HORSEMEN OF THE BLUEGRASS

  

By D. Cameron Lawrence

for American Legacy magazine, Summer 2006, pp.73-74,76,78.

 

In Kentucky=s Thoroughbred country, the person closest to a champion horse is not the jockey by the handler.  For more than a century, generations of one family have excelled at the crucial, demanding job of groomsman.

 

Late on a warm afternoon in July, as the sun puts a soft glow to his weathered face, Tom Harbut stands on the front porch of the frame house his father built 80 years ago and looks out over a rolling landscape where horses graze in rich green pastures.  Harbut lives in the heart of Kentucky=s famed Bluegrass Country, a region that holds more Thoroughbred stud farms than any other place in the world, as well as expanses of the undulating fields, board fencing, and handsome barns that are among Kentucky=s hallmarks.  It is here that, for more than 150 years, some of the finest blooded horses ever known have been bred, foaled, and raised.

 

At 86, Harbut still moves with a hint of athletic grace, even as crutches support his weakened knees. Join him for a conversation, and it becomes clear very quickly that he knows a great deal about the animals in these fields. AI grew up around horses. I rode, and we had workhorses,@ he says.  AEvery one is different.  With Thoroughbreds, there=s the fleetness, the nervousness.  That=s what makes a good horseman: You get to know your horse, and let the horse get to know you.@  He grins: "It's like any other marriage."

 

Harbut is part of a long line of African Americans in the Bluegrass who have been expert horsemen. They developed keen skills as children, then worked their way as young men onto the racetracks, track backsides, and Bluegrass breeding operations. The smaller men who could ride became jockeys. Others became trainers. Some became grooms or handlers, like Harbut, who managed the stallion barns at a major breeding operation.

 

Many came from the historic black settlements that encircle the city of Lexington like a necklace. Known as the Bluegrass freetowns, those hamlets were founded just after the Civil War by emancipated slaves [sic] who bought an acre or two of land from speculators or were given a patch to work and live on by white horse farm owners trying to rebuild their own farms and replace the slave labor they'd lost.

 

While post- Reconstruction era violence raged against blacks in many parts of Kentucky (even though that slaveowning state had remained with the Union), the freetowns offered blacks not only employment on the estate farms but also some protection. Nearly all freetown residents worked on the horse farms, either as domestics or as hands and horsemen.

 

From his front porch in Maddoxtown, one of the freetowns, Tom Harbut can see several horse farms, including what used to be Faraway Farm, where the great Man o' War stood in retirement. A modest walk leads to several other illustrious stables, including Elmendorf, Castleton, Spendthrift, and Dixiana, where the graceful ghosts of equine legends seem to stir in the early morning mist.

 

The roots of the close relationship between Bluegrass African-Americans and horses go back to colonial Virginia, when slaves with "horse savvy" became favored jockeys and handlers. Kentucky was originally a part of Virginia and took on that state's love affair with finely bred livestock and racing. In 1792, when Kentucky became a state, the Thoroughbred breed, a cross between Arabian stallions and English mares, was well established in the Commonwealth.

 

In the early twentieth century, as segregation intensified and racing purses increased in size, discrimination pushed most blacks out of racing, but in the late nineteenth century black jockeys dominated the sport. At least 12 of the 15 riders in the inaugural Kentucky Derby, in 1815, were African-American. Black jockeys won 15 of the first 28 Kentucky Derbies and found fame on racetrack locations from New Orleans to New York. Men like Oliver Lewis (who won the first Kentucky Derby), Isaac Murphy, Willie Sims, James Winkfield, and many others were star athletes of their day. There were outstanding black trainers, too, including William Walker, who started as a jockey and in time became a renowned authority on the Thoroughbred pedigree, and Ed Brown, who saddled several Derby winners in the late 1800s.

 

In any sport there are those who are practically invisible but whose efforts make everything else possible. In racing and breeding that kind of hidden role is played by the handlers, or grooms, who feed, water, and oversee all the details in the day-to-day care of horses. "The grooms are the people closest to the horses, closer than anybody else," says Robert Lawrence,'chairman of the equine administration program at the University of Louisville. "It's the little changes that they notice. They're the ones who say, 'He didn't eat up this morning,' or 'He didn't eat with gusto, he looked a little off.' The grooms are the absolute         key." Throughout the 1800s and most of the 1900s, the majority of the grooms on the tracks and farms were African -American

 

As a teenager Tom Harbut, who first climbed onto a horse at the age of six, broke yearlings and exercised horses on local farms. In those days farms exercised retired stallions, and Harbut was assigned to ride War Admiral, winner of the 1937 Triple Crown, and War Relic, two celebrated sons of Man o' War.

 

The Harbut connection to American racing started in the 1920s with Tom's father. Will Harbut, a Maddoxtown farmer with a reputation as a strong horseman, went to work for a local farm manager, Harrie B. Scott, at a farm just outside Maddoxtown. When Scott took over the operation of Faraway Farm a few years later, Harbut went with him. The most famous tenant at Faraway was Man o' War, perhaps the single greatest racehorse in American history, who was retired to stud there. He became one of Harbut's charges.

 

Over the years, Harbut showed Man o' War to more than a million visitors from around the world who made their way to Faraway Farm. "You can't imagine the tourists that came out here, even with the Depression on and the gas rationing," says Harry B. Scott, Jr., who managed Faraway from 1961 to 1989.

 

Entertaining tourists with a poetic monologue about the stallion, Will Harbut became famous. He and Man o' War appeared in magazines; in one classic photograph on a 1941 cover of The Saturday Evening Post, the horse rests its head in the crook of Harbut's arm. Will Harbut and Man o' War had become inseparable friends. "They just melded into one," says Tom.

 

But there was more to his father than the legend, he adds. "He was well respected, and I admired him for his accomplishments because, for one thing, he was closer to the slave era. At that time, he wasn't allowed to read or write. And to get where he did was amazing."

 

Will Harbut and his wife, Mary, raised 12 children. The family kept a small, thriving farm and three teams of mules and horses. Before he started working for Scott, Harbut broke horses for other owners. He was something of a "horse whisperer," his son says, someone horses responded to. Yet even as Will Harbut's fame grew, racism cast its long shadow, as is revealed in his son's recollection of Man o' War's twenty-first birthday party, in 1938.

 

It was a big do, with a national radio hookup and visiting dignitaries. But when it came time to eat, Harbut had to sit at a table by himself. "That kind of woke me up," says Tom, who was 16 at the time. "I didn't know what was going on. We didn't really think about segregation."

 

Not long afterward, Tom headed to Belmont Park, in New York City, and worked for a top trainer, Henry McDaniel, who saddled the 1918 Kentucky Derby winner, Exterminator. Now too heavy to ride, Harbut "rubbed horses," as a groom's work was described.

 

Tom was drafted during World War II. After serving four years in the infantry, he went back to Kentucky, at his father's request. Soon after Tom's return, his father suffered a stroke. Will Harbut died at 62 in1947. His obituary in The Blood Horse magazine said he was survived by "his wife, six sons, three daughters, and Man o' War."

 

One month later Man o' War, who had been ailing for a year, died in his stall. Samuel Riddle, the owner of Faraway Farm, commissioned a handsome bronze statue of Man o' War that today marks the horse's grave and greets visitors at the entrance to the Kentucky Horse Park, a leading equestrian museum and farm showcasing the bond between horses and humans. The Harbut family declined a request to move Will Harbut's grave from the Maddoxtown cemetery so that it could lie alongside his most famous charge, but a plaque next to the statue tells the story of the famous pair.

 

Tom Harbut stayed at Spendthrift Farm for 30 years, eventually becoming the head of the stallion barn. In its prime, Spendthrift was the top Thoroughbred breeding operation in the United States. The cosmetics queen Elizabeth Arden kept horses there. So did the movie mogul Louis B. Mayer. A total of four Derby winners stood at the farm for all or part of their stallion careers. "It was Millionaire Row," says Harbut. "There were millions of dollars' worth of horses in there, and that's a whole lot of responsibility."

 

In breeding season the farm bred 20 mares a day, many two or three times. Handling the high-strung stallions during that process was a "dangerous and rough job," says Harbut. In the late 1950s his pay was about $30 a week. There were never any benefitsC no health insurance, no pension. On the side, Harbut began buying and training his own horses.

 

His first horse was a broken-down filly named Free Thought. He paid $50 for her, brought her around, and raced her. She won a few times. A colt named Touch Bar seemed more promising. Someone had given Harbut a broodmare named Queen o  Night, and the owner of Elmendorf Farm let him breed her to his stallion. To build the colt's stamina, Harbut sent him on training runs along Maddoxtown's dirt roads and pastures. He felt sure the horse could go places, but he needed a backer for racing. "It's very expensive," he says. "And I didn't have the connections." He sold half an interest in Touch Bar to a Louisiana businessman, who got the colt into the 1962 Kentucky Derby. Harbut still owned half the horse, even though his name did not appear on the race's program. Touch Bar finished eleventh out of 15. "He didn't run last," Harbut laughs. "I'll put it that way; he didn't run last."

 

Despite Tom Harbut's accomplishments in the horse business, none of his three children followed that path. "I had the opportunity to work on the same farms that he did," says Gregory, who loves horses and deeply admires his father. "There just weren't a lot of open doors for African-Americans like there are now. I remember many times when he was supposed to have a day off but had to go in and water and feed the horses just to have the rest of the day free."

 

In a suburban home outside Lexington, Gregory and his wife, Monica, are raising three children. Gregory works for the city. Monica teaches. The horses are a lifetime away. And yet, when no one was looking, the tradition resurfaced.

 

Today, young Greg Harbut, 20, a son of Gregory, grandson of Tom, and great-grandson of Will, is pursuing a career in the Thoroughbred horse business. His father remembers him as a boy of high school age talking about wanting a horse. Greg says it all started with a field trip to the Kentucky Horse Park, where he learned details about Man o' War and his great-grandfather. "My interest grew into a love," he says. And underneath that love is a determination to learn the business from the ground up, something Greg says his grandfather instilled in him.

 

In the summer of 2003 Greg took a novice's job, "hot walking" horses at a summer race meet at Churchill Downs. That involved cooling down horses after their training and learning the ways of the stable and the pulse of the track. He worked for the well-regarded trainer Tom Amoss, who says he was struck right away by Greg's enthusiasm. "My next question was, Is that enthusiasm going to stay with him? To make a career in horse racing takes tremendous commitment."

 

It wasn't easy, and Greg's early attempts were clumsy. That first summer a horse pinned him hard against the wall of a stall. By Greg's own admission he was "a nervous wreck." He called his grandfather for advice. "It can be life and death every day," Tom told him.

 

But Greg persevered. In the summer of 2005 he was accepted into Darley Flying Start, an intensive two-year training program that prepares young people for careers in racing and breeding. The program, now in its third year, is the brainchild of Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum of Dubai, a member of the United Arab Emirates. A top name in Thoroughbred circles, he brings the students to study at his Darley Stud operations in the United States, Ireland, Australia, England, and Dubai. From among 200 applicants, Darley Flying Start approved 12 students for 2005. Greg was one of three Americans accepted; his class started in County Kildare, Ireland. The intense course covers topics ranging from advanced veterinary care to pedigree analysis and from marketing to legal issues in breeding and racing.

 

Greg's commitment has forged a new bond between grandfather and grandson. "At first I thought he thought I was joking when I said I was going into the horse business," Greg says. "But now he sees I'm for real. I think he respects me a lot more now." And so old memories and past achievements drive one family's story on into the future.

 

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D. Cameron Lawrence is a writer and a Peabody Award-winning producer based in Louisville, Kentucky. She is the executive producer of People of Freetowns, a public-television program about the Harbuts and Maddoxtown, scheduled for broadcast in 2007.