They say horse racing is cruel, but there’s more cases of cruelty with backyard stable people. No one knows anything about hoof care, teeth floating. They think they can turn a horse out on grass, but when there’s no grass the horse starves to death. Some neighbors of mine were feeding theirs bread from the bread truck. When one horse died, I called the state. In the meantime the others died of malnourishment, too. It took three horses lying there dead — rotting, and me calling and calling — before someone finally came to investigate, but there was no fine, no consequence.

PERENNIALS

This week I’ve been busy, but I’ve got to get those pictures of Rowdy in the mail for you. My cousins have been here and I was shampooing carpets before that.

It did snow once. We had a light dusting last week. It’s too early for it. We didn’t have time to bring the flowers in or mulch the beds. My potted plants froze. I threw a coat over one big rosemary, but the others died. Of course some of the perennials will survive even if they’re not properly zoned for this area. Today it’s supposed to be sixty degrees.

The Amish put rubberized fabric between the rows to keep the weeds down, but I didn’t do that this year and I lost a lot of strawberries. We might build raised beds next spring.

Last night Jerry and I watched a criminal show about JR Boyd and Ransom Farms. The big man at Ransom when I was there was JR Boyd’s friend, BJ Bundy. The two of them liked to hop on their jet and take it wherever they wanted. They were spending lavishly and Bundy was mismanaging the farm — he borrowed more and more.

Galewood was their most valuable horse, but then he died under mysterious circumstances and everything fell apart. Ransom went under. Everyone thought Bundy killed Galewood for the insurance payout, but nothing was ever proved.

REMEMBER THIS?

There was a big racetracker’s reunion recently at Horsemen’s Park. I wanted to go, but if you go, you end up wanting to go back to the track. People say you never get racing out of your blood. I still dream about it most nights.

I’ve got my Nebraska bunch. I’ve got my Florida and Kentucky friends, too. Someone’ll say, Hey, remember so-and-so? They’re usually talking about a horse but sometimes it’s a person.