Main Characters: Rob, Dickie, Cream and me.
Approximate Date: Summer 1968
Introduction. Rob’s horse for several years was named Teddy. Teddy was black and fairly gentle and a decent cow horse. But there was an incident between Rob and Teddy that totally ruptured their relationship. Rob had purchased from a horse catalogue a matching martingale, bridle and saddlebags set. When they came in, he immediately caught Teddy and decked him out in his new gear. He stood back and admired him when a loud noise – gunshot or whip crack – startled Teddy and he took off running and in the process destroyed all three new items. Rob was so distraught that he told Dad he hated the horse and did not want him anymore. So Dad sold Teddy.
Rob’s next horse after Teddy was Cream. He was the most spirited, powerful, and beautiful horse we ever had; and, as we discovered in time, the most dangerous. I found a few pictures of Rob on Cream. This one is my favorite – Rob riding bareback on a galloping Cream.
(This was taken May 1968, five months before Rob was killed on the tractor.)
I don’t remember where Dad got Cream, nor do I remember being jealous or concerned that he was Rob’s horse. Merry Legs was my horse, a horse I had personally trained, so I was quite content with her. That is unless we were going to have a horse race. In a horse race, if you wanted to win, there was only one horse to ride: Cream. He loved to race. The challenge for the rider was to control him.
One of our favorite sports was to horse race around/through The Lake. It would typically be Dickie, Rob, Mitchell (Dickie’s younger brother), and me. Rob had enough sense to usually let me ride Cream in The Lake races. Rob was the smallest of us all and even I had hard time staying on Cream in a lake race. Rob would usually race on Merry Legs. She was fast, but not wild.
We would line up at the spillway pointing north toward the road. We did not circle the entire lake, rather, when we got to a pecan tree that lined up about where the peninsula ends (the peninsula did not exist then), we would turn and cut across the shallow end of The Lake. With all the horses except Cream, the rider would hug the shoreline and then cut into the water at the appropriate place and swim across The Lake. Cream took a different approach. He would arc out away from the shore and turn about 100’ from the water’s edge. He would pick up speed and just as he reached the shoreline, he would go airborne. That first leap would take him nearly a third of the way across The Lake. Rather than swimming, he would take four or five more leaps and be on the other side. From there, the racetrack followed beside The Lake’s edge then around and across the levee. The race ended after three laps. About as often as not, Cream would lose his rider on the water course. But, for whoever was able to stay with him for the whole race, it was quite a thrill – until it wasn’t.
The last Lake Race.
It was in the summer of 1968. I think it was just Dickie, Rob, and me. Keep in mind, when we did the race, we did not want to get our saddles wet so we rode bareback as you see Rob doing in the photo above. This, of course, significantly undermined the rider’s ability to stay on and to control the horse.
We started the race as usual on the spillway. From the moment Dickie said “Go”, Cream required no guidance from me; he knew exactly what to do. My sole focus was on staying on top of him. Cream was more energized that day than I had ever remembered him being. The first round, I think we crossed the lake in just four leaps and were on the shore and whirling left and south. Midway through the second lap, we passed the other two horses who had not yet completed their first lap. It was all a blur with some fear – Cream was going so fast I knew it would really hurt if I fell off. On the third and final lake crossing, he had slowed somewhat, but not a lot. Again, around the shore and then down the levee toward the spillway. I was so relieved that the race was over and I had not gotten thrown. For the first time in the race, I took the reins and pulled as I told Cream to “Whoa!” Rather than slowing, he clamped the bit in his teeth and pulled back and stretched out his neck. There was nothing I could do to gain control. Without a saddle and straddling his slippery wet back, I lacked the leverage to pull the bit out of his teeth.
In retrospect, what I should have done is just continue taking him through The Lake. Instead, I steered him straight. We crossed the gravel road at a full run headed toward the Redhead’s fence line. While I could not stop him, I could steer him. So, I turned him to the right and headed him along the fence line toward the haybarn on the east end of the field. I kept him to the far left so that I would have enough room to turn him should he not stop at the house. He would not stop and so I pulled him around and headed him westward back in the direction of The Lake. He was tiring a bit. After all, he had run about two miles by now at full speed and part of that leaping through deep water.
Dickie and Rob rode out to the west end of the field in hopes of helping me. I shooed them away. Cream’s back was dryer now and I expected I would be able to stop him in the open pasture. I could not. So, I brought him close to the road and made another wide turn toward the Redheads and back to the east toward the haybarn. Surely, he was going to soon tire out and this nightmare would be over. But the horse just kept running. This time I steered him to the right side of the field hoping I could get him to stop at the gate to the house by the orchard. I gave it everything I had to get him to stop but he passed the little gate and then swerved to the right – directly into the barbed fence at the orchard. Fortunately, he had slowed considerably, and I was able to jump off his back on the far side of the fence, do a roll and get up without being hurt.
Cream was wrapped up in barbed wire and just collapsed. I believe it was Alease who came with wire cutters and helped Dickie, Rob and me cut the wire off Cream. Cream was so exhausted that he just laid there on the ground. When we finished and stepped back, he got up and I led him to a post and tied him. He was bleeding from the barbed wire cuts on but otherwise, was not hurt. He was now docile as a lamb.
It obviously registered with Dad that Cream was not a safe animal for his children to ride. The next day, he loaded the horse into his horse trailer and took him to John Hewes. Mr. John was big into horse racing. We learned that Cream became a star racehorse at Horseshoe Hill Ranch.