smaller than I was and quieter, too. The bay one resembled Marey. The red was all red and not a spot of white. She took after Covert.
Neither filly touched their hay. Not a bite. They couldn’t hardly lift their heads to look out the window, much less pull hay. There wasn’t much to see out on the road, anyway. Not a mountain in sight. Nor a hill that could make me think of home.
As we didn’t have a terrible far distance to travel, I got to smelling their hay, and it seemed a shame to let it all go stale, especially since both the fillies’ nets were within my easy reach.
Neither one put up a lick of fuss at sharing. That’s how I knew they were in a world of hurt. I could only hope that the place we were headed would look kindly upon all three of us.
Long about dusk, the trailer stopped, and we unloaded. I was downright stunned to find that the entire farm was enclosed by a tall barbed-wire fence. Nobody would be breaking out of there.
The handlers led us to a brick barn with cement floors. Our hooves struck the ground in alternating beats and set off a welcoming chain of whinnies and nickers down the lane. There must have been twenty Thoroughbreds, all former racers, already living in that big barn.
They led me to a stall at the very end on the corner, next to a chestnut about my size who had his nose to the wall and his rear toward the door. The bay filly was placed across the aisle. She was even dimmer in the eyes than at the start of our trip. As soon as she took her first couple of steps, I could see that she was off. Lame.
The night men tossed a flake of hay in each of our stalls and filled up two buckets each with water. “Welcome to Riverside Maximum Security Correctional Center,” said the man leading me. “Also known as prison.”
I n the daylight, the new place was full of horses and men. The men they called offenders all wore the same type of denim britches, and they worked under the watchful eyes of other men called guards, who carried guns, so I tried hard to be good.
We retirees in the program had seen everything there was to see. Seen glory and agony. On the track, when a horse broke down a stride or two ahead of you, what choice was there but to go over, under, or around. I’d seen a whole lot worse, too. Things no man or horse should ever have to see.
And yet, there I was. Standing on four feet. Breathing in fresh air and trying to fathom finding a second chance and wondering what on earth I might do with my remaining years if not race. And wondering if I could ever learn to do anything else.
I saw plainly that Mrs. Eden had sent me to retire on a Virginia prison farm where, it seemed to me, fallen horses and fallen men landed with a thud. Everybody inside needed some kind of fixing or correcting or rehabilitating. Somewhere along the way, somebody had gotten the idea that we could help one another.
The purpose of bringing second-chance hopefuls like myself into the prison environment was to test out this idea that, maybe somehow, broken men could help broken horses, and vice versa. Take my situation. Pretty simple. I needed a place to live and someone to care for me. The men confined to the prison farm had time to learn and time to give.
Now, the main elements of the retirement program included (1) make a good match between a man and a Thoroughbred, (2) teach the man how to care for and understand horses, and (3) help the ex-racehorse just be a horse. I didn’t reckon the fourth goal would ever apply to me: adopt out the ex-racehorses into forever homes, where we could live out the last, oh, twenty-five or so years of our lives.
The success of this whole experiment turned on the idea that friendship and structure would put the horses and the men back together. Rebuild confidence and make us whole again.
Right away, I started learning and unlearning. The woman in charge, Miss Bet, said the main thing I needed to figure out was how to be a horse. She recommended that after all I’d
Neither filly touched their hay. Not a bite. They couldn’t hardly lift their heads to look out the window, much less pull hay. There wasn’t much to see out on the road, anyway. Not a mountain in sight. Nor a hill that could make me think of home.
As we didn’t have a terrible far distance to travel, I got to smelling their hay, and it seemed a shame to let it all go stale, especially since both the fillies’ nets were within my easy reach.
Neither one put up a lick of fuss at sharing. That’s how I knew they were in a world of hurt. I could only hope that the place we were headed would look kindly upon all three of us.
Long about dusk, the trailer stopped, and we unloaded. I was downright stunned to find that the entire farm was enclosed by a tall barbed-wire fence. Nobody would be breaking out of there.
The handlers led us to a brick barn with cement floors. Our hooves struck the ground in alternating beats and set off a welcoming chain of whinnies and nickers down the lane. There must have been twenty Thoroughbreds, all former racers, already living in that big barn.
They led me to a stall at the very end on the corner, next to a chestnut about my size who had his nose to the wall and his rear toward the door. The bay filly was placed across the aisle. She was even dimmer in the eyes than at the start of our trip. As soon as she took her first couple of steps, I could see that she was off. Lame.
The night men tossed a flake of hay in each of our stalls and filled up two buckets each with water. “Welcome to Riverside Maximum Security Correctional Center,” said the man leading me. “Also known as prison.”
I n the daylight, the new place was full of horses and men. The men they called offenders all wore the same type of denim britches, and they worked under the watchful eyes of other men called guards, who carried guns, so I tried hard to be good.
We retirees in the program had seen everything there was to see. Seen glory and agony. On the track, when a horse broke down a stride or two ahead of you, what choice was there but to go over, under, or around. I’d seen a whole lot worse, too. Things no man or horse should ever have to see.
And yet, there I was. Standing on four feet. Breathing in fresh air and trying to fathom finding a second chance and wondering what on earth I might do with my remaining years if not race. And wondering if I could ever learn to do anything else.
I saw plainly that Mrs. Eden had sent me to retire on a Virginia prison farm where, it seemed to me, fallen horses and fallen men landed with a thud. Everybody inside needed some kind of fixing or correcting or rehabilitating. Somewhere along the way, somebody had gotten the idea that we could help one another.
The purpose of bringing second-chance hopefuls like myself into the prison environment was to test out this idea that, maybe somehow, broken men could help broken horses, and vice versa. Take my situation. Pretty simple. I needed a place to live and someone to care for me. The men confined to the prison farm had time to learn and time to give.
Now, the main elements of the retirement program included (1) make a good match between a man and a Thoroughbred, (2) teach the man how to care for and understand horses, and (3) help the ex-racehorse just be a horse. I didn’t reckon the fourth goal would ever apply to me: adopt out the ex-racehorses into forever homes, where we could live out the last, oh, twenty-five or so years of our lives.
The success of this whole experiment turned on the idea that friendship and structure would put the horses and the men back together. Rebuild confidence and make us whole again.
Right away, I started learning and unlearning. The woman in charge, Miss Bet, said the main thing I needed to figure out was how to be a horse. She recommended that after all I’d
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