Page 119 - 12 April 2013

up in a media frenzy. Shortly after his arrival, Winner Communication did a piece on Eastex at Heritage Place where he was reunited with his jockey, Bruce Pilkenton. Bruce and his wife were also proud members of the circle of honorary owners of Eastex, having helped acquire him back. Eastex also made several trips to Remington Park to lead the Eastex Handicap post parade. He was really happy to be back at the track and I’m sure he was wondering why nobody led him to the starting gate. And if Eastex had raced... Eastex knew how to give his all.
A funny thing happened one day when Dee Raper and Andy Chavers brought Eastex back from a several
state tour. No one was home, so Andy Chavers took apart the pivoting arm
on my automatic gate, unloaded Eastex and put the arm back on the gate. The problem was that he put it on backwards, so when I got home I destroyed the motor and the gears. For the next 20 years I teased Andy Chavers about how he cost me $1,500 in trying to do me a favor by bringing Eastex home.
Eastex’s popularity never faded. He received many offers to travel and be in the spotlight. I was the reluctant one. He was happy, and I wanted him to live happily just being a horse.
In 1997, I decide to replace the
old wooden fencing with vinyl, which meant that Eastex and Wendy were begrudgingly forced to split their time between the small paddock and round pen until the work was completed. One afternoon I was leading Wendy out of the round pen when Eastex suddenly exploded past Wendy and me. We had to stop traffic to make sure he was not hit by fast moving cars on the road
along the edge of the property that
now lacked fencing. It was his love for the old mare that finally convinced Eastex to head back to his confines. On another evening I could see that Eastex had a belly ache; he kept rolling on the ground. I called several veterinarians, but all of them were away at a convention. So my friend Richard Joneson came
over from Tecumseh, about 45 minutes away. We chased Eastex and Wendy for
a long time. By the time we caught him, the problem seemed to have cleared
up. It was probably the chase. As I headed back to the barn in my John Deere gator, I turned to see Richard riding Eastex bare back. What a sight. Eastex was big, but he looked small with Richard on his back. Richard is about 6’5” or 6’6”, and he is the last “jockey” to officially ride Eastex.
The years passed and times changed. When my wife moved out, so did Eastex’s old mare. Bobbey Phillips, Speedhorse’s sales manager, then moved her horses to the farm. We tried to mix Eastex with Bobbey’s horses, but it didn’t go so well. When Eastex ended up with a huge hematoma after being kicked, we decided to leave him to himself in a five acre run.
Eastex really liked people, and so as long as he could socialize with other horses over the fence he was fine in a pasture by himself.
Eastex was also smart. Every time his feet needed trimming, I had to fetch him before he spotted the farrier’s truck or he would not be caught. And let me tell you Eastex could be a handful if he wanted
to be. He remained his own boss. The farrier had a time limit in Eastex’s mind and it started the minute his first hoof
was touched. When what he thought was adequate time to perform the job had passed, he would start to annoy the farrier. The farrier even had the nerve to tell me he was going to have to charge more because Eastex was a pain in the a--. I thought that he should have paid me to touch royalty.
Eastex and I went through a ritual almost every morning as I headed out with my kids to take them to school. As I drove past I would yell out his name
Bruce Pilkenton and Eastex following their victory in the 1984 All American Futurity
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