1967-Voice Of The Tennessee Walking Horse 1967 March Voice RS | Page 30

words of an unknown man sitting in the booth behind
them and they continued to weigh on his conscience. The
man in talking to a friend, had said, ‘Veil I’ll tell you
what! I came a long way to look over these Walking
Horses and I was thinking of buying a farm and starting
a stable, but I’ll be damned if I want to spend a
hundred thousand dollars on something that is as crooked
as this racket is ...” as Lonny pondered this comment
over and over he didn’t hear the announcer call for the
class. The thing that woke him up was the first horse to
come around the turn as the class came in the ring. He
took another look to make sure he was right. It was
Dink Fuller on his Junior Marc. “What in blazes is he
doing in the slake class” ... he said to himself.
Now he knew he had gotten himself in a mess. Dink
had won the Junior Marc Class on her and had tied
second to Cowboy Marion’s top Stud in the Junior Stake.
by Charles Barry Sanderson
Lonny Baines figured he had really gotten himself in
a mess. As he stood in the middle of the ring waiting for
the final class to come in he could not help but admit
to himself that he was “glad it was about over”. The
tractor had been brought in and he was standing alone
at one end of the grass on the south turn while they drug
the track. As he lit a cigarette he pondered the events
of the past four days.
“Lets see now ...” he said to himself, “we got along
alright in the two-year-o ld and three-year-old classes.
Nobody seemed to have much to say about those”. It was
th ■ Amateur and juvenile Classes and the Junior and
Sevents that had worried him. Further going over
th- : N v/ in his own mind, he recalled that at least four
•/-p exhibitors had loaded up and gone home. He re­
membered the scowl he had gotten from Tommy Lewis
Lom Tallahassee, when he tried to talk to him at the
parts on .Friday night after the show. “I wondered what
be meant”, he said to himself, “when he said to him
that ‘everybody knew what was going on . . . and it was
no wonder that they didn’t have any horses at their
show’.”
In assessing the events of the show he figured it all
centered on the tie that he had made in the age stallion
class on Thursday night. He had been drawn between
doing what he felt was the “right thing” and trying to “go
along” with his indirect commitment to Mr. Bartlet and
his friends. He had tied it the way they wanted him to,
even though he felt that “their horse” should have been
about fourth or fifth.
Lonny had gotten an uneasy feeling that night when
he saw his Blue Ribbon horse go to the center of the
ring to pick up the trophy. He couldn’t help but
look the other way when the trainer took him around,
as he headed for the gate, because he could hear the
comments of the crowd. “Let’em rack on” .. . hollered
one fellow. Another yelled out, “better take another look
at him judge . . . you’re going to have to tic him again
Saturday night.” Others just laughed and cussed under
their breath. There were two things that had really gotten
him. One was the fact that Helen, his wife, wasn’t talking
to him and the other was a comment he overheard at a
restaurant after the show. He remembered the exact
30
Lonny wondered why he would bring her back just one
night later and show her again though . . . especially in
the stake class.
As he worked the class he became acutely aware that
there were only six horses in the class. “That’s odd”, he
said to himself, “there should have been at least twelve
horses in the stake”. The preliminary workout was un­
eventful. All horses worked fairly well both ways of the
ring with nobody really putting any pressure on their
stock. As the horses lined up he noticed that Dink circled
around to a spot at the end of the line-up. He was at
least twenty feet away from the other horses at the end
of the line.
Lonny took off his hat and wiped his brow with his
handkerchief as he started to check the line-up for con­
formation. As he reached Dink Fuller he remembered
that all horses were supposed to be stripped in a Cham­
pionship Class and asked the Ringmaster to go tell the
announcer to request that the exhibitors “strip their
horses.” He turned to Dink while they were alone and
said . . . “what are you doing in the Stake Class?”. Dink
looked him right in the eye, and without smiling said, as
he removed the saddle, “well if you are bound and de­
termined to screw things up, I figured I may as well make
you look as bad as possible.” Lonny turned away with­
out looking at his horse.
As he moved toward the center of the ring, going over
his card ... he remembered the instruction that Mr.
Bartlet had given him. They had figured on Cowboy
Marion being in the stake class, with his Junior Stud, but
he wasn’t entered. There were at least two horses that
were beating the horse he was supposd to tie and the
only thing he knew was to “go the route that they had
told him to go” and have another workout.
As the horses pulled back on the rail to the left,
Lonny found himself directly in front of Mr. Bartlet and
his friends. He looked straight at him and received a
slight smile and an approving nod of the head. Helen,
Lonny’s wife, was seated just two boxes down from these
men and he also looked at her. She just looked at him the
same way she had since he had tied what she thought was
the wrong horse on Thursday night.
It wasn’t until he called for the reverse that he knew
VOICE of the Tennessee Walking Horse