teachin' business.  Emmet and I cover 'bout fourteen counties -- sort of a correspondence course by truck.  Right now, we got about fifty guys we're teachin' how to shoe.  Bub is on his twelfth lesson and all he can think about is Chevy trucks.  They see my truck out there and go moon-blind.  Sometimes they work on their own stock, other times we sort of contract out for our stock.  You know, kinda get paid at both ends -- that sort of thing.


I took a long swallow from my beer.  "But how...I mean, it sounds like a pyramid scheme.  Did you graduate from the school?"



"Hell, no."  Harlan lowered his voice to a whisper.  "I couldn't shoe a horse if my life depended on it.  I got my tuition back and bought some of those fancy chrome-plated hoof knives.  Went down to Jackson and leased the truck.  From that point on it's been smooth sailin.'"



I wondered how a man could live like that.  Cheating people out of their dreams.  I finally asked him how he lived with himself.  He looked puzzled, like I had asked him what color air he liked to breathe.



"I live fine.  Ya see, as soon as these guys are finished with their lessons, I'm goin' to take all that money and open a Chevy dealership.  I'm goin' to lease 'em all trucks and tell 'em the real money is in California.  Ya see, this is Mississippi.  Like I said, we don't hold a grudge down here, especially if a fella is just tryin' to make a buck.  It's like me takin' care of Winnie even though ol' Winnie planted a butcher knife in Puck's neck and got hung.  I took care of her, Puck's old tools take care of me and I take care of Emmet.  If I gotta do all that work, then somebody's got to take care of me, so these guys I'm teachin' to shoe are really supportin' a dead widow and her orphan boy.  Once they get that new Dually and turn up the air-conditionin', all this will make perfect sense.  My God man, I got all these people dependin' on me.  Hell, let's have a beer!  You're not goin' to print any of this crap are you?"

Down at the other end of the bar, Emmet was still fondling his knife.


The End.......

Spy vs. Spy vs. Spy vs. Spy...At the Sales

Spy versus...

Spy versus...

Spy versus...

Spy versus...

What horse?

CIA Has Nothin' Over These Spies

Thoroughbred sales are probably one of the most fascinating venues ever created for the sole purpose of selling an agricultural commodity.  Yeah, I'm afraid that $100,000 yearling you just bought is technically: livestock.  Sorry, but the USDA and The Jockey Club haven't quite settled on a nomenclature that fits every body's needs perfectly.  Especially when the wife asks, "Honey, do we own any cows?  The accountant called about it."

Given how really special Thoroughbreds are, and perhaps more importantly, how tricky the end-result of a purchase might be, the industry decided to nurture the development of so-called agents -- bloodstock agents to be completely correct.  This was both incredible foresight on the part of Thoroughbred sellers and of absolute necessity to insure any form of repeat business.  Yes, agents are a little like heat-shields on a space capsule.  They are designed to deflect a certain version of a rare, but sweet-scented wrath that shows up every year about tax time.  See, when $100,000 and "out run a Yugo" end up in the same sentence -- well, everybody should have a fall-guy.

Agents know this.  That's why every couple of years they change names, addresses, phone numbers, shaving habits, countries, wives, favorite restaurants -- DNA if they could figure out how.  But unhappy, financially destitute in-laws are only half the problem.  The real competition isn't over clients.  They recycle pretty fast.  The end-game -- the adrenaline-chili-powder-ragged-edge-tight-cheek-ultimate high:  out-flanking another agent.  And to be clear, it is not always about buying the better horse.

"Buyers engage in a form of subterfuge of their own and for a very good reason, or quite frankly, a whole collection of personality disorders.  Some trainers, owners or agents have a reputation for picking out winners on a somewhat regular basis.  Regular is a subjective term.  Irregular is an industry standard.  Either way, the divine chosen are subject to counter-intelligence operations of epic proportions.  People peek at them from under the shed-row, behind bushes, near Sani-Kans, or try to get them drunk at cheap bars and swipe their catalog  The object of all these mental manipulations is two-fold:  the first is to find out if one's own judgement is hopelessly corrupt, or at the least, shared by one other human on the planet.  The second depends on the first, because two people can't possibly own the same secret.  Then, the strategy is to either undermine the other potential buyer's confidence in a particular horse or undermine your own.  The latter is complicated.  It is like buying a used car from yourself.  You know the damn thing has a hopeless stain in the backseat and the engine knocks, but the price is...well, you get it.  If another guy actually wants to buy it, why are you selling it?"



The shin bone is connected to...the yearling sales.

iStock images [rights secured]

Cross-dressing...Equine Version:


Over the decades, I have spent countless hours exploring the finer points of equine conformation.  Well, female conformation as well, but if I go down that path I'm going to have to invest in a new web site:  you know, www.xxx.  And the next thing you know the place would be overrun with Republicans and defrocked priests.  And if you've read my book, you probably appreciate that I've got enough trouble with UPS drivers, the fire department, The Jockey Club and most of my neighbors.  At least the ones that chose shelter-in- place over the witness protection system.


However, if you sell yearlings in the marketplace, conformation is a very, very big deal.  Deal-breaker actually.  And horse people being either special or perhaps not enamored by detail, have invented their own unique anatomical identification system:


"One of the biggest causes for consternation at a yearling sale is centered around a young horse's knees.  They invoke the most poking and prying, for like the ball-joints in your aging car or Joe Namath's hairy landing gear, they are the first part of the anatomy to falter.  Why?  Well, they carry about 60% of the horse's weight.  The hind legs work like a propeller on a ship.  Additionally, anatomy tends to cross-dress between species.  Knees aren't knees -- they are actually wrists.  Hooves are fingernails, everything below the knee is actually a digit -- or, a finger really.  The real knees are actually stifles, the hocks are ankles and racing pounds these misguided joints at about 2000psi or more.  I know it is confusing, but if you stand up a horse on its hind legs and connect the dots, it will probably make sense.  Or maybe it won't."


"Buyers approach the knees like madcap melon buyers.  They thump and maul the joint mercilessly.  Others get back at a distance and ponder the shape and contour of the joint, stopping occasionally to scratch their heads or write a comment in their sales catalog.  Normally, something like, "This horse sucks."  The astute buyers pretend to be looking at a gaskin, while stealing a quick glance at a knee.  Others put their money on the ankles (which are really hands), or the eye (which really is an eye), or that certain look, though I'm still working out the connection between a horse and a bald-headed bird that cavorts with vultures and hyenas.  But that is our dilemma.  We parade our yearlings, corrupt the truth as best we can and hope that three drunken optimists try to prove a point when out horse is in the ring."

Next:  Spy versus Spy 

Shoeing on the dark-side of the moon...



Hmm...Too Formal?

Scenes from Chapter 13:

'A Pretty Fair Farrier'

 We all have those days, those clients, those collections of improbable events that can only come from exploring the the dark-side of the moon without a flashlight.

One of my favorites is the horse that doesn't quite make it through the appointment.  And naturally, the owner is at work.  And guess where she works?  Grisly-Lugnut & Ballsqueezer, LLC.  Attorneys-at-Law.  Never mind that Bucky was 31-years old, almost toothless and lived on nitro-glycerin tablets.  Or that he fell over dead on your new $90 fiberglass shoeing box.  The box where your iPad was sitting...next to your prescription Ray-Bans.  Just one thing matters:  Bucky died on your watch.


Then there is the case of way too much information.  That happens because of the nature of the job.  Horse owners are always conversing with your butt while your mouth is normally full of nails.  It's amazing the things people will tell a horseshoer's butt:  "Judy, I think we should do Sparky every six-weeks instead of eight.  His feet grow pretty fast."  She tells your butt, "You know, I haven't had an orgasm in fifteen years."  You change the schedule back to eight-weeks.

Or...

A trainer holds a horse for you.  A trainer who never holds a horse for anybody.  He starts to tell your butt a story:  "Ya know, we didn't win at Tucson last week."  (The horse he's holding is Double-Lucky Moon Shot -- a halter horse.)  "Judge kept lookin' at Moonie's front legs...like thar was somethin' wrong."  Of course, the butt doesn't immediately answer.  Case of pucker or something.  Then, more information is forthcoming:  "You know, I think we need to lower those outsides a little more.  Yeah, that's it I think...we should do that."  Then your butt hears the horse being snapped into the cross-ties and boots -- scraping the asphalt pretty quickly until they finally fade away.  Once you finish, you simply hose the blood off your rasp and head for the next appointment.

Where...

The trainer is at a show.  A note on the shoeing board says to check Buddy.  You scratch your butt and think, "Buddy who?"  You finally find a groom in one of the stalls talking to a horse.  She says, "Oh hi!"  You ask, "What's wrong with Buddy?"  She says, "Oh, he's lame."  You seek clarification: "Who's Buddy?"  The groom:  "Oh. I thought you knew.  I don't."  You say:  "You don't?"  She says: "No, but I knew a horse in Florida with the same name.  What a coincidence!"  You go back to the shoeing board and check the list.  Under a horse named Benjamin, is a note that says, "Vet wants you to...."  The rest has been smeared off and replaced with...'Pizza Hut -- Tues./4:00.'   You gaze down the aisle way in the direction of where you last saw the groom talking to the horse.  For a second or two, you actually consider asking her about...instead you change the shoeing board and write:  Buddy and Benjamin meet vet at Pizza Hut -- Tues/4:00.  Smiling, you head for your truck.   



The trouble with 'smart' horses -- conclusion.

Trygve [image: ajuell]
Fastest horse in the world one Saturday

Trygve:

Part III

Somehow I escaped the sale's grounds, though I believe I was chased for some miles by at least two bloodstock agents from California.  I finally lost them on the Bellevue connector where the new Highway 520 abruptly ends -- seems they ran out of money part way to Redmond.  You can always tell when things are going badly when they build a three-lane bridge on a four-lane freeway.  But the bigger problem still remained:  The Mrs..  See, she had already been shopping for the new Cadillac El Dorado -- her ransom for agreeing to live on a farm -- the only decision remaining being the color.  Trygve's sale was intended to cushion that annual blow to the finances -- 1 Cadillac = one less unaffordable stud fee.  Farm finances and divorce court are all about one compromise or another.

The owner and I agreed to just lie.  The horse didn't seem to care -- he was just happy to be home again.  We said that Trygve fell down and wrecked his knee.  Actually, I fell down and wrecked my knee running from that pack of angry bloodstock agents, but of course I didn't matter in somebody else's lie.  I then painted the colt's knee with all kinds of disgusting stuff in case the Mrs. hired a private detective to unravel our story.  The Mr. was forced to finance the El Dorado since our cash-flow had taken a turn for the worse. No, we never got caught but since all the conspirators are still alive, there's still a possibility of doing a stint in purgatory with the Cadillac dealer.

So Trygve went on that fall to get broke with the rest of the tribe.  Pretty sure he fractured a couple of rider's collarbones in the process since he still suffered from chronic boredom.  He didn't like just galloping in one direction every morning so every once in a while he'd just reverse the field so to speak. That normally made things pretty exciting for everybody -- including the stewards, who suggested on a few occasions that the horse might enjoy racing in Europe.  And sadly, that assessment was pretty close to the truth.  The colt's world had become a mundane, repetitive routine...life on a carousel, and he had begun to shut it out... to quietly sulk. 


He didn't race at two, though he attracted a lot of attention just the same.  He was fast; damn fast, but erratic.  He seemed physically mature, but like a lot of 2-year olds that perception could be a deceptive conclusion, and with his kind of speed it was decided to hold him back.  And Longacres had a reputation for producing some pretty fast fractions on its own, which is not always conducive to keeping a horse sound...or alive.  But over the following winter, a couple things happened.  One day at the feed store I spotted a pick-up truck loaded to the roof, pulling a horse trailer equally stuffed with junk and one old pony horse.  It had Maryland plates on it.  Inside, I ran into the owner's of this Dust Bowl era menagerie and introduced myself.  The two refugees turned out to be Larry and Sharon Ross, a pair that would write their own story in northwest racing over the ensuing decade.  But for now, they were new in town, broke and ambitious for a new start.  They wanted to train on a different coast and perhaps most importantly, they wanted to train their way.  We got them set up with work on one of the breeding farms in the area while Larry began the arduous task of attracting clients, horses and perhaps the most difficult for new trainers, convincing a skeptical racing secretary that they deserved stalls at the track.  Stall assignment was a make or break proposition for a trainer.       


Trygve went back to the track his 3-year old year.  In the interim I had spent a lot of time with Larry and Sharon -- we had become good friends.  They had gotten a couple of stalls at the track and attracted a few clients.  They trained very differently, constantly altering routines with their horses and rotating them on and off the track.  They looked at each horse as an individual and adjusted their routine to fit that horse, unlike most trainers who took the cookie-cutter approach and made the horse conform to the 'system.'  Gallop 4, walk 1, gallop 2, breeze on the 7th...ad naseum.  And gee, to every body's amazement (resentment perhaps), the pair had immediate success.  And in the background was this farm manager, who knew this really talented horse who really needed...well, you get it.


Loyalty is an admirable trait.  Sometimes a little too admirable.  I lobbied hard for a change in trainers.  I honestly believe in the notion of different strokes for...and perhaps the idea that you are either part of the solution or part of the problem.  That happens in all facets of life and as unpleasant or perhaps as wounding it might appear to the ego, stepping aside for the bigger picture is not an admission of failure, but rather a salutation to the greater possibilities for the game.  But I suppose that can be a hard decision when you are the closest to the flame.  I had a little distance, a lot less at stake and perhaps that was the difference between blind admiration and the kind of clarity needed to make that kind of a call.  It didn't happen.


Sometime that spring Trygve was also adopted by a stray puppy who had decided to live in his stall.  It was a good match, as the colt trained exceptionally well for a couple of months, winning two allowance races and gaining the reputation as one two 'speed' horses on the track.  The two would meet a month later, the same year that Mt. St. Helens blew its top.  It was one of those races where two horses hook up about a 1/4 mile out of the gate and the rest of the field might as well go home.  When it was over, Trygve had won the duel -- the timer's clock showed 107.2, though there was some debate that he had equaled the world mark of 107.1.  Either way, it was about the fastest six panels anybody had witnessed in quite some time.


The next week, Trygve's puppy was killed in a hot-walker accident.  It was decided that he didn't need a dog.  He returned to his erratic ways on the track and those long periods of simply staring out into space.  The decision was made to geld him, assuming that might reduce his sulking.  It didn't.  Finally he began running for a price and was eventually claimed, fracturing a knee somewhere in California.  He was given to his groom, an older black man who had a small ranch of his own.  He used his savings to have the colt's knee fixed as best it could be repaired, and from what I heard would ride him  around in the evenings and introduce him to the neighbors.  Normally around dinner time.