The Eighty-Dollar Champion - Elizabeth Letts [110]
Down in his part of the stabling area, Harry was settling in his horse, coveralls on, working alongside Jim and Joe. Harry’s compact frame looked tiny in comparison, and owners walking by would have no doubt mistaken him for one of the hired hands. From the way he interacted with Jim and Joe, it was clear that they were friends and equals.
A nattily turned out competitor parades through the ring in a Life magazine article about the National Horse Show. (illustration credits 19.2)
Johanna and Harriet had pinned up all of Snowman’s ribbons next to his stall—an impressive display. People were curious about the gray gelding. His story had been splashed all over the papers in the last few days, and the World-Telegram and Sun had run a cartoon drawn by the famous sports cartoonist Willard Mullin. Mullin was best known for creating a character known as the Brooklyn Bum, an everyman Brooklyn Dodgers fan. The Brooklyn Dodgers were gone, but Mullin still had a fondness for underdogs. Mullin’s cartoon recounted, in graphic form, the story of Snowman’s rescue from the slaughterhouse, both his and Harry’s humble origins, and his triumph over the past few months leading to the National.
For New Yorkers riding the subway and reading the paper folded to the sports page, Snowman was a favorite to watch. Spectators came by to get a peek at the horse, admiring the ribbons and the friendly manner with which Snowman greeted everyone. He never seemed to mind a pat on the nose from the array of passing children, and Harry did not mind, either. The whole family smiled and said hello, and the horse seemed to bask in the attention.
Hotheaded Night Arrest was a different story. She had been skittish and unpredictable just being unloaded from the trailer, not reacting well to the unfamiliar sooty city air and clanging sounds of Seventh Avenue. She was restless in her stall, even with Snowy’s calming presence next door. When Harry took her out for exercise in the cramped warm-up area, he had his hands full. He had no idea how she would react to the spectacle upstairs, but this was not a good sign.
People spent hours, days, and years training for this show, spending huge sums of money. Owners like Eleo Sears could afford to pamper their horses, and those who worked with her said that they had only to mention wanting something for the horses—a feed supplement, grooming tool, or special piece of tack—and soon it would arrive by the cartonful, no matter the cost. A win at the Garden represented one of the few things that the rich folk could not buy outright. Every aspect of the week at the National was a competition: a contest over the best help, the finest tack, the best-organized stables, the newest chic trainer everyone wanted, the best invitations, and the most gossiped about affaires d’amour. The National brought many opportunities for social triumphs, but none equaled the sheer delight of a blue ribbon won fair and square in the horse show ring—a thrill money could not buy.
The children had made a sign, and Harry tacked it on Snowman’s stall door with pride. Compared to the big stables, Hollandia was a simple mom-and-pop shop, a place where wooden shoes lined up in the corner and the owner was a jack-of-all-trades, handling a jumper course or a pitchfork with equal aplomb. He did nothing to try to impress people. He cared about only one test: the one that started upstairs in the ring.
Willard Mullin’s cartoon about Snowman’s rags-to-riches story appeared in the World-Telegram and Sun on the eve of the 1958 National Horse Show. (illustration credits 19.3)
The only one that mattered.
The opening ceremonies started at eleven o’clock sharp on Tuesday, November 4, and Johanna arrived with the children with plenty of time to spare. The entrance to the Garden