Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Horse Love

When I was young, I wasn’t a horse girl. You know what I mean, a lot of girls obsess about horses. They knew a palomino from a pinto. And a bridle from a stirrup. They collected plastic horse figurines. Some of them even wore cowboy hats. (Or at least had them in their rooms.)

But I never got that. A horse is an interesting animal. And I enjoyed riding them. But like Mr. Ed said, “a horse is a horse.” I was much more interested in books. And, obviously, not the Misty of Chincoteague novels.

That was the extent of my interest in horses. Until I was about thirty, and my son Matthew was born. As most of you know, Matthew is autistic. What you may not know is that he had serious sleep problems. He only slept three hours out of every 24. Which didn’t work well for him or us. Most of the rest of the night he cried. It was misery...until we found Black Beauty.  Matt loved horses, and someone gave us a video of Black Beauty. Matt loved it. So we started putting it on every night for Matt to watch while we slept. He sat between us in our bed and watched. Twice a night he watched the entire video of Black Beauty. Of course, he woke us up every time BB got caught in the fire. Cal would say, “Matt, he’s going to be fine. They’re going to rescue him like they did the last 2,000 times.” (He also woke us up when BB pooped in the house—Matt didn’t want us to miss the funny parts.)

Interestingly, the movie has subliminal messages. No, that’s not the result of sleep-deprived hallucinations. In some of the town scenes, people will walk through the corners of the scenes carrying placards with instructions on them. It’s only a frame or two long, and if you’re not looking for it (or haven’t seen the movie 2,000 times) you’ll miss it.

But subliminal messages aside, Matt’s obsession with BB gave me an idea. I wondered if he might like the Triple Crown, especially the Kentucky Derby. All those thoroughbreds racing. So we watched it. Matt adored the backstory on each horse and usually cheered for the horse-who-overcame-the-most-obstacles. Ariel and I fell for the hat parade. And okay, I’ll admit it, I fell in love with the horses for the same reason I love baseball. It isn’t that the sport is so amazing to me. It’s watching the near perfection involved. I love watching Mariano Rivera or Tim Wakefield pitch. So I love watching the horses do what they were bred to so—run like wind. I also like the irony of watching the “it” horse have a snit and deciding it doesn’t really care to win this particular race.

The Kentucky Derby is this Saturday. We’ll be watching. I’m rooting for Uncle Mo, and Matt’s rooting for Dialed In. (Neither of us will root for a Bob Baffert horse.) So my horse love came late. And that’s okay. Especially since I’ll get to enjoy a mint julep with the race. Yum. 

13 comments:

  1. Nice story! I love watching horses too. Not a Horsey person though.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've been an animal person, but when you find something your kids love, you start to gravitate towards it yourself.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I enjoyed this entry and can relate, like many mothers of horse loving daughters. I never did catch that horse fever when I was a girl,either, and was nonplussed about the unmitigated passion of it in some of my friends. But now Heidi, our 12 year old, has been bit by the bug very hard, and I have been learning a lot of interesting things about these creatures. Not enough to swoon, but enough to appreciate and enter into her enthusiasm a little more.

    That's fascinating about Matt's fix of BB to make it through the night for you guys. 3hrs is pretty rough for long term. And yes that fire scene is pretty intense!

    ReplyDelete
  4. My sister would have plastic horses they would play with so vigorously that their legs would break off.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Aww, this is sweet. I was a horse girl, though I never had a cowboy hat. Black Beauty is one of my favorite childhood books, and I loved the movie. I also went through 2 intense horse-racing stages: one in elementary school and one in high school. I've been to the Belmont Stakes.

    In any case, I think it's wonderful your son bonded with the horses and that it's opened up a new world to you too. For another great horse movie (but less of a kid movie), you should check out Seabiscuit. Classic underdog story, and it's a true story that took place 10 min away from where I live. They even filmed chunks of it at Santa Anita Park. I also recently watched Disney's Secretariat. Also based on an amazing true story about arguably the greatest racehorse ever, and it's more of a kid movie.

    So yeah, if you ever want horse-related recs, I can try to help out. :) Enjoy watching the Derby! I wish I still followed that stuff sometimes.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hey, Andrew, who was that? Lexie? Heather?

    ReplyDelete
  7. That is really Sweet. I couldn't stand BB myself (ginger's death depressed me too much) but I sure liked horses growing up. Now I prefer hats. I'm overjoyed that I have had two occaisions this year to coo over hats (the royal wedding and the derby)!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I'm definitely not a horse person, but I enjoyed reading BB and the Black Stallion series over and over as a kid. I've never seen the BB movie. I'm going to go put it in my Netflix queue. We'll be sure to watch for the placards. :>)

    ReplyDelete
  9. How wonderful that your son bonded with the Black Beauty movie. I can only imagine how difficult it was for all of you before he found that connection. And it's even better yet that you've all grown to enjoy watching actual horse races together. (Have an extra mint julep for me ... sounds good)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Oh I so wish I could experience this one day!

    ReplyDelete
  11. I loved Black Beauty. I feel in love with the book and only saw the movie once, a long time ago. I can easily understand why people feel so much for horses. They're otherworldly, sometimes.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Uncle Moe is out now. Who's next on your list?

    ReplyDelete