The Eighty-Dollar Champion - Elizabeth Letts [125]
In St. Oedenrode, the de Leyer farm still looked the same—the high, peaked red roofs and stucco façade, the chickens that pecked in the stable yard, the brewery, and the fields surrounding the farm. The place looked more prosperous now, and the brewery was back to producing its popular local beer. Harry’s brother Jan, who had made virtually a full recovery, was still riding horses, and was thrilled to see his brother. The town was plastered with posters announcing the arrival of the American champion. Harry and Snowman performed true to form, jumping brilliantly in several exhibitions. Snowman now had fans on both sides of the Atlantic.
But the trip was tinged with sadness. The children spent time with their grandmother, and they all knew that this first visit together would likely be the last.
Back home, Harry got a phone call from Philip Kunhardt, who introduced himself as the assistant sports editor of Life magazine. In the days before television had taken a firm hold, the glossy pages of Life, then near its peak circulation of 8.5 million, were the ultimate celebrity-making machine. Everyone who was anyone eventually showed up in those pages, the glamorous black-and-white pictures producing the images that came to be indelibly associated with the famous. Even today, when we imagine the faces of the 1950s and early 1960s—James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, the Kennedys—it is the iconic black-and-white photos from the pages of Life that spring to mind. Harry was agreeable to being interviewed and photographed as long as no one interfered with his work.
Turned loose in the ring, Snowman jumped fences just for the fun of it. (illustration credits 21.1)
When photographer George Silk arrived at the Knox School with his camera, Harry asked if he would like to watch Snowman jump fences in the paddock on his own, without a rider on his back. Silk agreed that this would be unusual, so Harry led the horse out of his stall and over to the Knox ring, which stood empty except for some jumps.
Harry slipped the halter from the horse and gave him a cluck. Always the show-off, Snowy obliged by circling the ring and heading toward one of the fences. The photographer snapped a magnificent photo at the apex of his flight: the big gray horse sailing over a jump with no bridle, no saddle, and no rider—out free in the center of the ring. This was the paddock jumper who had run home to his master.
The magazine appeared on newsstands nationwide the week of the 1959 National Horse Show. A sultry picture of Marilyn Monroe looking over her shoulder graced the cover. Inside, a long story described the “puzzling art” of abstract painter Jackson Pollock. Another article related the training regime of Russian cosmonauts. There were advertisements for sleek new GM cars with futuristic fins, and RCA TV replacement picture tubes. And there were also several pages devoted to Snowman, under the title “Old Nag’s Long Jump from Plow Horse; Discarded Farm Horse Finds Unexpected Fame.” Below a picture of Harry scratching Snowman’s withers to elicit his trademark laugh, the caption read, “De Leyer rides the horse in all contests, but lets the horse have his way.”
The blond de Leyer children, the smiling father, the old plow horse—among the puzzling abstract art and racy movie-star pictures, the new technologies and worrisome political developments, here was a scene that evoked all that was comforting and familiar.
On Election Day, 1959, the de Leyer clan was back at the Garden, but this time they arrived as celebrities. Snowman was here to defend his title. And now millions of people knew about his humble life as a plow horse, and about the family who loved him.
Down in Hollandia’s corner of the basement, not much had changed—Harry still pulled on coveralls and worked alongside Jim and Joe. Johanna and the children slipped on wooden shoes and helped out with the chores. And Snowman, as usual, took the whole spectacle of the seventy-sixth annual