Last year my dad passed away and my mom came and lived with us with her cancer. I had her for all those years, with her other cancer. She passed away May 13th, the day after Mother’s Day.

When I left home for the track, I couldn’t take Rowdy with me — I kept him at Baxter’s where he got the basic care he needed. Year after year, my mom would drive to the stable a few times a week to brush him and talk to him. Used to be she didn’t drive in winter — she’d take the bus to work when it snowed — but she drove out to see Rowdy bad weather or not.

She’d take him for walks and bring him treats. He had a nice barn, a nice stall, a heated water bucket. As he got older he got to stay in at night and during the day, too, if it was cold. After a while he had to have hot bran mashes a few times a week and some highfalutin vitamins. When his joints got arthritic I’d mail bute pills and my mom would crush them with a coffee bean grinder and mix them with pancake syrup and put it in a big oral syringe she’d squirt into the side of his mouth.

When I was a kid I had birthday parties for Rowdy, and after I left my mom had them for me. She’d take pictures of him and mail them to me at the track. He’d have a birthday hat on, a spread of gingersnaps and molasses cookies and cupcakes in front of him, frosting on his muzzle.

My mom would be having a bad day, a stressful week, but once she was with Rowdy, she felt better. Rowdy and I have lots of secrets, she’d say.

IT AIN’T LIKE A CAT

Chico and Mick both passed a few years ago. I don’t have horses now. We’re always doctoring because of Jerry’s health, and I had some things going on, too. We’re away on weekends at sales. It ain’t like a cat where you put a sandbox out, a little dish of food and water. If you have a horse you’ve got to be there.

Back when kill price was high, a horse was worth more than a cow, per pound — people were raising them on feedlots for slaughter. Then the big kill plant in Texas closed, and prices went down to nothing. Suddenly there was free horses everywhere — the internet was full of them. My phone was ringing off the wall with people trying to give them to me. But there ain’t no such thing as a free horse.