HARD TIMES... change, but not for the better (Part 55a)


I had a couple of days before shipping the horses. Since I wasn’t going to race the three footed horse before leaving I had to give him a training session. When we race we use a little two wheel thing called a sulky to sit on since we don’t ride on the horse. When we’re training we use a more comfortable but, heavier, cart. I had just finished one of the four trips and was on my way back to the barn. It’s called “jogging” when the horse is going slow. I was jogging along with both my feet out of the stirrups and the next thing I knew the horse was down and I was up against the dash and in great pain. Luckily there were some horse people nearby and they ran over to sit on the head of the horse to keep him from trying to get up with the cart still attached. I managed to extract myself from the reins and the cart. I know I was in a lot of pain but my thoughts were on getting the horse up. We had to undo the cart and the only way to do that was to take the harness off the horse. Once done we tried to get the horse up but it was obvious that there was a major problem. The foot that had been "nerved" wasn’t pointing in the right direction. One of the men ran off to call for a veterinarian. When he got there he gave me the worst news a horseman can hear. He’d fractured his ankle and would have to be euthanized. I asked if there was anything that could be done to save him and he was sympathetic, but said “no”. The only thing I really remember was seeing this canvas screen being placed around him and hearing a muffled sound. By then I could hardly walk. My ribs were sore and my lower back was just throbbing in pain and I had to call AJ to let him know. Technically it was his horse and that made it even worse. I don’t remember any of the conversation. All I wanted was to do something about the pain. I didn’t have any health insurance but the pain was so great I didn’t have any choice but go to a doctor. I had Asa drive me. Other than some pain pills he didn’t do much. He told me that I should rest and that would be the best thing. The problem with that was that if I didn’t work I didn’t get paid. Thankfully, Asa could jog the two remaining horses and I did try to rest as much as I could until Saturday when we were to ship the horses to Boston.

Any time a horse is "put away" at a race track, word gets around quickly. Even though I hadn't made any really good friends there were a number of trainers who stopped by. One was Dan, the trainer who had made a broad offer of a job to me when the Grand Circuit was at the other track. This time he made a much stronger, but not detailed, offer and told me if I was the least bit interested to call him by the middle of the upcoming month. I hadn't taken him seriously the first time but he did get my attention this time.

The pain wasn’t as severe when I started to get the trailer ready to move it. George, my neighbor, and his daughter came over and did the unblocking of it. I have one lasting memory of Ellen and that was after her father had jacked the trailer up a bit and she squatted down to pull the wooden wedges out. I got a really good DP (downpants). I just wished that I’d actually had more chances to see what kind of panties she wore while I was at the track. George hitched the trailer to the car for me and wished me luck.

The trip itself wasn’t all that bad. It was when I had to get out of the car that I felt it. As I pulled up to the gate the guy there told me I couldn’t bring the trailer inside. I was in no mood to be told that. I was probably just a bit “testy”. I was told that since the track was inside the Boston city limits it was not allowed. Without going into all the details I’ll just say that I was finally allowed to park it in the compound where the horse vans were stored. The “deal” was that it had to be parked right up tight to the fence with the door facing it. Now I had to find a place to stay. What made that even worse was that AJ hadn’t arrived and he had my pay for the week.

I don’t remember what the reason was why he was late in getting there but the short end of the story was that I slept in my car, bad back and all. On top of that there was a thunder storm with almost torrential rains. If you’ve ever been in a convertible when it rains you know how loud it can get. By dawn I was exhausted. In all, we had 14 horses with 12 on one side of the barn. The other two were stabled in the middle of the facing barn. It was still raining so all I could do was to just see that the horses were fed and watered... and wait for AJ.

While standing there (it hurt less to stand) a young blond man came up and introduced himself. His name was Eugene and he and his father had the other horses stabled with the two odd horses we had. They were from Delaware and this was the farthest from home he’d ever been. The family raised chickens and raced horses as a hobby. Normally they raced at tracks in Delaware that were close by to their farm. The season there was almost over and when they heard how much the purses (the money paid) were in Boston decided to give it a try. Eugene told me that he wanted to race horses for a living and this was a really big thing for him. I liked him right away even though I felt he was a bit of a “rube”.

To be continued...