Page 90 - September 2016
P. 90

                                  “Overall, I think ex-racehorses make just about the best horses for anything you
                    Making Play
That kind of thing happens all too quick and all too often, a blink of the eye that can mean the difference between life and death in one of the most dangerous of all occupations.
Accomplishing the mission takes backup. We’re talking people here. The outrider does not work alone. There are two of them at almost all tracks, where one leads the post parade while the other follows it, and they share duties in morning works and afternoon races.
“I have a really good backup partner, Jeb
Loney,” Mitch says. “He’s a bronc rider out
of Montana, a good cowboy, a good kid. He
and I have worked together four or five years
now. We think alike. If somebody is in a bind,
whatever my play is, he goes with it, and I do
the same. Here’s a good example: The other
day a rider fell off leaving the gate. Jeb took
off at a run after that horse, bolted to him to
keep him from turning back and going into
traffic. I started to go, too, but I saw his play
so I stopped and rode back around the turn,
thinking that he might not catch that horse so
On-The-Job Training
Even more than the person covering his back, the outrider’s number one partner is the horse he’s sitting on.
“The best results I’ve had, I get a really nice, older, good-bred horse that’s relatively sound,” Mitch says. “I take that kind home and punch cows on them all winter, and they become horses. You make some great horses that way. You leave out on a green colt early in the morning and you come home that night riding a really good son-of-a-gun. Then all the excitement, the noise, the crash of the gate, the crowd and everything (at the track) is nothing. They say, hey, this ain’t that big a deal. You get one of those old horses whose mind can take it and you just go on with them.”
It’s a matter of trust and mutual cooperation. “I love those kind and they want to be your friend, too,” Mitch continues. “I carry four or five with me everywhere I go. You got a spare tire for your truck, I got a spare horse. And, I’m always working on a young horse.”
Mitch is airing up a spare as you read this story. “I’m working with one right now that’s really coming around,” he says. “He’s a young horse, 6 years old, an Indian Charlie (TB) horse. I call him ‘Charlie.’ He ran a few years, going from 870 to 5 1/2 furlongs. And he was quick.
I mean, when they said go, this son-of-a-gun would throw daylight at the field. He ran here last year, and I took him home and punched cows on him all winter. He’d do anything I asked him. He just wants to be my friend.”
Charlie joins a string headed by a graded stakes-winning earner of $254,775. “Right now, I’m riding The Zia Star,” he says of a 20-year- old gelding by Rime. “I gathered a lot of cattle on him out there. To this day, he’s still a great horse. He’s by Rime and his mama was Star Of Sierra Leone, who was Denim N Diamonds’ producingest daughter. Jack Brooks had him
as a 2 year old. Jimmie Claridge had him after that and I really like the way Jimmie takes care ofahorse.Asa4yearold,hewonafewraces; as a 5-year-old, he was the New Mexico-bred of the year; and as a 6-year-old, he was the New Mexico-bred of the year. He made a quarter
million in his career, but as a 7 year old he’d just had enough. He’d look down through there and say, nah, I ain’t doing this no more.
“So I brought him home and kept him around the house,” Mitch recalls. “The first four or five days there, he stood and looked at the mountain, looked at the trees, and that ol’ horse was just amazed. The following week, I had my saddle on him and we were gathering cattle. He was going, wow, that’s different!
“I’ve been riding that horse for 12 years and the other day I had a terrible wreck going on the racetrack,” he says. “The rider didn’t get hurt and the horse didn’t get killed, but that racehorse jumped up on the rail, there was all that crap crashing and burning, and I said, ‘Hey, cowboy, we gotta go!’ That old horse just flat-footed it out and ran that son-of-a-gun down. He’s 20 now and he’s still got a step. He’s a great horse.”
Mitch uses The Zia Star once every six or eight days or so. “I take care of the old guy, just like he takes care of me.”
The horseman takes care of all his horses.
“I feed my horses better than racehorses,” the outrider says. “That’s why they last so long. They get up early in the morning and work all day, when the track opens for galloping in the morning through 10 or 12 races all afternoon. They work from the first to the last, follow the field each race, and they’ve got to be on their game. When we’re done, I take the ol’ boy back to the barn, pull
my saddle, get him a drink of water, put him in the round pen and then that’s his time. He lays down, stretches and rolls – I call it Mother Nature’s chiropractor. By God, those horses have fun out there. I hose him off, clean him up and hang him on the walker until he’s dry and supper’s awaiting.”
The next day, Mitch starts all over again with another horse. He uses different horses for different jobs. “When we’re running the big 3 year olds, I like to ride my big Salt Lake (TB) gelding ’cause that son-of-a-gun can mortally fly, and he’s big enough that if one of those 3 year olds bump us, he can take the hit or he can run ’em down and catch ’em. I ride The Zia Star
on the big futurities. By the time those babies get to one of the futurities, they’re pretty smart and well-mannered, so you don’t get a lot of wrecks. But when you do, you need a horse with common sense. Or, I wouldn’t ride him.”
       I’d catch him coming down the lane. Well, that little Paint horse he was riding just smoked up and caught that racehorse. So, he did his job and I did mine: He picked up the loose horse,
I covered my end of the deal, and everything worked smooth. Jeb takes all the pressure off me. With him on my flank, I don’t worry about nothing.”
There’s one more aspect to a good horse. And, for that matter, to a good horseman. “My horses love people,” Mitch says. “They love a little attention; they love getting their head rubbed on. And I like it. That’s the kind of person my partner is, too. The other day, there were some kids out here and Jeb was giving them horseshoes: ‘These are off the fastest son-of-a-gun in the world!’ These were a bunch of cancer kids, they’d never had the opportunity to ride a horse, pet a horse, even touch a horse. Jeb just rode up, let them pet his horse, gave those grinning kid’s shoes and stuff, and it just did my heart good. That really meant something to them. Kindness is a wonderful thing.”
p h o t o b y R i c h a r d C h a m b e r l a i n
    “He has to have a decent mind on him. Some horses can handle it and some just can’t.”
                                                                      88 SPEEDHORSE, September 2016



























































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