If a horse breaks a leg, it usually gets euthanized. Sometimes their legs detach. Not to say you can’t fix a broken leg or even one that’s busted off. They’ve done wonders with big-money horses — some have prosthetics. But it’s not always humane. If it’s a gelding or a horse worth only a grand, you can’t go to great lengths to save them because it will cost too much.

I was seven the first time I seen a horse break down on the racetrack. I watched it get injected. Then the crew hooked the dead horse to an old tractor with a log chain and dragged it off the track in front of everybody. That was in 1969 at Park Jackson.

Now they use an ambulance. They pull a big curtain from the trailer and the horse gets loaded up — even with a broken leg it’ll stumble in. They haul the horse to the backside and do what they have to do.

BIG OLD HOLE

Sometimes three or four horses would break down in one race because the track surface at Park Jackson wasn’t up to par and a lot of the horses were too crippled up to be racing in the first place. There was a reservation close by and if ever a gray horse had to be put down, the Winnebagos would come and take off the tail. They’d dye the hair and make it for their costume.

The rendering truck came every other Monday. In the meantime the corpses would pile up in a drainage ditch behind the grandstand. Every day, on the way from my trailer to the barn and back again, I had to pass this big old hole. The horses’ legs would be sticking straight up in the air, and the smell —

One Saturday while I was riding a Beauregard horse from the barn to the starting gate for a race, I glanced over at the drainage ditch. A horse had been euthanized earlier that day after a bad fall, but now that horse was trying to stand up. It was struggling because both of its front legs were broken. The other pony people turned to see what I was staring at. Oh my god, someone said, it’s still alive. The vet didn’t put it down right. We had to call him back so he could finish the job.

Priests came on race days to bless the horses’ legs before they ran, but there’d be plenty of times it didn’t work.

I SEEN HIM EVERY DAY

Near the end of summer, I woke up in my trailer one night with a man over me. He sneaked in while I was sleeping and put a gun to my head. I got raped.

He was taking pills. He was a jockey trying to cut weight. He told me he’d just shot a dog.