Amazing and True

This story may be the best rags to riches story ever told. 

That it involves a wonderful horse is the icing on the cake.

That C.S. had never heard any of this, despite his deep knowledge of sports, and horse racing in particular, is the sparkler twinkling atop that cake.

This isn't horse racing, though, it's show jumping, and Catherine Hapka's Snowman: The True Story of A Champion captures the equestrian atmosphere of 1956, when the story begins. Harry deLeyer, a riding instructor, goes to a horse auction hoping to buy a new horse for his pupils to ride. He arrives late and the only horses left are those on their way to the killers. (Horse auctions can be brutal places, if you don't know, where good horses meet a bad end. It's shameful.) 

Looking over the horses, Harry notices the quiet eyes of a pale gray horse. He figures he'll give him a chance, and buys him for $80. Harry's children name the gray horse Snowman and he turns out to be well-behaved with them and in the lessons with students. But after Harry sells the horse to his neighbor, the neighbor can't keep him: Snowman jumps out of the paddock and comes back to Harry's barn. That's how they discover the horse can jump.

During the next 5 years, Snowman and Harry become famous, winning all the show jumping prizes in sight and being featured in national newspapers, on television (Johnny Carson sat on his back!), and Life Magazine. Snowman was inducted into the Show Jumping Hall of Fame in 1992. How he went from being an Amish plow horse to a national champion, who can say? But it happened. Here's a link to some photos, so you can see him in action: photos. 

This book was written for a younger audience and it tells this astounding story in a straightforward fashion. I enjoyed it immensely. 

Excerpt:

"I'd like to look that gray horse over," he told the meat buyer in his thick Dutch accent, nodding toward the gelding.

The buyer laughed. "You crazy? He's just a used-up farm horse."

Harry merely smiled. "Mind getting him down so I can have a look?"

The buyer shrugged and then unfastened the ramp he'd just latched. He lowered it, and before he could reach for the gray, Harry was inside grabbing the horse by the mane.

The gray gelding stepped down, stumbling halfway and sliding ungracefully to the ground. Harry let go and jumped out of the way. Although the meat buyer had already removed the halters from the horses in his truck, neither he nor Harry was particularly worried that the battered horse would try to run away, and indeed, the gray stood still once he was out.

Harry looked him over carefully. The horse stood a little more than sixteen hands by his estimation, and he was perhaps eight years old or thereabouts. He was solidly built, though certainly no draft horse despite the harness marks across his chest. Harry was surprised to note the small ears--"Arabian ears," he would call them. Other than those ears, the horse's best quality seemed to be his large, kind eyes. The rest of him showed the signs of hard work and poor care. His mane and tail were unkempt, and his hooves were chipped and dull, with only one worn-out shoe still clinging on by a couple of nails.

But he wasn't as thin as some of the horses that ended up in the buyers' kill pen, and his basic conformation was adequate. Besides, there was just something Harry liked about him. He might not be anything special, but seemed easy-going and quiet, so he might do as a lesson horse for some of the bigger girls . . . .

"How much do you want for him?" Harry asked the meat buyer.    

Note: This book counts toward the Mount TBR Reading Challenge.