Flashback: Galloping

Years and miles ago…Bay Meadows. Tanforan, San Francisco-ish racetracks before dawn… behind the backstretch fog wraps around darkness and it’s sounds that guide your boots until your nose takes over. Then you’re there. The Barns.

You want to get mounts, you get there early. Way before sunup. Lots of nights you sleep right there in the barns, on hay bales in a feed room, or a tack-room floor with a saddle for a pillow, or anywhere you can find that you won’t get a hoof, or worse, in your face.

Maybe, if you made a few bucks yesterday, in a grungy motel along the highway, near the backstretch. Doesn’t matter where you sleep. What matter is, you wake up ready to ride.

From the stalls, morning sounds. Wakeup music, Snorting, farting, pissing on the ground. And the horses do the same.

Gotta cruise the barns before sunrise, before the other boys show up, before the day’s deals are made. Hustle up an early ride, book a later one, show up sharp in front of the sleep-dulled faces. Some of them know your name and rep, others have to be convinced, so you talk the talk, name-drop your precious list of happy trainers. The trainers hold the keys. They’re the guys you have to convince, they guys you’re asking to trust you to take over a thousand pounds of million-dollar horseflesh out for a morning ride.

They used to call us exercise boys. Today there’s probably a more dignified handle, but it doesn’t matter. Only things that matter are that we weigh around 125, have plenty of hand, arm, and shoulder strength, and can ride. Really ride. Trainers can tell. Grooms can tell. Horses can tell. Nothing’s easy on the backstretch.

Gallopers. That’s what we are. And galloping’s the gait these thoroughbreds love to hate.

Most racehorses are resigned to plod, but only when they have to walk along with a handler next to their head, leading the way. They’ll walk, but only because they have no choice.

Trotting, the natural gait one notch faster. Really nothing more than a hurry-up walk.

But it’s that third gear, galloping, that drives thoroughbred racehorses nuts. That’s because it’s so close to the thing they live for, the gait they love, their purpose in life. Theirs are great hearts and magnificent bodies, born and bred to do one thing: Race.

Most mornings, though, it’s simple galloping. Exercise. Straight, dumbass exercise, and horses enjoy it a helluva lot less than people do. So they keep trying to break, to run flat-out. And the galloper keep stopping them, holding them back. Clash of wills. Therein lies the job. Usually.

I score, and a handler saddles a big red, a sorrel, slips the bit into his mouth, then the bridle  strap over his ears. The workout saddle he slaps onto the sleek horsehide is smaller and lighter that a regular English saddle, but bigger than racing leather. I step up, left hand on the front edge, right hand flat on the pommel. Lift my leg behind me, the trainer grips my boot at the ankle and levers me up there, up above himself, up above everyone. Breath deep, eat the fog.

Post time. Heart ticks faster. Can’t let it show. Feet slip just so, right into steel stirrups hung in the acey-deuce position, right side slightly higher. Settle. Don’t touch the reins. Not yet.

The sorrel whinnies, snorts, paws the dirt. He knows where we’re going, and he wants to get it on. We both do. Handler snugs the reins up under the horse’s jaw, and we head for the track. Like I said, racehorses don’t like walking, so mine (he’s mine now) tries to break, but the groom digs his elbow into the powerful chest and holds him back.

Big horse takes another shot, tries a prance, a side-step. I talk to him, reach down and pat his already sweating shoulders. I try to calm him. Fat chance. At this point I’m irrelevant, a gnat on his back. Just wait, you big red sonofabitch.

Walking along beside me, the trainer says to go easy for three quarters. Just gallop. Let him work, but not hard. Don’t let him run. You let him run, says the trainer, he’ll run away with you. He’s a racehorse, adds the trainer.

I’m thinking, No shit?

But I’m saying, Yessir.

Coming from the barns, we enter the track six furlong from the finish line. A furlong is 220 yards, in case you’re ever on a quiz show.

We pass through the rail opening onto the track itself, where the handler finally lets go. Now we’re free, just me and this pumped up two-year-old gelding. We both smell fresh dirt, but not much horseshit. Not yet, anyway.

We’re not the first ones out. Across the track from us, hooves pound in the semi-dark, and we can hear both rider and horse straining, breathing hard. Fighting about the flat-out run. Morning work.

The sorrel under me jumps, dances sideways. He wants to race, dammit. I use the wide reins to pull his head down, back against his neck, and make him walk to the inside rail. Slowly. This pisses him off. He’ll get over it.

We finally move out. I shift weight forward and we’re quick into the gallop, but It’s a steady fight in the dark fog. We’re both working hard, with each other, against each other. He wants to fly; my job’s to make him glide. More clash of wills. I lose, and I’ll never get another mount from this trainer. So I win.

The red horse knew it all along, but he had to test me. He’s only giving in, not giving up.

We finally settle. Strong gallop at the edge of a full-out run. That’s not what he wants, but I’m driving and loving it. Gobs of lather fly from his flanks and shoulders and splash against my face and arms and into my nose and ears, and I couldn’t care less. Daylight begins sneaking across the track, and I’m having the time of my life. There’s no theme park in the world with a ride anywhere near this much fun.

Once around, one mile, and we’re through. Solid workout. Arms and shoulders still busy, I ease him down at the far turn, and then into a nervous walk back to the rail where the handler waits. He reaches up and takes the reins, but I stay aboard all the way back to the barn.

Another groom switched the bridle for a halter. I hit the ground, collect four bucks from the trainer and a pushy nuzzle from the horse, and walk away on shaky legs.

Ten minutes later, next horse. He’s the last one for today, a bay stallion even bigger than my earlier mount. He’s a three year old, cooler and more experienced than the red horse. On the track, I go for the calm, talk to him, watch his ears, be a steady voice. Trainer walks up when we’re at a near-standstill.

He’s racing in two days so just gallop him half a mile, says the trainer, then let him out at the quarter-pole. Turn him loose. Go for the wire and we’ll see what he’s got.

Ohboy.

It’s an easy gallop around the near turn, but this ain’t his first dance and he knows what’s next on the menu. I cross the leather reins, move them up against his neck, pull down my goggles, shift my weight, press my knees in against his body, loosen the reins, and We Are Gone.

The quarter-pole slips past and seconds later it’s run like hell and Katy-bar-the-door. Arms and shoulders pump, my face in his mane, my ass in the air. Pumping, rhythm, pumping, rhythm…we’re flying…really one animal….me and this big, powerful sonofabitch…one animal…him and me…it’s perfect.

Here’s the finish line. It’s the Preakness. It’s the Derby. I’m in red and white silks…we’re a nose ahead and pulling away…the stands are packed…screaming, jumping, crazy people…I stand in the stirrups, wave my winner’s whip to the adoring ladies waiting in the Winner’s Circle…

Well, anyway, I do stand in the stirrups. The big horse and me, we’re both sweating, both breathing heavy, both shaking, both satisfied way down deep. I keep my hands low, keeps his head from tossing. He’s still charged, we both are, but I edge him gently down to a bumpy trot, down to a prancing high-step walk, back to the outside of the track and around to the handlers waiting on the backstretch. They grab the reins under the panting thoroughbred’s jaw, and now he’s theirs.

The trainer shows up with a stopwatch in his hand. He’s trying not to smile. Good. I swing my right leg over the saddle, slip out of the left stirrup, drop to the ground, collect four more bucks, plus an unexpected buck tip.

Sun’s up. Ride’s over. What a great job, life, world.

Michaelangelo Price

Mike Price is a long-time newspaper columnist, talk show host, and screenwriter who appears as a standup comedy headliner for top clubs and casinos across the country.