The Eighty-Dollar Champion - Elizabeth Letts [136]
Snowman had the run of the pasture, and he liked to go and stand under the pine trees down in the corner. He was always eager to carry one, two, or three of the kids around, and happy to head to the beach for a swim. Sometimes Harry still let one of the children take the horse over a big jump. Harriet still remembers the feeling of being nine years old and jumping Snowman over a five-and-a-half-foot fence—the same height as in the open jumper classes—her head so high in the air that she thought she might bang it against the top of the indoor arena. Harry and Johanna had come to expect that local children would come around and ask after him—the books were in constant circulation at the local library, and Snowman kept on winning new sets of younger fans. It was a good life for a horse, a life he’d earned. Sometimes people asked about what was going on with the movie, but Harry had no idea. Apparently, the people in Hollywood had been fighting too much, because the movie never got made.
Snowman at a book signing in Stony Brook, New York. (illustration credits 24.3)
In 1969, Harry got a phone call from Snowman’s old friend Marie Lafrenz. She was now chief publicist for the National Horse Show, and she had an idea. The National Horse Show had moved into the new Madison Square Garden, a cavernous venue built as a modern sports arena. Unlike the house that Tex built, it had big stadium seats and unobstructed sight lines for basketball. But in spite of its vast modern interior, the new Garden was a difficult place for the horse show. It was hard to fill the huge stadium with horse show fans and the new building lacked the charming boxes and promenade that had long characterized the show. Besides, the times they were a-changing, and this kind of spectacle, with women in evening gowns and men in top hats, in what was now the Woodstock era, had lost its appeal.
People still wanted to come to the horse show to ride, but labor disputes with the housekeeping staff meant that the competition could not run in the leisurely, gentlemanly fashion it always had. The program needed to be wrapped by eleven sharp or the horse show committee would have to start paying overtime to the union staff. The demands of television had further changed the nature of the event. It was not enough to thrill the people in the stands; now the show needed to look good on newly colorized home screens, and the networks complained about things like the color of the dirt, which needed to be pale to serve as a more telegenic background for the horses. Plus, there was competitive pressure from other sports. Other activities generated much better box office than the horse show, and their promoters would be happy to take over the National’s prime election-week spot. After more than eighty years, Garden magic seemed to be losing its luster.
Marie Lafrenz’s main job was to see that the maximum number of tickets got sold. Without box office, the venerable institution could turn into an anachronism that would not survive.
Marie knew just the draw to bring in loyal fans, one of the most beloved horses in Garden history: the Cinderella horse. Harry got a phone call. Would he like to officially retire Snowman in the Garden?
Out in the pasture, now used only as a lesson horse, Snowman had already been off the circuit for half a decade. But Harry knew that his horse had always enjoyed the spectacle and the crowds, and besides, two more children had been added to the de Leyer clan since the horse had stood in the center of the ring. This time, the whole family could come along. With a local boy enlisted as groom, the de Leyers bustled about getting