"There are countless horrible things happening all over the world and horrible people prospering, but we must never allow them to disturb our equanimity or deflect us from our sacred duty to sabotage and annoy them whenever possible." -Auberon Waugh
Saturday, October 9, 2010
What's playing
Jason Apuzzo reviews Secretariat. Looks to be pretty good.
A true Secretariat story. Years ago, when Secretariat was still residing at Claiborne Farm, my dad, who was a locally celebrated athletic trainer at the University of Kentucky, arranged for me to get a tour of the famous home for Thoroughbreds. Fortunately, my only companions were a cute Japanese couple and one or two other people. The climax of the tour, which was very interesting, came when Secretariat was brought out for us to see. I not only got to pet his nose, I got a lock of his mane.
Well, he proved to be quite a ham. While we were standing around admiring him, he yawned, lowered his head, looked around, and generally cut the fool. But the instant someone raised a camera, he noticed out of the corner of his eye and immediately struck a heroic pose until the cameras were lowered, at which point he resumed his clowning around.
Seeing him at close range brought home to me that this was a creature, not just of awesome physical ability, but also possessed of a strong and loveable character. Our tour guide had been his groom for a while and told us the story of how Secretariat once took the stable broom away from him and swept out his own stall.
Secretariat truly was regarded by the community as a beloved athlete and the whole area mourned his death. That's about as good a tribute as any human could aspire to.
A true Secretariat story. Years ago, when Secretariat was still residing at Claiborne Farm, my dad, who was a locally celebrated athletic trainer at the University of Kentucky, arranged for me to get a tour of the famous home for Thoroughbreds. Fortunately, my only companions were a cute Japanese couple and one or two other people. The climax of the tour, which was very interesting, came when Secretariat was brought out for us to see. I not only got to pet his nose, I got a lock of his mane.
ReplyDeleteWell, he proved to be quite a ham. While we were standing around admiring him, he yawned, lowered his head, looked around, and generally cut the fool. But the instant someone raised a camera, he noticed out of the corner of his eye and immediately struck a heroic pose until the cameras were lowered, at which point he resumed his clowning around.
Seeing him at close range brought home to me that this was a creature, not just of awesome physical ability, but also possessed of a strong and loveable character. Our tour guide had been his groom for a while and told us the story of how Secretariat once took the stable broom away from him and swept out his own stall.
Secretariat truly was regarded by the community as a beloved athlete and the whole area mourned his death. That's about as good a tribute as any human could aspire to.
Great story, Nash! From all I've read, horses really do tend to have distinctive characters.
ReplyDeleteEr, how much would you take, incidentally, for that lock of mane?