Tag: horse-racing

He Rode Tall

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Excerpt

The palomino was sharp this morning. She was really listening
to him and reacted nicely to the slightest requests he made
of her.
Must have enjoyed her day off yesterday, Joel thought. After
enough circles Joel wanted to see what the filly had learned. He
ran her down the pen, sat back, said “Whoa,” and was rewarded
with a deep sliding stop. Then he brought her front end around
180 degrees and asked for a departure with a right lead. She
sprung into a canter and headed in the opposite direction, exactly
as she was supposed to. As if to confirm the quality of the performance,
Joel searched for Harry who was standing off to the side of
the corral loosening the cinch on the horse that he had just ridden,
and all the time had been watching Joel work the filly. Harry
responded with a nod.
By now, the truck had pulled into the yard as Joel had finished
up with the filly. Sliding off of the palomino’s back, Joel headed
to the barn. The strangers, two men in their thirties,
approached the far side of the corral, nodded to Harry and then
addressed Joel.
“Reckon you’re Edward’s son.”
“Reckon I am,” Joel responded in a countrified tone that surprised
even him and which he had caught himself using the other
day in Great Falls. If he was right, he was starting to sound more
like a cowboy than a professional engineer with decades of experience
in maritime engineering.
“We have been regular buyers of horses from your dad over the
years. We thought, if you didn’t mind, that we could take a look
over what you had for sale this year and see if there was anything
here that interests us.”
“How many horses have you bought from Dad?” asked Joel.
“We’ve each bought two a year for the last four years,” quickly
replied one of the visitors. “We would’ve liked to buy more but
your dad always seemed to have more buyers than horses so he
would only let us trailer out of here with two each.”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0980897955

He Rode Tall

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Excerpt

the way that they were groomed, he guessed all of the stock in
this sale were show horses or show-horse prospects.
Rounding the corner of one aisle and starting up another to
continue his inspection, Joel saw a growing crowd of people forming
outside of the old mare’s stall. Joel was feeling pretty good
about this turn of events. With that kind of interest, he might
even get the three- or four-thousand dollars that Harry predicted
she would be able to attract. That was a lot of money for an old
mare, but darn, she was a real good looker. Joel wandered past the
group of admirers but wasn’t able to pick up on any of the
conversation.
Once the sale got started, time seemed to fly by. After reading
the rules and regulations of the sale, the auctioneer, a gravelly
voiced man in a big Stetson, rattled the numbers off. After a while
a pattern started to emerge. The auctioneer would call for a while
and then a man beside him in the auction booth would stop the
sale and take a few moments to go on about the breeding and performance
record of the horse in the sale ring. The auction would
then continue for maybe another minute or two, depending on
how the bidding was going, before the auctioneer would call out,
“Sold!” As the sold horse exited from one end of the ring another
horse would be led in from the other end and the process would
start all over again. But while the system remained consistent,
the prices didn’t. Joel could see that most of the horses were
going in the five- to ten-thousand-dollar range with the odd one
going over ten. This was encouraging to see, but these were
prized, well-bred show horses or talented show prospects of superior
breeding, and none of them were twenty-one-year-old mares.
In fact, other than the twenty-one-year-old mare, the next oldest
horse in the sale was twelve.
Even at the fast clip of the auctioneer and the efficiency of the
helpers moving the horses in and out, it was the end of the afternoon
when the crowd of 500 or so horse enthusiasts were reminded
that, despite what the catalogue said, there really was one more
horse. Number fifty-one, the old blonde mare was led in.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0980897955

He Rode Tall

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Excerpt

In fact, Joel remembered his mother had told him the story in
one of her few but precious letters he received shortly before she
passed away. From time to time, Joel’s dad would have to find
temporary work off of the ranch to make a go of things. It was
always tough to squeeze a living out of the Circle H and the family
had to continually live hand-to-mouth from the meager checks his
dad would mail them. One time, as the story goes, his dad had
been owed some money for work he did on an oil drilling crew
down in the panhandle—the wells came up dry and so did the paychecks.
Joel could remember his mother’s letter saying that after
being away for a month or so, his dad showed up late one day and
left the next. Apparently, he had come home for his rifle. It was a
long drive for weaponry, but I guess if you are going to take the law
into your own hands you may as well use your own weapon. His
mother had said that it was nearly two weeks before his dad
returned, and this time he had two fillies with him—one was a
flashy little palomino and the other was a petite bay.
That must be her, Joel thought. The flashy little palomino
grew up to become the old blonde mare.
The next morning Joel and Harry were ready to roll. And that
was exactly what they were doing; rolling down the highway leading
into the thriving mini-metropolis of Great Falls.
It was still early when they arrived at the livestock yards. The
sale wasn’t scheduled to begin until noon. Given that it was so
early in the morning, Joel pulled the old half-ton over to the side
of the parking lot at the stockyard and backed the trailer next to
the corrals. A quick reconnoiter confirmed that there was no one
around so Joel and Harry proceeded to catch a few z’s as they
waited for the office to open.
“What do you mean?” Joel yelled. He had been woken from his
sleep as the first trucks started to pull into the parking lot, and
after a few stretches,

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0980897955