A block away from my apartment there is a horse—an oddity of sorts because he lives in the city where there are no pastures to graze on and no trails to ride through. Admittedly, I look for the horse each day on my drive home because seeing him reminds me of my own childhood.
I grew up with horses and I spent all of my free time at “The Barn.” I didn’t ride horses—my sister did. She mucked stalls in exchange for riding privileges while I entertained myself. I was in constant motion—running up and sliding down the shaving pile, and picking grass and stuffing it into Folgers coffee cans that we used to scoop grain. When the cans brimmed full with grass, I would move from paddock to paddock, feeding one horse at a time until the can was empty and I had to pick more grass to fill it back up. My hands were perpetually stained a faint green and my short nails dirty underneath. I groomed the horses, ate my share of carrots, and antagonized the broodmares, causing the herd to gallop when I waved my arms at them and hollered loudly. My younger brother and I would sneak through a padlocked chain fence and run out onto the quarter mile track despite being told it was off limits. The track was compelling, and as we trotted around it, kicking and scuffing our feet in the sand so that dust lofted around our ankles and up into our nostrils, hoping that pebbles wouldn’t find their way into our shoes, I couldn’t help but imagine what the farm had been like, years ago, when it was a racing farm.
Nostalgia overwhelms me when I think about “The Barn” because as far back as I can remember, the only thing that I ever wanted to be was a jockey. Unfortunately, my interest in riding was not supported—as horse crazy as I was. I think this had much to do with the fact that my dad was already agitated with my older sister who spent all of her time with the horses, something he attributed to the cause of her declining grades. There is some contention, too, that my dad was resentful because my mom invested a great deal of her time at “The Barn” with my sister. This did not sync well with his traditionalist view that a wife’s place was in the home. As a child, I was especially frustrated because without learning to ride, my dream of becoming a jockey was moot. I turned then, to reading about the races, and because reading was encouraged in my family, my dad would take me to buy copies of Sports Illustrated after every major racing event. He would also save me the sports section of the newspaper and I would cut out all of the articles pertaining to racing or horses. I pasted these articles into a spiral journal—my own daily racing form. Growing up, I eagerly anticipated race day, and I would sit around the T.V. watching post-parade with my family. The six of us would place our imaginary bets on the horses we hoped would finish in first, second, and third place. I came prepared with my spiral journal and I used it to inform my “betting” decisions
Watching the races drew me closer to the sport of racing, but I still wanted more—and so I read everything and anything about horses that I could get my hands on. In fifth-grade I plowed through Walter Fraley’s Man O’ War and Joanna Campbell’s Thoroughbred Series—all fourteen books. The main character in her books was named Ashleigh, and I was able to identify with her because, like me, she grew up on a racing farm. Reading connected me and brought me closer to my dream of becoming a jockey, when in reality, my dream was just that—a dream, an impracticality. The chances that I would become a jockey lessened as I grew taller than five feet and weighed more than one-hundred pounds.
But there is a happy ending to my story. My sister lives in Kentucky and works for the racing industry, so in an indirect way, I’m closer to racing than I ever thought I would be. Also, I learned to ride horses in Virginia when I went to college—I even leased two horses. One day I plan to own my own horses, but for now there is that horse that lives down the street.
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