(This is a picture of a buckskin American quarter horse. It looks just like Smokey[1])
When I was a boy, I spent a great deal of time on my grandfather’s farm. It was a wheat farm mostly, though we had several hundred cattle, and one horse. The horse was beautiful buckskin quarter horse that stood about fourteen and a half hands high (just under five feet). Due to his brown coat and shady appearance, we called him Smokey.
My mother and Smokey were incredibly close. Smokey’s size and agility made him an ideal barrel racer. Mom, in her youth, rode Smokey in numerous rodeos across the state. For a time, Mom was a regular cowgirl and Smokey loved to race.
(A picture of a barrel-racing track. The rider enters at full speed and tries to complete the tract as quickly as possible. Quarter horses like Smokey were great barrel horses.)
Barrel racing is a dangerous sport. The objective is simple: navigate the horse in the arena and through three barrels as quickly as possible[2]. The process is complex: navigate a 1000-pound animal around tight turns at full speed. In the video below[3], you can see how dangerous the sport can be. To be a great barrel racer, the rider must establish a connection with the horse.
Mom and Smokey were close. As such, she had a deep affection for Smokey and cared for him as she would eventually care for me. Mom brushed, fed, and exercised Smokey as often as possible. After a while, Mom married my father and new obligations sprung up in her life. She started a family and we moved away leaving Smokey in the care my grandfather.
When I met Smokey, he was probably 25 years old. Smokey’s barrel racing days were well behind him. Grandpa moved Smokey from the corral and placed him in the pasture with the cattle. Grandpa did regularly ride nor groom him. Smokey went from eating oats to prairie grass. As a result, he developed a mean disposition.
Like the boys in Black Beauty that ‘thought a horse or pony is a steam engine or a thrashing machine,’[4]I mistreated Smokey. I would tease him. I often placed my ball cap on his head and threw feed on his back. Old Smokey just stood there and accepted my childish play. I always made fun of Smokey, as he looked so peculiar standing among the cows.
Smokey had deep brown eyes and he responded when you spoke to him. He would stare at you while you talked. Like Black Beauty, Smokey could tell ‘more from your voice than most people could’.[5] He was a smart, gregarious old horse who loved attention. I gave him as much as I could, all of it bad.
When I was ten, my uncle John (who is only three years older and really more of a brother) and I decided to saddle Smokey and go for a ride. Smokey stood silent as we put the blanket on him and slipped the bridle around his beautiful head. He was used to adults ridding him so he expected a firm and direct guide. We were so small and was Smokey so big, we had to walk him over to the corral gate and climb up to mount him. We jumped on the saddle. John placed me in the front and he sat behind me with his hand clutching the reins.
It was thrilling sitting on top of Smokey. You could feel his gargantuan lungs expand with each breath and his muscles contract at each step. We slowly walked Smokey out into an open field. John, with the voice of a boxing announcer, wildly asked me, “Are you ready to get rumble?” Without waiting for my reply, he gave two loud guttural clicks and dug his heels into Smokey’s side.
(This is a western saddle. Note the saddle horn and the stirrups)
An odd thing happened. Smokey did not run. He did not rear backwards and shake his hoofs. He merely stopped walking and slowly coiled his scraggly mane around and looked right into my eyes. Smokey, with his sharp brown-eyed stare, looked directly at me and me alone. I felt my legs expand as he drew a long breath into his lungs. His snotty nostrils flared and foam dripped from the bit that was between his teeth. He let out a long, exhausting whinny and sharply righted his head forward.
I trembled with fear. Smokey reared back so sharply, I clutched the saddle horn to prevent from falling off. John’s desperate hands dropped the reins and he grabbed onto my neck and stomach. We both screamed as Smokey leveled himself and broke out into a full gallop. We were so little that our legs could not reach the stirrups[6]. Each step Smokey took was a punishing bounce in the saddle. Smokey let out a battle whinny as he broke full speed across the open field.
“Oh Jesus, oh my god,” John Screamed! “Grab the goddamn reins Bob, grab’em!” I tried to respond to John but fear had paralyzed my voice. Smokey took a sharp turn at the edge of fence line ripping John violently from saddle. John emitted a high-pitched scream on his way to the ground. He smashed into the field dirt with a stomach-turning thud. He let out one final cry - this time a deep groan - and lay still and silent.
(Smokey, when angered, actually looked like the horse in the photo)
I broke my silence and screamed to John but he did not answer. I knew in my heart he was dead and bitter old Smokey had killed him. Smokey had become one of the four horses of the apocalypse and I was abreast on the beast’s back[7].
Smokey, remembering his barrel racing days, sharply cut towards the road and increased his speed. Without John, I was bouncing virulently around clinging to the saddle horn. My open legs were smashing into the rock-hard saddle leather at each step. A few yards ahead, I could see a road separated by a large ditch. Smokey did not stop, rather he continued onward and a few feet from the ditch Smokey leapt into the air.
Smokey’s front hooves met the road first and set a shockwave of force back towards me. The immense force drew me forward face first towards the ground. I could see the pebbles of the dirt road before I smashed into the surface. The blow sent a screen of blackness through my mind.
When I awoke, Smokey’s fairing, snotty nostrils were dribbling on my cheek. He gently dug his head into my side. I rolled over onto my back and felt a sharp pain in my right shoulder and the right side of my face. I reached up to touch my face and found it covered in blood. The fall had broken my shoulder and the gravel had stripped the sink off one side of my face.
Smokey did not run, rather he stood over me. I brought myself to my feet and began the long walk home and Smokey obediently followed behind me. I did not grab his reins or lead him. He just followed. I found John sitting Indian style up the road. He had spilled into a sticker patch and got some nasty cuts. Smokey walked with us all the way home.
After reading Black Beauty, I kept thinking of Smokey, and wondered if he felt the emotions that the horses in the novel felt. In retrospect, I know now Smokey felt emotions as he expressed them vividly everyday. Like any living being, he wanted fair treatment, as he was a fair animal. He gave love back as he received it. I tormented Smokey often and he returned that torment to me in kind.
He was a beautiful horse and my treatment of him sickens me. As a ten year old, I held an ignorant view of farm animals. I considered animals for utility or sport. Beyond that, they were lesser beings. I was ignorant of their emotions. Now I realize, as Joe in Black Beauty did, that ‘ignorance is the worst thing in the world next to wickedness.’[8]
Writing this brief paper was an experience. To do it successfully, I considered Smokey’s thoughts. I attempted to place myself inside of him and see the world through his eyes. In doing so, I identified with Smokey and felt his experience as an animal. From Smokey’s vantage point, I was able to see myself and witness my faults. The sympathetic imagination is two way street. You grow to understand those that cannot speak and see yourself from a new perspective.