I learned to gallop around the cornfields. There was always pheasants or deer jumping up to spook the thoroughbreds. I was riding short-iron, jockey-style. You use a light little saddle with a flat cantle and you stand in your irons — it takes the weight off the horse’s back and puts it over his loin and shoulders. You use long reins and tie them — you make a special cross. Lester’s daughter taught me how to make my cross and to keep my shoulders right, my back straight. You think about balance and control and you go easy on their mouths — you use a ring bit or snaffle bit, kind bits, not severe.

There’s an art to knowing how much horse you have left under you. You might get out in front in a route race, but you’ll run out of gas. No horse can run full bore the whole time. When you train a route horse, you do long, slow gallops to instill air in him. You make sure he has enough to carry him through to the end.

DIRT TRACK, FLAT LAND, RAMSHACKLE BACKSTRETCH

When we put a horse in to race at Jackson, South Dakota, I got to go along. We’d haul in the night before, sleep in a stall at the racetrack, and run our horse the next day. I rode in Old Bud’s pickup, in the middle, with Bud on one side and Riley Walker on the other. Old Bud would be puffing away on his nasty cigars and I’d be gagging. We pulled the trailer behind us and when we arrived, our stalls were ready — one for the horse, one for Bud, one for Riley, and one for me.

I’d been to Park Jackson plenty with my parents, but now I was on the backside. I got to meet other racetrack people besides those Denton people. I stood in the winner’s circle with Buckin’ Bones and got my picture taken.

Park Jackson was a recognized track, the only pari-mutuel betting in the state, but it was bottom of the barrel — one step above the bushes. It was backwoodsy. All kinds of crap went on. Still, it was where some good horses, some good trainers got their start.

Of course it’s gone now. They race motorcycles there instead.

I WOULDN’T BARELY BREAK

I went home at the end of the season. School started, but in my free time I read every book I could find about racehorses — feeding and conditioning and interval training and selective breeding and line breeding and hoof care, anatomy. I wanted to be better prepared when I went back.