Slew Of Memories

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By Paula Turner -- While ponying a horse off old Hopeful, I remembered when the horse came to me. It was the same year as that fuzzy-tailed colt, Seattle Slew, whose comical appearance pulled at my heart, causing me to name him Baby Huey. My strongest memories of Huey involve seeing his hopelessly crooked leg and throwing away the training manual. He would require hard work, courage, pride, laughter, and tears. I stabled him next to Hopeful's mentor, my event horse, Jump Shot, and told Huey, "Pay attention; he had a hopeless leg too."

I had refused to give up on Jump Shot when three vets said, "Put him down; he'll never make it." I used dressage to salvage his broken leg. He eventually made the Olympic team. I hoped the same methods would work on little Huey...

For nearly eight months, I didn't let Huey gallop a step, but spent hundreds of hours on his back in daily repartee, demanding more--better collection, extension--pushing him physically and mentally to do dressage normally asked only of mature, already-trained horses. Since Huey tended to trip over his own feet, it was particularly difficult. "Come on, Huey!" I'd tell him. "You can do it."

With everything but words he invariably questioned my resolve, replying, "This is too hard; don't make me! I want to trot or gallop on my forehand, anything but dressage."

I always sang or talked to Huey as if he was my child; he grew to understand everything my voice conveyed. We rarely had company, so Huey had no lead horse when the going got scary. Walking between a big, hollow log and a deep stream bed only five feet away was his first big challenge. Ten feet from the log Huey stopped, dropped his head and snorted--surely horse-eating bears lived in that log. "You're OK, little man," I said, patting and encouraging him nonstop. After several minutes Huey began weaving forward like a wary cat approaching a snake.

Suddenly, he attempted to bolt toward home, but met a veto. After more patting and persuading, he sniffed the log. "Come on, Huey, you can do it!" Finally, glancing from the log to the stream bank, he took halting steps between the two until we were halfway, then scooted on through. We did it until he had the confidence to walk through nonchalantly. When I told him how proud I was, he popped a button.

His first stream crossing was a similar affair, but what he feared became fun, and soon he loved playing in streams--splashing us--making us laugh together.

Horses require two things to give their all: trust and courage. Facing monsters on trails and crossing streams were part of a five-month buildup to Huey's biggest rite of passage: staring down a big, angry cow in the middle of a herd. Horses instinctively run away from cattle. With extra "courage training" in mind, each day I rode Huey closer to the Angus herd.

After jogging through the middle several times, I sought out fierce-looking cows who dared you to come near their offspring, and rode Huey at them, saying, "Get 'em, Huey!" The cows--bigger than Huey--wouldn't back down until the last second. Huey's fear became courage--and our fun. When I congratulated him, all his buttons busted...

Huey's first gallop, Belmont: in the unspoken language of horses, Huey told me exactly what he was. The second time I breezed him he reminded me once again. Huey trusted me to never send him where it might be unsafe. Remembering Ruffian and failing in professional detachment, I announced I didn't want to breeze Huey again. If his leg gave, our trust and my heart would have broken.

Whenever alone at the track, we shared Jordan Almonds, and I conveyed my pride in him, especially after busting through that wall of horses in the Derby--Huey's duck soup. I know he understood. His ultimate thank-you was giving me that rarest gift, the Triple Crown winner's dance.

Last year I wrote, "One day the phone will ring, and I'll hear the words I dread, that my Huey is no more. Black will be my color, for we were not meant to outlive our children." A few days later, the phone rang.

Hopeful, the last one from those days, carries me to sunset hill. He grazes. We remember. Water rises in my eyes.

PAULA TURNER owns Paula Turner Training Stables near Pittsboro, N.C., and is writing a book, Dreamhorse, chronicling her work with Seattle Slew.

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