The Eighty-Dollar Champion - Elizabeth Letts [80]
That evening, Harry pinned a tricolor ribbon next to Snowman’s stall. Harriet, Marty, and Chef all gathered around the big gray, and the horse stretched his nose down to receive their pats and praise.
Marie Lafrenz had already captured the moment on her Smith-Corona and sent off a press release. The next morning, Marie’s article ran in the Herald Tribune, under the title “THE CINDERELLA HORSE.” The Sun referred to Snowman as a “refugee from the cannery.” The story of the plow horse’s triumph was repeated over and over again. Before he left the show that day, Dave Kelley came by to congratulate his friend, and as always, Dave’s congratulations were genuine. He loved a good contest and never seemed to begrudge others their victories.
“You should come up to Fairfield,” he said with a big smile. “I think you and your plow horse can win it.”
Harry smiled, but he felt a flutter of excitement. Fairfield, in Connecticut, was another powerhouse of talent on the East Coast circuit.
He’d have to talk it over with Johanna. It was one thing to go to some of the local shows—there were several good ones within a short distance of their home—but following the circuit required a much higher level of commitment.
The 1950s was not a time when people got caught up in foolishness and chased big dreams. It was a time of conformity, a time when, as the writer Bill Stott said, people thought all they could do was “stoically keep muddling on, as we had in the war, pushing toward small, nearby, mainly private goals.” Big, expensive, whimsical aspirations were the province of the rich—people who had time, money, and fewer responsibilities.
But some people automatically lift their eyes above the horizons and see more. Harry was such a person. In the lift and thrust that powered Snowman over fences, Harry sensed the same belief in his horse: a conviction that you can soar if you want to; you just have to want it badly enough.
By the time Harry pulled into the driveway of his tiny farm with the grandiose name of Hollandia, by the time he led Snowman back to his stall in the converted chicken coop and got him bedded down for the night, Harry knew that he was going to head up to Fairfield.
What he did not know that night in St. James was how starved for dreams the rest of the country was feeling, workers caught in their nine-to-five ruts that took them in cars or on commuter trains to their office jobs, then back to their matching houses with tiny front lawns to mow. Wedged between terrifying fears of nuclear age tensions and the more familiar specter of an economic downturn, the public was gloomy. Harry could hardly have realized how he and his old plow horse were going to lodge in a hope-starved people’s imagination and stay there.
15
New Challenges
Westport, Connecticut, 1958
Joe “the Pollack” Keswyzk and Jim Troutwell had an ongoing wager with Harry. Not that Harry wanted to bet against his own horse, but the grooms had already picked Snowman to take the championship at Fairfield, too. Joe and Jim weren’t exactly grooms. The two local men helped out around Harry’s barn and sometimes went with him to shows as well. Joe drove a big rig during the week and pitched in with the horses on weekends, and Jim worked nights, then came over early in the morning to lend a hand. Jim was dark-haired, a sign of his Native American roots; Joe was blue-eyed and fair. Both men were over six feet tall and burly—Harry, with his medium stature and slim build, looked small next to the pair. They sweated alongside one another and sometimes shared a beer—and in the meantime, Joe and Jim had turned into Snowman’s biggest fans.
After his Sands Point victory, Snowman had stirred up interest in the press, and in the days leading up to the Fairfield show, the horse’s upcoming appearance was noted in the local papers. In 1958, it was clear that television was changing the nature of spectator sports, but it was not yet clear which sports would be swept up in this new tide of sponsorship.
The vast television audience watching on the virtual