The Horse God Built

by Lawrence Scanlan

  Several times during the lunch, Charlie got what he termed “full”—the tears would gather in his eyes, and he would cover them and apologize. At one point, he was talking about Eddie’s proficiency at bandaging a horse, and Charlie echoed Randy Jenkins’s phrase—that Eddie was a “great leg man”—and then added, “He was the master.” That word master seemed to buckle Charlie, and he had to pause and gather himself.

  Charlie talked about Eddie’s vigilance as a groom. Eddie would watch Riva Ridge and Secretariat eat, take note of how fast, or slow, they ate. He would constantly check their teeth, take their temperatures. Shorty Sweat was like a nurse in an intensive care unit.

  Later, we talked about money. Charlie seemed immensely proud of the fact that he had put away enough money to buy five acres of land near the track at Holly Hill, along with two mobile homes, all paid for. He doubted that Eddie had managed anything similar. Charlie completely agreed with Ted McClain’s assessment of Eddie— “a prince,” someone who would do anything for anybody. But Charlie also implied that Eddie drank more than was good for him, at least in the later days, and that he gave away to siblings and friends more money than he should have. “Put it this way,” said Charlie. “I wished he’d left more for the wife and kids. His heart was huge.… “Something always happen to the good, not to the bad,” he said through tears. “I wish today that Eddie was here and tell you the same thing I’m telling you. When you think you got a friend, you ain’t got no friend.” I took Charlie to mean that backstretch “buddies” saw Shorty Sweat as a soft touch and drew from that well of generosity until the well ran dry.

  I had promised Gus and Charlie I would buy them a supper for all their trouble, but I got a little anxious about my beleaguered pocketbook after everyone piled into Snowbird 1 and Gus directed me toward the fancy steak houses of downtown Ocala. I need not have worried. We pulled into the Golden Corral, where, for ten dollars, you could belly up to the buffet—whose range and size were mesmerizing—all evening long.

  Over their plates, Gus Gray and Charlie Davis told stories of backstretch society, its attractions, its hazards.

  Gus, who had been a groom for a long time, knew the territory. A groom looking for work, he said, should be able to say, “I rubbed so and so.” If you can’t name a big horse, they don’t want you. Imagine what kind of passport Eddie Sweat carried around until the day he died. “I rubbed Secretariat.”

  “Sometimes,” said Gus, “a great horse passes through you, and that’s what makes a groom. You get a good horse and the light hits you… .”

  I was thinking he was waxing poetic, Alabama-style. But I asked all the same. “What light?”

  “TV lights,” said Gus, but all that attention can fold in a hurry. He used to rub a good horse called Tri Jet, and when that horse was winning, some people called Gus Gray the horseman of the decade. “Now they say,” observed Gus, “you used to be a dang good groom.”

  “It’s cruel, isn’t it?” I said.

  “Yeah,” replied Gus.

  “Just like losing in front of your kid,” Charlie added. He said he had had precisely that feeling on the day that Secretariat left his home barn at Belmont to stand stud at Claiborne. “I went into my room and cried. I didn’t put the TV on; I just sat on the corner of the bed. I remember peeking through the blinds and watching Ronnie Turcotte kiss Secretariat.” (Ray Woolfe captured the moment in his book.) “On that day, it seemed to me that was one of my kids leavin.’ My firstborn.”

  The Muzak played in the Golden Corral, patrons filled and refilled their plates and bellies, and two men who had spent all their lives on the track tried to help me understand what can transpire between a racehorse and a groom. Gus said that when a groom talks of a previous race, he will say, “I was running against…”—as if the groom himself had been competing in the race. It is a measure of how much a groom begins to see life through a horse’s eyes.

  “You with those horses more than you with any member of your family,” said Gus.

  “There we go,” agreed Charlie, like a one-man chorus in a Baptist church.

  “You take those horses going to the Kentucky Derby,” said Gus, pronouncing it Ken-tucky. “That’s the groom’s life, okay? And one groom gonna come out smellin’ like a rose in May.” He described the campaigning for the Derby in May, how it starts in March of the previous year. Trips to Florida, California, Arkansas. That horse’s groom, explained Gus, “feels his pain, everything. All o’ that go with you. When he hurt, you hurt. When he smiles, you smile. ‘Cause that the only thing that you got. That’s all the family you got.”

  But surely, I countered, the groom has an actual family, too. Maybe a wife and kids. Where do they fit in all of this?

  “But here,” said Gus, “something that took over now. This is something big. That horse, he your son, your daughter, and everything.” Gus said he had seen grooms become so obsessed with a particular horse, so unwilling to leave the barn, that the owner was forced to separate man and horse. A groom’s life can take a strange twist.

  “That’s why,” said Charlie, leaping in, “Eddie start to drink so much. Because Secretariat was like one of his kids, and one of his kids just died.”

  Think of it. A groom never rides the racehorse, never hits him with a stick or makes him work. The groom only comforts him, feeds him, bathes and massages him, tucks him into bed. The nature of their contract is skewed. A grandfather or grandmother doting on a grandchild might not be a bad comparison.

  Gus talked about the day he went to the funeral of the farm man ager, Fred Hooper’s son. The hearse passed the barn, and Gus took a moment to look in on Tri Jet, something he did twice a day. He described finding the twenty-nine-year-old horse dead in his paddock. Gus had to deal with his own awful grief, but he could not pass on to his employer the terrible news. Everyone feared that losing Tri Jet and his own son on the same day would kill the old man.

  Then Gus, now dewy-eyed, asked the question: “You got to ask yourself, say, do a grown man supposed to cry about a animal?”

  “Yes, they do,” Charlie piped up.

  “If you part of the animal,” said Gus, “you got to cry. That’s when the sad moment comes.” And he described that day in the paddock, how the tears ran down his face as he mourned Tri Jet. There is a painting in his house of the black horse, which he had earlier shown me, and the man proudly holding the horse in the painting is, of course, Gus Gray.

  The investment—emotional, physical, financial—that some grooms make in a horse is wholehearted and unstinting. It is beyond measuring. Or is it? If the horse feels safe, confident, and loved, if he does not ache despite his workload, if his moods are respected and that special spot behind his ears is scratched daily—all because an attentive groom knows about it and has seen to it—surely the horse feels better, runs faster, gives more, offers that noble effort at the finish line. Maybe it is the difference between first and second, between a Triple Crown and something close to it. The bond between horse and groom, I would argue, can pay dividends.

  An owner or trainer can exploit that groom’s commitment, take advantage of it, use it, make money off it. And yet the groom who attends the horse, the exercise rider who tunes him up, the hot walker who prevents him from tying up, they share only a little in the glory and hardly at all in the windfall. Is that fair? I asked my dinner mates.

  “No, it’s not fair,” said Gus, still smiling. “I’m glad you said that. Now you gettin’ to be a writer.”

  Only occasionally, said Gus, will an owner look out for a groom. He cited the case of a horse called Kauai King, who won the Kentucky Derby in 1966. That horse’s groom, known widely as “Popeye,” got a five-thousand-dollar bonus. (A horse called Amberoid, trained by Lucien Laurin and groomed by Eddie Sweat, would beat Kauai King in the Belmont that same year.)

  Charlie Davis said that his entire bonus for riding Secretariat at the time of those Triple Crown victories and afterward was one thousand dollars, and it had not come from t
he trainer or the owner. Jockey Ron Turcotte approached him one day after those races with a wad of cash. “Merry Christmas,” he told Charlie, presenting him, and later Eddie Sweat, with a bundle of bills.

  The next evening, Carole and Gary Fletcher put on a splendid barbecue at their small farm outside Ocala and included Charlie Davis and Gus Gray on the guest list. An equine artist came, as did an exercise rider bearing fresh scars on his face from a horse’s hoof. Gus, meanwhile, hobbled about the place with a cane. That afternoon, he had been walking a yearling onto a trailer, when the horse nailed him— hoof on knee. Gus was clearly in distress, but the pain made no dent in either his appetite or his broad smile.

  Also on the guest list was Danny Jenkins. The word colorful does not begin to describe him. He is a lean six-two, a Vietnam vet, winner of the Bronze Star (with a V for valor), a recovered alcoholic, and a confident horseman, whose fragrance is often a blend of cologne, cigarettes, and coffee. In Vietnam, he was the point man, the one who called in air strikes and was most vulnerable to enemy fire. Danny has a glint in his eye and does not lack for courage.

  The next day, I meet Danny Jenkins at the starting gate at Ocala Breeders’ Sales-Company, with its full-size track and green metal starting gate. Here, several mornings a week, he certifies horses. Once certified, a horse is eligible to run at any track in North America.

  I have come to watch Danny and his colleague, Dave Jacobs, go through their paces. It’s a sunny, windswept Saturday, and the horses are slow to arrive, so there is time to muse on the state of racing and the art of the starter.

  Danny lays out on the white plastic rail beside the starting gate what he calls “the tools of the trade”: buggy whip, chain and shank, standing shank, lead-up, good leather gloves, and a flipping rig (like a slimmer version of a horse collar, and used with horses intent on flipping backward in the starting gate).

  The so-called problem horse, Danny says, is often just plain sore and therefore rank. Maybe, I suggest, we should listen when the horse says he is sore.

  “Yes,” he says, “but there’s a lot of greed in this game. And people run ‘em, run ‘em, run ‘em, run ‘em, run ‘em, run ‘em. And never hardly give ‘em a break.” Danny, who has worked on the backside for thirty-seven years, laments the lack of expertise in today’s trainers, some of whom operate without even basic knowledge of horsemanship. In the old days, a trainer had to pass both a written test and a barn test administered by track stewards to ensure that he or she could at least correctly apply bandages and saddle and bridle a horse. Today, anyone can buy a trainer’s license.

  Horsemanship, says Jenkins, takes time, and no one seems to have time anymore. Danny says horses are often run before they mature, and buyers who spend millions on a young colt or filly put enormous pressure on themselves, and on the horse, to recoup the investment. Danny argues that a “mature” horse is a three-year-old; some experts claim the age is more like four or five years old. But whatever the cause of horses breaking down on the track (hard surfaces, young horses, overwork), this veteran starter is seeing more horses going down.

  Still, Danny Jenkins loves the adrenaline of the track and he counts himself blessed to have learned from some gifted old-timers, to have worked the Breeders’ Cup and the Kentucky Derby. He loves the crowd and the rush. But he is sometimes appalled by what he sees. “A lot of people wouldn’t come to the track if they knew what happens on the backside,” he says.

  “Like what?” I ask.

  He eyes my tape recorder as if it were a venomous snake and makes a show of walking away. He is only half-joking.

  He tells me that in the old days of Thoroughbred racing, there was no starting gate, just men on steps holding out long buggy whips in front of a line of horses. When a bell was rung and the whips were dropped, the race began. A kinder starting method than the starting gate, he says, would be something similar to what Standardbred racers do: A truck trailing a wide metal frame slowly drives away and gradually accelerates, then peels off to the side as the metal frame folds like a butterfly’s wings. Thoroughbred racing’s metal starting gate—fixed in place, its doors all opening simultaneously—offers an explosive and dramatic start to a race all right, but it’s hard on horses’ bones. Too bad, I guess, about horses’ bones.

  “I can’t change things,” says Danny. And he utters that old prayer: “God grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can.” What he can do is teach horses about courtesy and confidence at the starting gate.

  This morning at the gate, I look on and I see little victories. Take this one, for example. A female exercise rider approaches the gate on an obviously nervous filly, so nervous that she is literally quaking, her legs shaking as if she has been out all night in an ice storm. I learn the horse’s story: Her owner, also a rider, had taken her through the gate weeks before, but the young filly panicked and badly cut herself with her own hoof. Blood sprayed as if from a garden hose. Danny had been direct with the owner: You’re out of your league and you’re “hindering” the horse. Get a good exercise rider for the next time.

  Now the filly is back, and clearly terrified at the prospect. The new rider, Terri M. Bailey, is stroking the horse’s neck, smiling and talking to her, giving the gorgeous wide-eyed filly all the reassurance in the world, while Danny, from the ground, likewise pats her belly. “Hold on, sissy,” Danny tells her, then calmly leads her through the gate and just lets her stand there and breathe a little. Then he instructs the rider to ease her out and gallop her down the track a ways. The lesson for the filly is that the starting gate might not be a horse-eating monster after all, and they will build on that prospect.

  “That’s enough for today,” Danny yells out to the rider. (Later, as I exit the grounds and pass the stables, I spot Bailey. She is still smiling, still praising the young filly, still stroking her as she dismounts.)

  Danny Jenkins has a party piece. He takes out his bottom plate of teeth, then the top plate, to show what is left after horses’ hooves have had a go at a man’s smile. The gums are all pink and bare, like a newborn baby’s. Later, Danny sits in his truck to do some paperwork and to seek shelter from the wind.

  “What’s your horse’s name?” he asks me.

  “Dali.”

  Danny fills out a little white card, writes in the date (2/26/05) and the place (O.B.S.), and signs it before handing it to me. Saroma Dark Fox Dali, my stout Canadian horse, is now good to go (blinkers “on”) at any racetrack in North America.

  Before I leave, and just as Danny Jenkins and Dave Jacobs are about to call it a day, two horses and two riders arrive close to 11:00 a.m. The horses seem calm and the two men usher them into place and close the gates, giving me the task of pressing the starter button—a red button at the end of a long black rubber tube.

  I think of another button, a yellow one. Some years ago, I was in Ottawa, boarding the train to Kingston, and met a friend in the station. He was that train’s engineer and he wondered if I’d care to ride with him up front all the way home. Every time we hit a railway crossing, I hit that yellow button and held it. Two longs, one short, one long, like shouts of joy. I was ten years old all over again.

  Ocala, Florida, and I’m that boy again. From his place on the starting-gate pedestal, Danny sends me a look that says all at once, This is a lark all right, but it is also serious business. He is not smiling. He is Danny Jenkins, starter.

  “On three, Larry… . One … two … three.”

  When I press the button (holding it longer than is necessary), the loud school bell sounds as the gates clang open, and the two horses charge down the track. There is no race, no crowd, nothing but two jockeys chirping loudly and spraying up clods of earth as they playfully sprint their horses down the backstretch. So why is my heart beating? Why do I follow them with my eyes to see which horse pulls ahead? Why can I not stop smiling?

  “MY BABY”

  Geraldine Holman, Eddie Sweat’s sister and the young
est of the family of nine children, vividly remembers going up on the train from South Carolina to New York one time with two of her sisters to see Eddie, and being joined by Linda, Eddie’s wife.

  “It was hot,” Geraldine told me, “so hot, I passed out at the train station. Eddie thought I was sick, and he was very worried, but it was just the heat. And when he was sure I was fine, he started telling me about Secretariat and how we all had to get to the track right away. He was so excited. ‘I gotta go get my baby.’ ‘Let’s go, let’s go.’ He kept saying before the race, ‘Watch how my baby gonna run.’ And I said to him, ‘Edward, you love that horse more than you love your wife!’ Linda was right there. She heard it, and she accepted that. She knew that horse was his life.”

  During the race, Eddie was almost beside himself. Geraldine could hear him screaming, “Come on, baby! Come on, baby! That’s my baby! That’s my baby!”

  After the race, which Secretariat won with ease, Geraldine watched as her brother hugged Secretariat, kissed him, and posed for the photographers, then told his sisters and wife that he had to go off and attend to the horse. “I gotta rub my baby now,” he said before addressing the horse in the same way. “You’re my baby,” he kept saying into the chestnut’s ear as he led him away. “You’re my baby.”

  9

  EULOGY FOR A HORSE

  “EVER OWN A GREAT HORSE?”

  The man asking the question was Preston Madden, the owner of Hamburg Place farm in Lexington, Kentucky. His question came as a response—impatient, clipped, bordering on testy—to a question of my own, one I thought I knew the answer to but had asked anyway.