As I was going through my dad's pictures, I found A LOT of pictures of his horses. My dad loved horses with about the same intensity that Verlin loved snowmobiles. He was always looking for the fastest one. He spent a lot of time at the race tracks when he was young and liked to watch the races. Placing money on the horses was not his thing, (although he did spend a dollar or two now and then), but he enjoyed picking his favorites for each race. He even raced a few of his own horses over the years. Some won, many did not.
Dad raised mostly quarter horses, good for working and good for short races (about 1/4 mile). He looked closely at the new foals each spring and tried to guess which ones had what it took to be a good race horse. I guess all horse owners were about the same. They also liked to brag about their horses' pedigrees.
Most people in the racing business knew the greats, one of the most famous being the thoroughbred, Man O' War. His lifetime career in racing was 21 starts with 20 wins and one 2nd place. He died in 1947 at the age of 30. I think he was the only horse in history who was buried in a custom made casket and lay in state for several days for his fans (nearly 2000) to walk by and see him one last time.
I remember when Dad spent some of his hard earned money to buy a sire whose pedigree went back to Man O' War. He may have raced some, but I don't know his record. I just know that Dad paid quite a bit for him and I don't think Mom was any happier about that than I was when Verlin would come home with another snowmobile (or a wrecked car that he could fix and sell to buy another snowmobile). We had a neighbor who was pretty excited about it though. He was hoping to get a colt from him so he asked Dad if he could bring his mare over. Dad was just that kind of a friend so he told him to bring her over. This was just a few days after Dad brought Make Up Man home. He did not even have a chance to put Make Up Man in with his own mares. The neighbor's horse was not a very friendly girl, and it was a costly mistake to put them in the same corral. She kicked dad's horse in the leg and broke it. There was nothing Dad could do for him so he had to put him down. I can still see my dad that evening and almost feel the heartbreak of having lost such a fine horse in such a way. I didn't see any pictures of Make Up Man, but he got another thoroughbred later with a pedigree back to Man O' War and his name was Top Fugitive, son of Top Deck and great, great, great grandson of Man O' War. There are a couple of pictures of him at the end of this slide show.
My dad hummed a lot when he was working. He could only remember the first line of the song so he just hummed his way to the end. We could usually figure out what he was singing if we heard those first words and sometimes even recognized the tune. Some of the songs that I remember were "If I Had But the Wings of an Angel", "Oh, My Darlin' Clementine", "Don't Fence Me In", and "Home, Home on the Range". I'll bet he was thinking about horses when he was humming because they made him happy. I think horses were not my dad's only love, but I think everyone should have something they love as much as my dad loved horses.
P.S. You don't need a cowboy hat to be a true horseman. My dad owned a straw cowboy hat that he wore for work, and he had a nice felt hat for dress occasions, but in these pictures caps and a helmet were more common. (Don't ask me about the helmet. I never saw him wear one while I was home except when he went to work at the gas plant.) I sure love my dad!
