The Eighty-Dollar Champion - Elizabeth Letts [138]
In the evenings, after the lessons, when Harry gathered his students around to talk over the day’s work, he had a habit of standing next to Snowman’s stall. As he talked, he would pat the horse or scratch Snowy’s favorite spot on the withers.
Harry had brought along many horses now. He had made other finds and passed them along. Chef and Harriet were starting to show horses, too, and now there was regularly more than one de Leyer name in the horse show results.
Life went on.
But one day, in the fall of 1974, when Harry went down to the barn, he did not see Snowman’s familiar face hanging over the stall door, ever attentive to Harry’s footsteps. He felt a flutter of worry. Every morning for as long as they’d been together, he’d heard the three sharp whinnies from the gray horse greet him in the morning. Today’s silence in the barn was eerie.
Busloads of schoolchildren used to come to Hollandia Farms to visit Snowman. (illustration credits 25.1)
Harry approached the old horse’s stall and peered inside, afraid that maybe the horse was down—always an ominous sign. Snowman stood with his back to Harry, just managing to turn his head at the sound of Harry’s voice. Something was not right.
Harry scanned the old horse, and saw that Snowman’s legs were swollen up like an elephant’s. His giant head hung down, and the look in his eye, though friendly, was listless. He was getting old, twenty-six now, but until today, Snowman had been healthy. Harry grabbed the barn phone and called the vet, asking him to come out as soon as he could. Harry and Dick Fredericks were friends, and he trusted his judgment, but he paced nervously as the vet examined the horse.
Dr. Fredericks came out of the stall shaking his head. Harry saw the quiet sadness etched on his face.
“It’s the kidneys,” he said. “He’s an old horse. He’s lived a good life.”
“What can I do?”
“Just keep him comfortable … if he’s suffering too much you may need to think about putting him down.” That was not the answer Harry wanted to hear.
For the next two days, Harry tended to the horse night and day, but as he watched him, he knew the truth. The old horse was ailing. He was in too much pain to eat or to move around much.
Harry stood next to him, whispering to him, trying to coax him to eat something. But looking deep into the horse’s eyes, he saw the truth. Years ago, on that winter day in New Holland, Harry had looked into Snowy’s eyes and what he had seen was a desire to live, to go on, to be free, and that look couldn’t be ignored. In a life filled with death and destruction tapped out to the sound of the goose-stepping marches of the Nazi invasion, Harry had learned young how powerful the will to live really was.
Now, as he stood next to his horse, he also saw the undeniable truth in his eyes. He was a good horse and he had lived a good life. He was ready to go.
It was all he could do to give the nod to the vet. They would lead Snowman out to the part of the pasture under the pine trees where he had loved to stand.
Harry was not a weak man. He had seen plenty of suffering in his life, taken care of enough horses who were hurt or in pain. But everyone understood that Harry did not want to be there. If it had to happen, then okay, but he did not want to witness it.
But when it came time to lead the horse from the barn, the old horse would not move. He stood there, waiting, as though he had decided long ago that only one man would lead him to his destiny.
Harry knew that it was only fair. They had made a commitment to each other long ago, in a snowy parking lot outside an auction barn. Snowman had followed when Harry had pulled him off the van that first time, and he had followed into the cavernous space of Madison Square Garden under the klieg lights and the deafening sound of applause.
Grasping the horse’s lead rope, Harry led the horse out to his beloved pasture, haltingly, step by step.
The vet waited under the pine trees. As the