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I was looking at it not from a physical standpoint where the horse might have been injured, I was completely thinking of it in horse-psychological terms.

I recall reading something about Seabiscut, the he just loved to run, loved competition as many horses apparently do, being herd animals.

He would play horse-mind games with other horses, and would taunt them, holding back, letting them think they could win, and then just pulling away from them.

There was one horse he destroyed, that never raced effectively again, and if it were being kept in a stable that Seabiscuit was in, the horse would have a tantrum. It became a head case.

Funny, I never gave a huge amount of thought to that aspect of horse racing, that they love to run, and love to compete. But later in life, I got to spend some time with horses, and I stayed at a horse farm where the guy was apparently a bit unorthodox in his treatment and relationships with horses.

The guy who runs it with his wife is a real-life “horse whisperer”. I am not kidding. Their specialty it taking in troubled horses and horses with behavioral problems.

He rescues them.

When he gets them, the first thing he does is remove their horse shoes. When you go out to the giant quonset hut where the horses are prepared to go on rides, there is a pile of rusting horseshoes about four feet high. None of his horses have any shoes.

He doesn’t segregate his horses into groups, he just lets them all live together, stallions, mares, and geldings in a huge herd. He says it is how they live in nature, so he lets them. (He did have his prize stallion segregated in a small paddock one day as I reference below, but that was really the only time I saw it in several visits)

As he was explaining this to me, his prize stallion was in the field with all the horses, and was acting up, trying to engage a huge work horse stallion who completely ignored the high-strung stallion. It was comical, and Ron grinned as he pointed this out to me and said “Look at that big lug of a horse...the other one is trying to pick a fight with him, but he couldn’t care less!”

He talks to all of his horses in plain English, and I swear, they understand him. (All these names below are made up since I can’t remember them) I was watching them take out a bunch of horses one day for a group ride. He went to the pasture holding all the horses, opened the gate and yelled “Betsy! Come on.” and a horse peeled off, ran over about fifty yards and right through the partially opened gate, and without any guidance, ran up the hill into the quonset hut and right up to a bucket of oats to eat and wait for a saddle.

He called “Jim! Come on.” and another horse ran over and up the hill into the “stable” to get set up for a ride.

He called out “Strawberry! Come on!” and two horses ran over and both went through the gate. He yelled after one of them “Daisy! Come back...you aren’t going out!” and without hesitation, the horse stopped, turned around and walked back through the still open gate unprompted!

I thought this was amazing-I know some horses are smart, but this guy seemed to have a way with them! When we went inside to saddle the horses, they were all standing where he had placed the buckets of oats and he just walked to each one and clipped their harness to an eye-bolt on the wall. As we were saddling the horses, I heard this ruckus coming from outside somewhere, a horse whinnying loudly and making various horse noises. I was puzzled by this, and didn’t know what was going on, but Ron didn’t even seem to notice it. I said to Ron something like “It sounds like that horse is in trouble or something” and he stopped, went outside and I could see a small one horse paddock about 100 yards away with his prize stallion in it, and the horse was going mental, rearing up, just making a scene. Ron yelled “COWBOY! YOU AREN’T GOING OUT FOR A RIDE TODAY!” and the horse huffed and stamped its front hooves into the ground...hilariously, like a little kid being told he couldn’t play with a toy!

Ron just said “He sees us getting set, and he wants to go with me on the ride.”

I loved it. I had never seen horses in this light before, and I looked at them in a completely different way!

So I spent a lot of time, especially when I went there once without my wife, and it poured rain the three days I was there and even the people who ran the place left me there all by myself. So I watched the horses. I view them quite differently now.

This is probably old hat to people who know horses well, but it was new to me. I began to look a them much as I look at dogs, who I understand to a degree. The horses are a lot bigger and apparently have a different set of quirks than dogs have.

Very interesting. Nice experience.

As far as psychological, that is a frequent claim of many of these great horse stories.

OK full disclosure, I’ve been involved in many a Secretariat vs. Man O’War argument. I am a MOW fan and as a result of arguments I get a bit acerbic when it comes to Secretariat.

Anyway, Seabiscuit lost many a race, and I don’t just mean before he changed hands. So let that temper any stories about “psyching” any horses.

Likewise, Sham was not “heart-broken” in the Belmont, nor hurt physically. It was about a month later. So of course, he did not race again. Further, Sec lost 3 races as a 3yo, legitimately, so he is not infallible either, thoug much less than Seabiscuit.

I’d also say this for Man O’War, wherein many a fan claims MOW broke Sir Barton’s heart and maybe even John P. Grier’s. Sir Barton can hardly be judged on just 3 races shortly after, in which he finished in the money. And Grier actually went on to win more races as elder, including several track records. MOW did not ruin these horse’s hearts. In fact, a great racing historian wrote that in fact, Grier was much better. Nothing wrong with his heart that was not helped getting away from the long shadow cast by MOW!