Horsetrionics: 2011-01-16

Friday, January 21, 2011

1. Torn Faith

2. Under the Spreading...Tarpaulin

3. Nancy Arbuckle's Hair

Maybe I should explain what happened to Ms. Arbuckle's hair. Seems she drove a school bus. Eighth-graders as I recall.

"It's like this," he began. "You know Nancy Arbuckle?"

"Yeah. Well sort of, I mean not really. Her hair looks funny, like it caught on fire or something." I was fishing.

More on this mystery later.

[image: Ron & Joe.com]

About This Book

"While I never gave up on Don Quixote, I often gave up on myself." Mares Foals & Ferraris.

Seems most of my life has been spent in the company of horses, or thoroughly depraved Jack Russell terriers. Sure, there were also some incredible friends, a few wonderful (troublesome) women and the experiences one can only garner by stepping off the edge of this very forgiving planet. For almost 40 years I wrote about the misadventures of horses and horse people, who were in many ways, the most unique collection of talent and compassion still left on this rock. And along the way, I managed to do just about everything possible with a horse, short of marrying one. Don't laugh. I lived in San Francisco -- a city that never runs short on possibilities.

But I also was a child of war. Many wars it seemed in a world that by all accounts should have long ago exhausted the need or value born of unbridled conflict. And with each war, another generation carried on that desperate legacy of despair -- as if some accounting is always owed on that dark ledger of self-righteous history. Children of children of children, taking up the gun because conversation has grown weak, or stale, or suddenly foreign to the few remaining ears left in the audience. And no, naivete is not one of my virtues, though thankfully, humor is. So the book is basically a serialization of columns first penned in the 1980's for The Washington Thoroughbred. Yes, a little stumbling romance, a few words on living on a dysfunctional planet...but mostly how the horse can a lead a person back to trust.

The book is a one-year compression of those forty-odd years managing and breeding racehorses. In certain circles this literary technique might be frowned upon, but having three US presidents, Rambo, Maynard G. Krebs and Paris Hilton all together in the same book -- even the same chapter, well, how much fun is that. Besides, farming can be a little dull at times. Ever watch grass grow?

The Littlest RaceHorse opens in October of 1962...the week of the Cuban Missile Crisis. A time of incredible uncertainty, where tomorrow was no longer a given. And two kids are literally tossed into the tumult created by those events. Losses and gains -- at the heart of it, a horse seemingly doomed by the peculiarities of his birth. And that is all I have to say about that!

Friday, January 21, 2011

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