The Eighty-Dollar Champion: Snowman, the Horse That Inspired a Nation by Elizabeth Letts

Author:Elizabeth Letts [Letts, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horses, Animals, Nature, 20th Century, United States, Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography, History
ISBN: 9780345521101
Google: kjHDAB1oFhYC
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-08-23T00:00:00+00:00

15

New Challenges

Westport, Connecticut, 1958

Joe “the Pollack” Keswyzk and Jim Troutwell had an ongoing wager with Harry. Not that Harry wanted to bet against his own horse, but the grooms had already picked Snowman to take the championship at Fairfield, too. Joe and Jim weren’t exactly grooms. The two local men helped out around Harry’s barn and sometimes went with him to shows as well. Joe drove a big rig during the week and pitched in with the horses on weekends, and Jim worked nights, then came over early in the morning to lend a hand. Jim was dark-haired, a sign of his Native American roots; Joe was blue-eyed and fair. Both men were over six feet tall and burly—Harry, with his medium stature and slim build, looked small next to the pair. They sweated alongside one another and sometimes shared a beer—and in the meantime, Joe and Jim had turned into Snowman’s biggest fans.

After his Sands Point victory, Snowman had stirred up interest in the press, and in the days leading up to the Fairfield show, the horse’s upcoming appearance was noted in the local papers. In 1958, it was clear that television was changing the nature of spectator sports, but it was not yet clear which sports would be swept up in this new tide of sponsorship.

The vast television audience watching on the virtual sidelines led to innovations such as Bert Bell’s introduction of sudden death overtime in pro football, which played out in dramatic fashion in 1958 when the Colts beat the Giants for the NFL championship—the first game to be decided by the sudden death rule. The prime-time broadcast of that game, seen by a television audience of forty-five million viewers, helped make football the first sport to dominate the television era. Newspapers could not compete with the visual medium of television on its own terms, so they struck at a different angle—not live action, but great stories.

Back at Hollandia, Harry readied Snowman for Fairfield, along with Night Arrest, his student’s flighty thoroughbred, and the pretty chestnut Wayward Wind. Harry had never left Long Island for a show before. Here he would be facing a whole new set of competitors, like Adolph Mogavero from Ox Ridge Hunt Club—one of the biggest and most competitive operations on the East Coast. Ox Ridge’s young thoroughbred mare, First Chance, had cleaned up at Devon last spring while Snowman was leading the May Day procession. Andante, the tough old warrior, would also be there, looking to avenge her loss at Sands Point to the upstart plow horse.

On June 18 the weather threatened rain, but Harry loaded up Snowman, Windy, and Night Arrest, the two grooms climbed into the van, and off they went to Connecticut. The de Leyers wouldn’t consider leaving the family behind, and so Johanna readied the children, including baby William, for the drive to Westport, Connecticut. The Fairfield Horse Show was held on the grounds of the Fairfield County Hunt Club as a benefit for the Children’s Services Hospital.

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