Wishes and Horses

No sports fan am I. I do, however, like some sporting events that have to do with horses, such as the annual running of the Thoroughbreds in the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes. The pageantry, hooplah and analysis don’t call me. I just like the horse. And I am a little fascinated by the jockeys, their tiny saddles, and the gift that enables them to travel at dizzying speeds, poised and vulnerable . Is it art, is it athleticism? A combination, no doubt.

That 30 years have now officially passed without another Triple Crown winner makes the prize all the sweeter—after all, humans are involved—and I do wonder what it really takes for a single animal to reach that greatest achievement in horse racing. With the 140^th running at Belmont now history, one thing in particular has caught my ear. “I had no horse today,” explained Kent Desormeaux, in the aftermath of an unexpected outcome of the final leg of the Triple Crown. Following his established pattern of holding this horse back until the final leg of the race, jockey and Big Brown held their place in the herd of pounding flesh, but when the time came where jockey asks the big stallion colt to move ahead, Big Brown couldn’t take the challenge. Realizing that the horse needed some protection, jockey held him back, and finished a loping last, this too a record. So far, no real explanations have been offered, including a one-quarter crack in the right front hoof, going back to April. As the saying goes, the jury is still out on this one.

We are not machines, we of flesh, we of heart, and soul, and sometimes we just can’t deliver, in spite of expectations, and in the matter of those who have achieved renown, in spite of hype. Big Brown can’t possibly know the disappointment of owner, trainer, jockey, devoted racing fans who had chosen him this year, those with the betting urge—indeed, the distant disappointment of those like me who had simply wanted someone to excel, to be miraculous, to achieve what hadn’t been achieved in 30 years.

A couple of books on Thoroughbreds and racing have captured the hearts of readers, Laura Hillenbrand’s SEABISCUIT and Jane Smiley’s HORSE HEAVEN. In these two wondrous tales, one based on the historical mare who beat all the odds and embarrassed the powerful, the triumph of the spirit rewards both writer and reader. The hearts of champions win the day. Both books are filled with the pageantry and desolation of living. Horse, human, athlete, musician, we all love the story of triumph, especially over odds.

As we await the conclusions offered by those who have something to say that we can hang our hat on, we are left with one profoundly telling explanation—“I had no horse today”. For most, the disappointment of those involved in the real life of Big Brown, including a jockey whose son has been profoundly deaf since birth and suffers from an untreatable condition that eventually will lead to blindness, perhaps by the time he is in his 20s, will process their disappointments and move on, some more easily than others. For some, there is always another horse, another hope, another challenge. For others, there is challenge and hope. In an interview broadcast the day of the Belmont, the young boy’s mother expressed her sadness that her son most likely will go through adulthood without his sight. If wishes were horses, he wouldn’t have to face this challenge and loss. She added that she knows the family should just count their blessings.

How little we know about our champions and the stories that otherwise define their lives. Indeed, how little we know about one another, even those with whom we share blood. We know how we sometimes soar and sometimes falter in the upheavals mapped for our journey. We witness one another’s triumph over disadvantage—perhaps we even share.  As they say, some days are diamonds, some days are rust. No amount of hoorah, no amount of money, can change all outcomes. Perhaps what matters most is the showing up, the joining of hands, the sharing of the best and the worst of our days.

As I stood in my living room the afternoon of the Belmont, so far removed from the action, I actually cheered, fist and forearm punching the air, go Big Brown, come on Big Brown. Caught up in the moment, oh, how I was disappointed that horse and jockey couldn’t pull off the big win, the one that goes in the record books. And as always I was a little afraid—afraid of injury and possible loss, as in the case of the filly, Eight Belles, who was irreparably injured in the Kentucky Derby and had to be euthanized on the track. As with everything we do, someone is waiting in the wings to analyze and criticize, and the so-called experts jumped on the injury and death of this filly as an opportunity to explain to all of us why, just why. We have all these truths hanging out there, intended to make things clearer, to help us understand and accept that sometimes things just don’t turn out as we had planned or hoped. Living demands risk. When the dust settles, we are left with Desormeaux’s explanation, full of truth, “I didn’t have a horse today.”  Life requires many of those days.

Wishes and Horses—Santa Fe New Mexico (June 10, 2008)

R. Harold Hollis