Page 99 - August 2016

horses on and off the track with as little risk and limited danger as possible.
Speaking Of Riding. . . .
Robbie Edwards recalls a story told by Bobby Adair, “The Master” all-around horseman
who rode everything from World Champion racehorses to top-flight cow horses and some of the best roping horses to ever catch a steer. After hanging up his flat tack as a jockey, Adair was the outrider at Los Alamitos.
“Bobby told me about this guy coming
up on the racetrack on a racehorse, first time Bobby had ever seen him,” he says. “The guy had his irons short and jacked up, looked
like he knew what he was doing. Bobby said he kept his eye on him because he had never seen him before, didn’t even know if he had
a license or not. The guy goes down there a little way, about a hundred yards, and when the horse started off into his lope, he just fell off. Bobby went and caught his horse, got him back on, and said, ‘Hey, you probably ought to drop your stirrups a little bit until you kind of get the hang of this.’ So the guy fooled with them a little bit, Bobby turned him loose and he went on about another hundred yards, the horse started off in another lope and he just fell off. The horse didn’t do anything wrong – he was just going from a trot to a lope and the guy fell off.”
Robbie laughs at the image.
“Bobby said he’d kind of had enough of it then, he’d already told him once and now he
had to go catch his horse and tell him again,” he continues. “So he told him one more time to drop his stirrups a little more, he did and he got back on. Bobby turned him loose and same thing: he went jogging off about a hundred yards, the horse went into a lope and he just fell off. Bobby caught the horse and said, ‘Hey kid, you probably need to go to the ranch or somewhere and learn how to do this.’ And the kid got kind of mad, looked straight up at him and said, ‘I don’t know who you are or nothing about you, and I don’t know if you know it or not, but if you really want to know the truth, these exercise saddles are a lot harder to ride than they look like.’ That kind of got Bobby tickled, he said, ‘Yeah, I agree with you, but
it’s not that hard if you learn how to do it. You need to go somewhere and learn how to ride in flat tack.’”
So, speaking of riding: back to the pony and outriding horses that take care of the racehorses. They have a job to do and, like in any profession or trade, they have to learn it.
a
who later became the outrider
The head outrider and pony horse riders make sure the racehorses are loaded into the gates safely, correctly, and on time.
“Your horse needs to be solid and you need M to be able to count on him when you need
him,” Robbie says. “He has to have a decent
mind on him. Some horses can handle it and
some just can’t.”
In Part 2 next month, we’ll look at what it takes to make a good outriding horse.
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SPEEDHORSE, August 2016 97
photo by Coady Photography