July 3, 2006
Momday 

Horses are I think lucky . . . horses think good easy things, smooth green and windy things, . . . and they have enough grass to trot in forever and wind to throw their manes high to the sky and cool sweet stream water to drink, and clover.
            — Catherine Petroski, b. [c] 1940
                 American writer, from her story “Beautiful My Mane in the Wind”

When I met Ron DeAngelis he was in the last year of his career as an owner and exhibitor of Morgan horses. That phase of his life had begun when the daughters of his first marriage became horse crazy pre-adolescents and he yielded to their cries of “Pl-e-e-e-e-ase, Daddy!” with something beyond mere riding lessons. He bought a three-acre spread in Conewago Township, built a house and a barn, had a pond dug, and became, at least in the Morgan horse registry, the owner and manager of Cavallieri Farm. They had as many as three horses at a time over the next six or so years, including Merlin Highwayman, a high-stepping black beauty that in appearance was the horse of my dreams. By 1982, however, the family was in transition, Merlin Highwayman was sold, and everybody went on to the next part of their lives.

Like many young girls, I, too, had a horse period, beginning at about the age of ten. I read My Friend Flicka and National Velvet, gazed at the reproduction of Rosa Bonheur’s “The Horse Fair” in my fourth-grade art appreciation book, and dreamed about owning a horse. In the summer of 1978, when I was thirty-one, I took riding lessons, getting up early three times a week and driving thirty miles to a large boarding stable in Perry County where, along with my classmates, I learned the routine daily care of a horse as well as the fundamentals of riding. (This is one reason why the classes were fairly inexpensive. We were providing stablehand services for vacationing owners.) I enjoyed my experience that summer, but the passion for horses was no longer strong enough to get me to make sacrifices to indulge it.

Lynn turned out to have no interest in horses, a good thing since she has a pronounced allergy to them. We discovered just how strong the reaction was the day after I’d driven our neighbors’ daughter to and from her riding lesson and Lynn couldn’t tolerate being in my car until I’d vacuumed it thoroughly, nor could she be in the other girl’s house until the riding clothes had been laundered.

Ron’s second daughter, Patty, now in her early forties, has returned to her passion for horses. She lives in Philadelphia and works at the track where 2004 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Smarty Jones trained. She also owns a horse that races there, and today Ron and I went down to watch him run.

I’d been to a live horse race only once before, more than thirty years ago. I’d been someone’s date at a corporate event, and the evening included a sit-down dinner served in a private dining room with a view of the track. They dimmed the lights at the start of each race, and people got up from the tables to go stand at the big windows and watch. The thick glass muted the sounds of thundering hooves, and the valet parking meant that I’d moved from the car I arrived in to a red carpet under an awning and then into the VIP elevator, so my experience of the track that night was more like attending a symphony concert or a play than a sporting event.

This was not the case today. I waited at the front door while Ron parked the car. I’d entered the building but went right back outside, preferring the heat and humidity of the sidewalk to the air-conditioned but smoke-filled atmosphere inside. I’m so accustomed now to smoke-free environments that the lingering odor of stale cigarettes seems overpowering to me, and when Ron arrived I had to hold my breath even during the walk through the smoke-free section to the bathroom.

The outdoor spectator area, though, was pleasant enough, with park benches set in an area shaded by the building. It was late in the day – Patty’s horse was running in the last race, set to go off about 4:00 – and there weren’t really a lot of people there. Most of them looked like the people you’d see at any outdoor summer festival. We saw two races, one on the turf (the inner track of grass) and the other on the dirt. That one was a long race, beginning and ending at the same point and going the whole of the mile track. I stood down at the rail for that one because Ron said that the sound of the horses’ hooves at the finish line is a real thrill. The whooping of the spectators drowned out even that.

One thing that surprised me, something I had never seen before, was the ambulance. I’m accustomed to the presence of an ambulance at high school football games. It’s usually parked near the entrance gate, and the crew sits around eating french fries and talking, ready for the few times that they are ever needed. At a Thoroughbred race, however, the ambulance follows the horses, driving along the track at a little distance. You don’t see that on television.

Nor is Patty the kind of owner you see on television, a stylish woman in a voile dress and wide-brimmed hat, her hair caught back with a diamond-studded barette, who sits in the stands and smiles for the cameras. Don’t get me wrong. Patty is attractive and stylish when the occasion calls for it. But on this day she was in jeans and a t-shirt, down in the paddock helping to walk the horse, talking to the jockey and the trainer, and walking out her own pre-race jitters.

Patty’s horse, Tex-Max, is a roan stallion, a little smaller than many Thoroughbreds. He has a tendency to get his tongue up over the bit, so he’s fitted with a tongue strap to tie it down. He also wears blinkers, eye cups designed to limit his side vision and prevent distraction.

I watched the horses while they were being walked in the covered waiting area. Most of them are slicked up with Show Sheen, a horse hair polish that repels dirt and dust and makes their coats and manes look glossy. A few of them had what appeared to be thick white bandages on the inner area of their buttocks. No, I was told, that’s foamy sweat that collects there. The odor of that sweat, mixed with the odors of wet hay and leather tack and waste matter and excitement suffused the air, not unpleasant really and certainly better than the tobacco and beer haze I’d gone outside to avoid.

Ron put $15 on the horse, $5 each to win, place, and show. Wagering is not something I understand very well, though I know the lingo – trifecta, across the board, pari-mutuel. And I know that among the bettors were people who pretty much knew what they were doing as well as people who were risking their last dollars on a horse they picked because the jockey had a name that reminded them of their first girlfriend.

Tex-Max finished out of the money. But a lot of people are excited about his potential. He’s only three years old and still maturing. Jockeys want to ride him, speculators want to buy him.

I enjoyed my trip to the track today. But I’m probably going to continue to follow Tex-Max’s career only via e-mail from his owner, and go back to fantasizing that I own one of the horses I saw in Wyoming last year, who thinks green and windy things as he tosses his beautiful mane high to the sky.

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