29 July 2017
This is a short, true story that I wrote right after my stay on a family farm in County Cork, Ireland in July & August of 2016 . I never published it anywhere, feeling that it was incomplete and disconnected from any kind of continuous narrative about my travels, but now that I’m home it feels complete in and of itself. It is a snapshot of one moment in one day that I experienced; as a related side note, I might start combing back through the journals that I kept during my travels to see if there’s any other similar moments worthy of reproduction here – as I have always felt, anyways, it’s the small moments of travel that are the most tender and worthy of treasuring later. I hope I’ve managed to tell the story of this one with some of the same humor and incredulity that I felt while I was living it; regardless, enjoy!
For the last several weeks, I worked at a family-run training stable for racehorses in County Cork, Ireland. It was a beautiful place, in an insistently idyllic and pastoral way – mares and foals grazing out in the pastures, rolling green and golden hay fields as far as the eye can see, miniature men & tractors in the distance loading the bales and bringing them in to the barns. I could watch the Atlantic Ocean from my bedroom window, and I woke every morning to the sounds of doves and gulls on the roof line outside.
On average, we (myself and two other girls, one from France and one from Austria) worked with about 20 horses each day – often times simply moving them inside to feed them, or to a new pasture, or putting them on the automated walker to warm them up for the jockeys – and every moment of our time each day was truly focused around caring for, raising, and training these animals. It was exhausting, frequently dirty, and occasionally frustrating; my days there were both full and simple, fitted entirely around the needs of the horses and our own meal times. At the end of the day, worn out and ready for bed, I would curl up in the small whitewashed attic room that I shared, and listen to the wind sough through the trees and buffet against the window.
For someone who knows next to nothing about horse racing (other than the obvious basics – horse runs fast, wins trophy, etc.), working in a racing stable has been a learning experience. New knowledge came mostly in tiny details – this is how many times a racehorse is galloped around the track on an average day for exercise; this is how much hay he gets the day before the race; this is how long the horses go on the walker to warm up before work.
The jockeys were equally fascinating to me: men of indeterminate age, built like gymnasts, who came every day except Sunday to exercise the four horses currently in training. They tacked up with an astounding quickness – before I could even blink, saddle and bridle were placed and buckled – and would leap, light footed, from the ground straight onto the backs of these leggy racehorses, landing with as little disruption as a bird. They seemed unflappable and endlessly patient, even with the “breakers”, the young horses who were just starting their training under saddle, and who were often jumpy and uncertain about stepping foot outside the comfort of the barn’s warm interior.
As imperturbable as they seemed around the horses, however, the relationship between the jockeys and the trainer was often tumultuous, and interactions between the two always proved interesting.
One such instance stands out particularly in my mind:
It was a Saturday morning, and the jockeys had come to work early that day, several hours before their usual time. The horses in training hadn’t yet finished eating; I asked one if he wanted me to pull the three breakers in from the field.
“I’m not fucking riding those ones anymore,” he replied. “I told the trainer not to feed them grain, and he fed them, and it’ll make them fucking crazy. They’re too big and they’ll send you through the fence if they’re fed like that, and I told him not to and he did anyways and I won’t ride them anymore.”
(Except we’re in County Cork, so to my ear it sounded something like this: “Am not fookin riden dose ones anymare. Ah told the treyner not tae feed em grain, and ‘e fed em, and it’ll make em fookin crazy. Dey’re too big and dey’ll send ye troo the fence if dey’re fed like that, and ah told ‘im not to and ‘e did anyways and ah woon’t ride em anymare.”)
The jockey looked at the three of us seriously from across the barn, balancing a feather-light racing saddle on his arm.
“And don’t any of you be ridin’ em, either, if he tells you to. It’s not safe.”
This sounded fair enough to me. I am not an expert in breaking race horses, but I do know horses, and I know how it is to ride an over-grown, over-energized, and under-trained horse (a hint – it’s shit). Grain, especially in large, molasses-heavy amounts like these three young ones had been getting, is like a turbo charge – it makes them big, it makes them strong, and it makes them want to go fast; these are not ideal conditions to be working with when the horse in question has been under saddle for less than two weeks. He will, as the jockey said, “send ye troo the fence.”
Predictably, the act of perceived mutiny by his jockey did not sit well with the trainer, a proud and stubborn (yet incredibly, incredibly knowledgeable) man who seemed to me to have decided long ago that it was, so to speak, his way or the highway.
“So you’re not ridin the breakers, then?” he asked, when the older horses in training had finished for the day.
“No. I told you not to feed ‘em, and you did anyways, and I won’t ride ‘em anymore.”
This first exchange was held in such a mellow manner that I was taken completely off guard by the escalation that occurred over the next few moments. I hesitate to transcribe the entire thing here, if only because I fear that the written word is simply not enough to convey the roaring, red-faced, spittle-wrought exchange that followed.
The two men stood centimeters apart in the barn doorway, shouting into each other’s faces with as much force as appeared possible to muster.
‘THEN FUCKIN’ RIDE ‘EM YERSELF!’
“I WILL, I FUCKIN’ WILL!” The trainer jammed his hand into his pocket, reaching for his wallet. “HOW MUCH DO I FUCKIN’ OWE YOU? THAT’S THE END, THEN!”
The jockey replied in a slightly more moderated yell that he didn’t owe him anything. This was, apparently, the trainer’s final straw.
“I SAID – HOW MUCH – DO I – FUCKIN’ – OWE YOU! TAKE THE MONEY, AND THAT’S THE END OF YOU AND ME! I WON’T OWE ANYBODY ANYTHING!”
“I WON’T TAKE YOUR FUCKIN’ MONEY!”
“AND I WON’T TAKE SHIT FROM NOBODY! NOBODY! THAT’S THE END OF YOU AND ME!”
The trainer, utterly enraged, threw the wad of bills onto the stable floor and stormed away.
I was reminded in a sudden, visceral manner of the arguments between high school couples that I had witnessed once or twice in the quad at lunch time – knock-down, drag-out affairs complete with throwing of books or articles of clothing, tearful yelling, and assurances that they were “done for good.” The only difference that I could see here was that instead of two teenagers arguing about why he wouldn’t just stop texting that other girl, it was two fully grown men shouting each other down about pride, honor, and good horsemanship; things which, in this case, were all one and the same.
Later, after the jockey had left, the trainer returned to the barn. I told him – gingerly, and with a cautionary buffer of several feet – that the jockey hadn’t taken the money, and pointed to where he’d left it on the chair, held down neatly against the cool afternoon breeze by a stone plucked from the stable yard. He sighed, crossed his arms, leaned against the barn door, and shook his head morosely.
“They come and they go,” he said, looking off across the hay fields.
SGBRSH 