Secretariat

On my way home from the World Equestrian Games, I bought the book "Secretariat", by William Nack, at the Lexington airport bookstore. This was the first I knew that Paradies has stores at most every major airport and that you can buy a book, read it, return it within six months to any of their shops with your original receipt, and receive a 50% refund. Cool. Except I haven't returned it. There are some books that I just can't turn loose of. This one is the true story that inspired the motion picture Secretariat.... a good movie... but the book is, of course, much more detailed, much more about the horse... and true.

My parents were horse-racing enthusiasts and we watched all the Triple Crown races on television, after television came into being. Johnny and I never felt the need for a tv, but I retreated to my parents' house to watch the Triple Crown most years, including 1973, the year Secretariat won all three of those races. The last and longest of the races, the one that at least some people thought was too long for the big red come-from-behind horse, Secretariat won by 31 lengths in a record time that has never been beat. It still gives me goose bumps to watch. Here is a video of that race: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoFquax2F-k

Born and raised in Virginia and retired in Kentucky, Secretariat, (along with bourbon whiskey), is the pride of the blue grass state. A life-size bronze statue of Secretariat, with jockey Ron Turcotte aboard and groom Eddie Sweat hanging on to the reins from the ground, graces Secretariat Plaza at the Kentucky Horse Park. This photo is from the internet as I did not get a good one while at KHP in September... too many people were always gathered around the famous Big Red.


The movie played loosely with the facts of the coin toss that gave Penny Chenery Tweedy the foal that became Secretariat. That bothered me when I watched the movie, having already read the book. Although it made a good story that Penny had researched and decided the foal from the younger mare would make the better horse because the dam had distance horses in her background, it isn't true.

In fact, the heavily researched book explains that there were two sets of breeding results to be decided with that coin toss of 1969. The winner of the flip automatically got the first choice of the first pair of foals, those born in 1969, either the Somethingroyal filly or the Hasty Matelda colt. The loser, while getting whichever foal the flip winner did not select, would also automatically get the first choice of the second pair of foals to be born in 1970. The winner of the toss would get the second choice of the second pair.

But, as they already knew at the time of the coin toss, there would be no second foal in the second pair because Somethingroyal was pregant again; the other mare who was part of the 2nd year's deal, Cicada, was barren. Whoever won the toss would get their choice of the first pair, but only that horse. The loser would get a 1969 and a 1970 foal. Naturally, neither Phipps nor Penny wanted to win.

Penny lost the toss. Phipps took the Somethingroyal filly, and named her The Bride. Penny got the Hasty Matelda colt, naming him Rising River. Neither foal born that year amounted to anything. But the following year, in 1970, Somethingroyal gave birth to the second foal for Penny's Meadow Stable... because she lost the coin toss... and that foal was Secretariat.

Big Red, as he was known, was almost certainly the greatest race horse ever. About that, the movie did not lie. However, I wish the movie had explained how Secretariat did what everyone at the time knew was impossible: running faster each quarter mile in the Kentucky Derby than the previous one... no horse had ever done that in a mile-and-a-quarter race... and cutting over two seconds off the mile and a half Belmont record... simply not possible. But the big red colt did it. There was a reason that the movie never mentioned.

When Secretariat was euthanized in 1989 because of laminitis, a necropsy was performed by Dr. Thomas Swerczek. All of the horse's vital organs were normal in size except for the heart. Here is what Dr. Swerczek said: "I've seen and done thousands of autopsies on horses, and nothing I'd ever seen compared to it. The heart of the average horse weighs about nine pounds. This was almost twice the average size, and a third larger than any equine heart I'd ever seen. And it wasn't pathologically enlarged. All the chambers and the valves were normal. It was just larger. I think it told us why he was able to do what he did."

When the movie said Secretariat had the heart to win, it was literally true. There has never been another like him. It's an exciting movie to watch. But I'm glad I read the book.

My 65/35 Birthday

On Halloween, I turned 65 by Medicare's count, 35 by mine. (At age 50, I started counting backward, making me 35 this Oct. 31st. Time is relative, right?) For such a momentous occasion, I planned a big party. In my head. But my enthusiasm ran out by the time October arrived, along with a series of flu/cold bugs and regrouping after my big trip to the World Equestrian Games in Kentucky.

So instead I opted for three days of goofing off. Friday of Halloween weekend, I went to Daryll's Nursery's end-of-the-season sale with friend Velta. It was a beautiful fall day and we had a great time. I bought a lovely Japanese maple which will get planted in the arboretum eventually.

By Saturday morning, I was sick with a bad cold. But Johnny and I went to the movie Secretariat anyway and then to watch a friend ride in a dressage show. The plan had been to eat at our favorite Thai restaurant in McMinnville after the show but I felt too crummy so Johnny brought take-out instead. All was not lost as we had yummy Thai food for both Saturday and Sunday suppers.

On Sunday, Halloween and my actual birthday, we intended to explore logging roads in the hills by us, arriving eventually at the coast. Although feeling yucky, I rallied enough to let Johnny drive me into the woods. Occasionally, I woke up long enough to get out and enjoy the scenery. We did make it to the ocean eventually. It was fun to see (from a distance) my summer haunt... Road's End, and The Thumb that I have hiked so many times looking for Black Oystercatchers.




























In spite of my cold-that-refused-to-go-away, it was a busy week before the next weekend: putting music to the pas de deux with friend Sam; going on my first raptor run of the season with friend Carol; writing my monthly goat column for United Caprine News; setting up the pas de deux course, with added jumps, in our field and practicing it solo; enjoying the baby owls begging for food and flying about (one evening four friends came to enjoy with us); watching Jessica's horse Lily in the Lendon Gray clinic at Devonwood; and doing as little as possible in the way of cleaning up the house to get ready for company on the weekend.

On Saturday, Kevin and Jessica and Ian arrived to celebrate my birthday a little late, on their only free weekend. Jessica cooked her fabulous chili and baked pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, my favorite. Jessica's chili would win any bake-off. She creates a mouth-watering masterpiece, then tops it with several varieties of grated cheese plus avocados. Oh my.

While Jessica cooked, the rest of us, along with friends Barb and Mark, shook the last remaining apples off our apple trees and, adding them to Barb and Mark's apples, pressed cider. Our goal was not so much to make cider as to remove the apples to discourage any more visits from bears. But the cider is delicious and the bears seem to have given up and moved on, even before we took away the last of their apples.

In years past, we have had big cider making parties but big parties take much energy (plus many apples) and we had neither this year. Maybe we *are* getting older. Good thing there are younger folk to keep the tradition alive. Pictured washing apples are Mark and Barb and our grandson Ian, with llamas supervising in the background. Running apples through the grinder is Ian, with Grandpa Johnny's help. And squeezing them through the press are Kevin and Ian, displaying teamwork. Yes, 9-year-old Ian, who has been doing this since he was small, helped with every part of the process.

It turned out to be a happy Halloween, extended-birthday, after all.

Halloween on the Farm

Not just bears are out at night here lately. Witches also seem to be on the move as Halloween approaches, judging from the scene that greeted me this morning. It has certainly not been good flying weather what with thunder, lightning, wind and nearly 5 inches of rain in the last few days. But still... I think these witches could use some flying lessons from Harry Potter.




















While witches were plastering themselves around the back yard, a scarecrow apparently wandered in overnight and plopped himself down in an empty flowerpot in front of the house. He looks a bit tipsy to me. Perhaps the apple chunks in the piles of bear vomit all over the lawn and driveway have started to ferment and this scarecrow has been imbibing. What do you think?

Painted Horses in Lexington

Everywhere we went in the Lexington area during the World Equestrian Games, we saw life size painted horses. Not painted to be bays or pintos, I mean painted as though they were the canvas an artist used. As it turns out, that's exactly the case. Sponsors bought these fiberglass horses for $500, selected an artist to paint them, then put the completed equine artworks on display for three months... July 15 to October 15. On December 11, these 82 amazing horses will be auctioned off at Keeneland Race Track. All proceeds will go to the Lexington Arts Council and various charities selected by the sponsors. Lexington's first "Horse Mania", in 2000, with 79 painted horses, brought in 1.6 million dollars. What a great way to celebrate the arts and raise money.

Many of the wild and wonderful horses were positioned around Lexington itself to provide a walking tour. Ruth and I saw mainly the ones at the Kentucky Horse Park and at the Lexington Convention Center, since that's where we spent most of our time. I couldn't resist taking photos of my favorites... which were all that I saw.




Here's Ruth with one in the All-Tech Pavilion at the Kentucky Horse Park.

This seashell horse is made of seashells. Tiny ones. Amazing.








And, in the spirit of Halloween, here am I in the heart of Lexington.

Barn Owl Adventures

With all the bear excitement around here, I've neglected to talk about the owls. Barn owls nest in our goat barn loft every year. Sometimes they raise two clutches as they're doing this year. The first nest, begun in March, only produced two fledglings, probably because of our cold, wet spring that kept owl food (small rodents mostly) underground.

Either the same mama owl or another one started laying eggs in August, when the weather was finally warm and dry. On August 22, Mother Owl left the nest long enough for Johnny and visiting grandson Ian to see that she had six eggs and one was beginning to hatch. On September 12, there were three or four downy baby owls (it's hard to count when they all try to hide behind each other), one naked and brand new baby, and one unhatched egg.

Barn owls lay an egg every other day, on average, and begin incubating with the first egg laid. So if five eggs hatch, the fifth baby is considerably younger than the first and may not survive if there isn't enough food to keep the older babies stuffed. Four of this second clutch survived to become yellow fluffballs and are gradually exchanging their down for lovely feathers. Why those feathers stay so pretty is amazing, considering the mess they live in.

Owls don't really build "nests". They regurgitate pellets into their favored nesting spot, some dark hole, until the whole area is littered with disgusting gunk. Then they lay their eggs and continue to mess it up. When the babies hatch, they mess it up even more. We provide a cardboard box on a ledge high in the loft with a hole cut in one end. Usually, the box lasts two years before we replace it. By then, it is not only deep in composting pellets, it is beat up and torn up.

The current box is on year number two. Since the owls nested twice this year, that means the poor box has had three clutches worth of filth in it. You can see from the photo what a mess this "nest" is. I discovered tonight just how beat up it is when I climbed the ladder to the box to check on The Adventurer, as I've dubbed the first born owlet.


Last night, The Adventurer (T.A.) managed to fly or glide from the box to a horizontal board half way to the front of the loft where he (she?) was trying to perch... unsuccessfully. T.A. fell to the floor and flopped around, managing to get wedged under the hay elevators, then flopped some more to a black plastic tarp in the back corner of the barn. The baby was not ready, apparently, to fly but he must have had high hopes. I picked the frightened owlet up (his eyes were tightly shut in hopes he was invisible, I guess) and carried him up the ladder to his nest box. T.A. seemed very happy to be home.

Tonight I climbed the ladder to make sure T.A. was in the box and okay. Well, he was, sort of. I didn't realize that the top of the box had a big hole in it, probably from last year's fledglings standing on top and making a mess as they worked up the courage to leap from their nest ledge and attempt flight. When I reached the top of the ladder, The Adventurer made a hasty, ungraceful descent from the top of the box through the hole into safety with his siblings.

The bird on the far right of the photo is The Adventurer, just returned from his escapade on top of the box tonight. He is the biggest, most feathered, and undoubtedly the oldest. Soon these birds will learn to fly and leave us. But hopefully they'll stick around a few days to test their wings. It's always fun to watch them fly from the top of the barn to a nearby tree, landing ungracefully on a branch for the first several tries. When they're good and truly gone, we'll replace their filthy box. And put another box in the loft of the new goat barn in hopes they'll move over there before the old barn is torn down.

David Blake Dressage Clinic

This past weekend found me at Traumhof, auditing a great dressage clinic and spending time with grandson Ian. David Blake, who trains with Steffen and Shannon Peters in California, rode most of the horses at least one of the two days and was able to make progress on problems the riders were having... plus help them understand how to work with their horses on their own.

David used a lot of body language while instructing riders. Here he is leaning with Lily, Jessica's Grand Prix mare.




Nicki and Lily, always an elegant pair, became even more so under David's tutelage.


Lily had to really stretch to satisfy David. But she loves performing and I think was excited to find how much more she could do than she thought.




Rudeau (Rudi) looked like a fire-breathing dragon on frosty Sunday morning. Rudi is Lily's 6-year-old, embryo-transfer son. The flashy gelding can sometimes be a challenge but David loved him.


Unlike Rudi, Joe the Friesian could be a bit lazy for his diminutive rider. David got him fired up for her.


All the horses and riders made improvement from Saturday to Sunday. Everyone went home encouraged and happy.

For fun, Jessica brought out two of the horses in her barn that were not in the clinic just to show David the variety they have at Traumhof. Penny, the mini cross, and Pumba, the Percheron, greeted each other in the arena.


It was a fun weekend. There are always great clinics with great clinicians at Traumhof. Check their website for an up-to-date clinic schedule. http://www.traumhofdressage.com/

Johnny's Bearicade

It's been a contest of wits and we've been losing. Letting Polly the horse clean up all the apples on the ground led to the bear, deprived of easy apples, destroying the dog food container and eating half the dog food. Moving the dog food container into the back room resulted in the dog food automatic feeder, hung on the inside of the llama fence not far from where the ill-fated dog food container used to sit, being hauled out across the top of the fence and dismantled. The bear, after ripping the feeder apart, ate all the dog food. This was the scene that greeted us the morning of October 10.



Johnny repaired the feeder and we now keep it in the back room at night, bringing it back out during the day. That's okay, but having the feeder plus the dog food sacks in the back room was a bit much. So Johnny created a new dog food container out of an old steel garbage can and secured the lid with heavy hinges and bolts. We put it back where it was outside, convenient for filling the feeder. So far, so good. Pictured is the repaired dog feeder and the newly created dog food tin.

(Obviously, our guard llamas aren't much help against bears and the bear is either unable to read or not impressed.)

We worried that the bear, deprived of expensive dog food, would go after the cheaper chicken food inside an easily accessible garbage can in the chicken house. So every night, Johnny puts his bearicade in place. It is a heavy sheet of plywood held upright by a clamp attached by rope to the garden tractor inside the chicken house/garden shed. To date, the bear has not attacked the bearicade.


For two nights, we have seen no bear scat or vomit around our house. Hopefully, he has moved on. Before moving on, however, he found our bee hive. Several years ago, wild bees took over a wood duck nest box we had hung high on a tree.


Their comb and honey grew so heavy that it finally pulled the box off the tree and into the little creek below. I drug it out of the creek and we hauled it up on the bank, out of flood reach. The bees have been living happily there ever since. Until the bear found them. Bears love honey.


We are not the only ones in the neighborhood with bear problems. Our nearest neighbors across the arboretum fence had a mother/mother-in-law come visit and camp in their yard. She intended to camp for two nights. But the morning after the first night, she woke to find the food from her two coolers, or what little was left of her food, strung all over the yard. She moved indoors.

Mostly, the neighborhood bear delinquents hit garbage cans. We have no outdoor garbage cans (since we compost or feed the chickens/llamas/sheep/goats all leftovers) but we keep dog food and chicken food in garbage cans. Here's hoping the bearicade holds.