DOCTORS ' LOUNGE
DOCTORS ' LOUNGE
SPEAK YOUR MIND If you would like to respond to an article in this issue , please submit an article or letter to the editor . Contributions may be sent to editor @ glms . org . The GLMS Editorial Board reserves the right to choose what will be published . Please note that the views expressed in Doctors ’ Lounge or any other article in this publication are not those of the Greater Louisville Medical Society or Louisville Medicine .
BLESSED ARE THE BACKSIDERS AUTHOR Mary Barry , MD
The life force of the racetrack runs through the barns . We clubhouse bettors see the grooms only when they walk over , leading their precious charges around the first turn , soothing and encouraging , getting them ready in the paddock . We ’ re not watching when they sleep in the tack rooms , arising hourly sometimes to check a sore leg . We don ’ t see them up daily hours before dawn ( ever done Dr . Polk rounds ? - you can relate ) to bathe and brush and bandage . We don ’ t see them cleaning the stalls and the feed tubs , poring minutely over what a horse ate , his coat , his feet . We don ’ t see them trying everything they ’ ve ever learned to keep their horses healthy and happy and fit as hell .
To understand racetrackers , to learn about their lives , you should start with reading : two books in particular . One is new , a years-long effort of the Louisville Storybook Project , spearheaded by Joe Manning and others , a true oral history of the people of the backside and of the South End of Louisville . Joe and his team of interviewers spent three years talking to hundreds of people who live or work , or both , around and in the barns . They taped it all . What they ’ ve produced is magic . In “ Better Lucky Than Good ,” people tell their own stories , they keep alive the exploits of their predecessors , they detail all the hours and all the effort and all the hope and heartbreak of a life with racehorses . If you grew up in Louisville , and the Derby is not just a party but a call to arms , a stirring of the blood , a mustering of tribes : this book takes you right inside that whirlwind of weather and worry .
Racetrackers , like doctors , have strict standards . Monnie Goetz , in charge of the lead ponies , said , “ In anything there is always an easier way to do it , and the proper way to do it .” Butch Lehr , longtime Track Superintendent , nurtured that famous dirt with the devotion of a preemie ICU nurse . “ I didn ’ t do it from the office . I ’ d go down there and walk on it . I always graded it myself so I could feel the track as I was doing it . I could tell . I lived and died on that track .” He stockpiled native soil and took soil samples from about every racecourse in America , always on the hunt for the perfect mix of water , clay , sand and silt . What was acceptable ? Only perfect : any hands-on doc will understand .
I was struck by the parallels between the love and care of horses , and the love and care of people . Greta Kuntzweiler , former jockey and now assistant trainer , said , “ If you fall in love with just one of them , then you want to meet all of them . That ’ s how it starts . You don ’ t realize how different their personalities are , how engaging they are , and how much you want to be around them . They ’ re really intuitive . That ’ s why they started using horses in therapy : because they mirror whatever feelings you have . If you ’ re incongruent - if you say you ’ re okay but really you ’ re mad - they pick up on what ’ s really going on . You can ’ t fake it around them .” I recall my advice to young docs starting out : “ Don ’ t act all official . You will spend your life in that exam room , and you cannot survive it unless you are fully yourself . Your rare privilege is to share your real self with their real selves . That ’ s how you help people .”
Groom Cristobal Resendiz Trejo pointed out , “ You have to like the work . If you ’ re doing it because you have to , if you don ’ t like it , that ’ s not good . You go to work and you treat the horses like people . They ’ ll respect you . You look your horses in the eyes to see if there ’ s something wrong .” I thought of the thousands of times I decided to admit somebody to the hospital . I looked in their eyes , and felt their pulses . Pretty much , I knew right then . I ’ m certain the ER docs do the same .
28 LOUISVILLE MEDICINE