 |
|
 n days when the horse wasn't performing, people would wait in line for hours just to see him standing in his stall, sometimes looking less than regal with his pet rat terrier perched atop his head. Dwight Eisenhower recalled queuing up with his parents to see Dan at the Kansas State Fair in 1904; Harry Truman, in his post-presidential dotage, remembered sending Dan a fan letter.
People exaggerated their connection to the horse to make themselves seem more important, or better human beings. A common boast in the '20s, '30s and '40s– a kind of urban myth comparable to saying you were at Wrigley Field when Babe Ruth hit his famous "called shot" home–was to say you were once at a racetrack someplace, leaning on the fence and watching Dan Patch warm up, when his trainer drove the horse over, picked you out of the crowd, and asked if you'd like to take ole Danny boy for a spin. The story, which was told all over the country, had two seemingly contradictory points: that Dan, like Jesus, moved among the common folk, and that you were somebody special for being picked to drive him. (Some said they jumped at the chance to sit behind him in the sulky; others, unwilling to weave a more tangled web, claimed to have demurred.) In their obituaries, many who had never met Dan Patch–or who had perhaps only the slightest connection, having mucked out the stall next to his at a state fair one morning, say–were identified as his trainer, owner, breeder, horseshoer or groom, their impressive fibs following them relentlessly to the grave. So many people lied about having groomed the horse that one Dan Patch website lists as a FAQ, "How can I verify that my relative was Dan Patch's caretaker?" (The answer: you can't, because the poor soul almost certainly wasn't.)
In 1923, an early author of self-help manuals, Harry Heffner, published a pamphlet called "Dan Patch: The Story of a Winner," in which he revealed how to become a more highly effective businessperson, friend, spouse and Christian by acquiring the virtues of the by-then deceased horse. In the introduction to a book called The Autobiography of Dan Patch, written by a publicist named Merton E. Harrison and published in 1911, the author writes, "The work of his caretakers, trainers and drivers has always been high class, but it has always been supplemented by the self-esteem, the care and thoughtfulness of the horse himself. Dan Patch has come to be spoken of as 'the horse that knows'."
Even John Hervey, the preeminent turf writer of the early 20th century, a florid scribe at times but a usually sober one, fell hard for the horse. "A kinder, a wiser, a finer dispositioned spirit in equine form never lived," Hervey wrote of Dan in the 1930s. "He was goodness personified. And wisdom. That he knew more than most of the men then on earth was the firm conviction of those who knew him. It was almost unbelievable that a horse with so mighty a heart, so dauntless a courage, such endless masculine resolution, strength and power, could at the same time be so mild, so docile, teachable, controllable, lovable. Those constantly with him worshipped him–would have died for him, I veritably believe, had it been necessary."
In this one animal, humbly bred and congenitally malformed, had come together all the virtues that the horse-drawn world had ever imagined. In the parlance of the day, Dan was crazy good.
Dan Patch madness was still approaching its peak that day in October of 1905, when the horse, with tremendous fanfare (which is to say the usual fanfare), came to Lexington. The local hardware store by then might have a Dan Patch calendar hanging on its wall, and anyone could buy Dan Patch cigars and sleds from stores and mail-order catalogs, but the great wave of Dan Patch merchandise, the washing machines, breakfast cereals, rocking horses, dinner plates, pocket watches, pocket knives, pancake syrup, automobiles–even Dan Patch real estate and the Dan Patch stallion shield, to prevent the family carriage-horse from masturbating–all these fine products and more had yet to hit the marketplace. Further in the future, too, was a certain morbidly cold, rainy day in Los Angeles, when the track was slippery, the crowd was thin and the party was long past over.
At Lexington in 1905, though, life was good and the rose was still blooming. Dan Patch, that day, was all about hope and promise and a possible payoff in the betting for those who had wagered, at even money, that he would beat his famous world record for the mile.
At last, a man in the judge's stand stood up and lifted a megaphone to his lips.
In the grandstand, women leaned forward clutching the souvenir Dan Patch horseshoes that their husbands and beaux had bought them for a dollar on the way in. Men leaned forward too, and touched the brims of their straw boaters, aware that hats might have to be flung.
Dan Patch stopped panting and pricked up his ears.
"The time for the mile...." said the judge, and then he shouted the numbers, declaiming them clearly in the direction of the crowd. But for once there was neither the Roar or the Sigh. There was only more silence. The crowd seemed to not believe what it had heard.
The judge, bemused, lowered his megaphone and waited five or six heartbeats. Then he raised it up and shouted the numbers again, hitting each one hard, until his voice rasped.
Silence, still, for another heartbeat.
And another.
Now came the Roar.
**********
|
|
|
|
