Racehorse Tales - Ol' Holme: The Witch

Sunday December 8 2013

I always tried to give humans and horses the benefit of the doubt. There was almost always some good in everyone, if you waited long enough or looked deep enough. But I should have listened to my instinct, the minute I laid eyes on the plain brown filly whose ears didn't go anywhere but flat back against her head. Some things were just bad news. I should have waited to take the next horse off the van and let someone else grab this brown one.
A load of horses arrived at our barn at Longacres from Yakima in February, and whether it was fate or bad timing when I reached out to take the shank of the first one down the ramp, it was this frowny-faced 3-year-old filly that I put into one of my empty stalls. Maybe she was just having a bad day, or she hadn't enjoyed her van ride; but this Ol' Mom's Holme didn't look like a very amiable horse. But I'd give her a few days to settle into her new barn and her new routine before I would pronounce a final judgment on her...


Above is an excerpt from Ol' Holme: The Witch, one of my series of Racehorse Tales, available on Amazon/Kindle. These short stories are a tribute to the lovable (or, in this case, not so very lovable), hard-knocking, working class Thoroughbreds I groomed on the racetrack for so many years.

Some horses are like people: born on the wrong side of the barnyard. Ol' Holme is bad news, and she and I have to figure out a way to get along during the filly's racing career at Longacres racetrack.

Check out Racehorse Tales, and if you enjoy them, please recommend them and consider leaving a review on Amazon!