Chasing a Dream: A Horseman's Memoir Read online

When Tom died in June 2003, I felt compelled to travel to his funeral to pay homage to the man who had changed the face of horsemanship and improved the lives of thousands of horses and people. At the service a cowboy recited “The Horseman” by Bob Barrett.

  He came riding from the north across the high desert plains

  A-riding his old pony without any reins.

  He stopped by the ranch to lend us a hand

  This bowlegged cowboy from a far-away land

  The horses we had were bothered as heck

  And ‘bout every morning you could see a big wreck.

  The first thing he did was pull the bridle and reins

  He played with their tail and stroked their long manes.

  He had a long wire with a flag on the end

  That he used on the horses in that bronc pen.

  It wasn’t too long and they started to work their jaws,

  The boys stood around staring in awe.

  Their eye did change and the kink went out of their tail

  It was time for all to get on without fail.

  Now we were all nervous about grabbin’ their manes

  ‘Cause whoever thought of riding without reins.

  Off we went in that hot desert sun

  A-pullin the saddle horn like a son-of-a-gun.

  By the end of the day we were earning our pay

  But learned most of all to stay out of the ole pony’s way.

  I’ll never forget the time he rode into Florence

  The greatest horseman of all, a man called Tom Dorrance.

  For me and so many others, Tom’s example held great power. An exceptional role model, he was willing to share his gift. But he never tried to force it on anyone. As with his horses, he presented himself to you with honor and respect. Tom taught many good horsemen and women, who have in turn passed on his philosophy to others. His influence has touched horses and people across the globe.

  Tink and I rode together every day. He had me try different techniques, and then when the horse would respond he would ask, “Did you feel that?” Sometimes I did and sometimes I didn’t, but he made sure I kept trying. He helped me let go of my old ways of thinking, of the techniques my dad had taught. In a sense he had to break down the old me to make room for the new. This was not always an easy process. Letting go was difficult. It challenged my pride, and I realized that only through humility would I be able to absorb this new wisdom.

  Tink was patient and helped me remain positive. When negative thoughts entered my mind or my horse’s mind, he would say, “Don’t worry. That will melt away in time.”

  Frustrated, I would ask, “In how much time?”

  “You can’t put a limit on it. Just keep building on the good, and the bad will eventually melt away. You won’t even know what happened. Be quick to reward the horse’s slightest try and the smallest change.”

  I thought about Locke and me. If this works on horses, I wondered, will it work on people, too?

  19

  INDIO, CALIFORNIA, 1989

  NEAL

  A man named Neal was like many of the horses I had owned: a reject. He entered my life about the time these new philosophies came to me. While driving back and forth from our property to the polo club, I would occasionally see a hunch-backed man with shaggy gray hair and an unkempt beard tottering down the road with a burlap sack slung over his shoulder, picking up aluminum cans in the desert heat. His clothes were tattered and dirty. I felt sorry for him and one day pulled over and rolled down the truck window. “That looks like a heavy load you got there. Would you like a ride to the recycling plant?” Beads of sweat stood out on his sun-baked forehead. His toes stuck out of old shoes. He reeked of body odor and wood smoke.

  At first he stood motionless, staring at the ground, unwilling to make eye contact. “I’m going right by there.” I said. “Be glad to give you a ride.”

  He stood still for another moment and then nodded.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  The man said nothing. He set his bag of cans in the bed of my pickup and climbed in the back. Can he speak? I wondered. He rode hugging his bag to his chest as if someone might try to steal it.

  I dropped him at the recycling center. This must be how he makes a living. At least he is willing to work.

  Periodically I gave the man rides but could hardly get a word out of him. Again, I asked, “What is your name?”

  He did not look up. “Neal.”

  “Where are you from?”

  He did not make eye contact. “Arkansas.”

  One day I dropped Neal near a field of overgrown brush where he said he was camped. Later I stopped by to give him some new shoes and socks I had picked up at Kmart. Following a well-worn path into the heavy growth, I yelled, “Neal! Are you here? It’s me, Grant.” No answer. The trail continued into thicker brush. Finally I came to a camp which was nothing more than a fire pit and an old blanket wadded up on a piece of cardboard used as a sleeping mat. Beer cans and whiskey bottles lay strewn here and there. The place smelled like a garbage can. What a way to live, I thought. I hollered out “Neal! It’s me. Are you here? I brought you some shoes.”

  He wasn’t around, so I left the shoes and socks on the cardboard and turned to leave. A movement in the brush caught my eye and I squatted down to see better. Neal was hiding behind a palm tree. For whatever reason, he didn’t want to be seen, so I didn’t push. Acting as if I hadn’t seen him, I walked away.

  Neal became so much more than a groom to the Golliher family in the time that he worked for them. He had become a part of the family and watched over their horses when they were away.

  A few days later I picked up Neal again. He was wearing the new shoes. The desert had already turned the white socks brown. I asked, “How would you like to come to our place and work for the day? I’ll pay you twenty dollars to pull some weeds.”

  “All right,” he mumbled, and climbed into the back of the pickup.

  Neal worked all day in the scorching heat without stopping. He accomplished much more than I had expected. That evening I drove him to his camp and handed him a twenty-dollar bill. “You did a good job today, Neal. Would you like to work again tomorrow? I have horse pens that need cleaning.”

  He nodded.

  “I’ll come by about seven a.m.” Neil didn’t have a watch. “I’ll honk the horn when I get here.”

  Neal began working for Locke and me regularly. Because our daughter Tara was only three years old, Locke insisted we be cautious. “Until we know he’s trustworthy,” she said.

  Neal proved to be a very reliable stable hand, feeding horses and cleaning stalls and tack. He soon learned all the horses’ names. Sometimes I would find him stroking them and talking.

  It wasn’t long before he came to work for us full-time. We let Neal use the wall tent that Locke and I had brought with us from Buckskin Crossing, which was better than camping in the brush, but not ideal. He had to cook on the ground over an open fire and bathe with a garden hose.

  We had to get one rule straight. “Neal,” I said, “I hope you understand. We can’t allow any alcohol on the property. If you need to go get drunk, be sure you’ve sobered up before you come back, okay?”

  Every couple of weeks Neal would collect his pay and disappear for a few days, but as time went by, he disappeared less often. When he returned he would go directly out to spend several hours with the horses; they would gather around him. Locke would watch him interact with them and say, “Horses are a good judge of character. If there was anything to be afraid of, they would sense it.”

  Will Rogers often said, “The outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man.” It seemed to hold true for Neal.

  Tara always lit up when she saw Neal. With his meager earnings he would often buy her presents such as stuffed animals. We let him spoil her much like a grandfather would.

  Neal was starting to carry on short conversations, but he never talked about his past. We didn’t pry. Before long, we
bought a camper trailer to replace the wall tent. Now he had a shower and a place to cook.

  Neal began attending church with us on Sundays. He was very shy around strangers; he would not talk or make eye contact. The people in our congregation always greeted him warmly and tried to make him feel welcome.

  One Sunday in January, nearly a year and a half after Neal had come to work for us; someone from church gave him a bag of clothing. The following week Neal showed up at church wearing a brown dress coat and dress pants. He had cut his own hair and shaved his beard. Locke and I tried not to stare, but the change in his look stunned us. Neal no longer looked like a street person. Tara didn’t notice a difference. She had known the real Neal all along.

  That spring, Neal chose to be baptized. For his birthday we gave him a Bible, which he proudly carried to church every week.

  Neal had become part of our family and a first-rate groom. He did the work of two hands, taking care of the horses and helping both Locke and me mount up at polo games. He was the best ground man I ever had, so efficient that he made it possible for me to ride as many as fifteen horses a day. Neal would catch, brush, saddle and bridle each horse, and all I had to do was get on and ride. After each ride he would take the horse from me, remove the tack, and bathe it.

  By now Locke and I trusted Neal enough to leave the farm in his care while Locke, Tara, and I traveled to Kansas City for the summer to play polo. Neal looked after several horses including an injured one, Honey; she was a five-year-old Thoroughbred mare, a racetrack reject that had been pushed into polo too quickly.

  HONEY

  Honey had been forced to play in a bridle that was too confining. Unable to move freely when she was afraid, she became claustrophobic and panicked, rearing and lunging into the bit.

  She was a Ferrari of a horse whose owner had only ridden Chevrolets. He was terrified of her and sold her to me cheap. Her big motor and athletic ability would make her a perfect horse for high-goal polo. I knew she would fetch a high price if I could get her to relax in the game. Again, someone’s trash became my treasure.

  Using my newfound methods I removed the restraining aids and rode her in a simple, gentle snaffle bit allowing her to move freely with the other horses on the field. I wasn’t afraid of her speed, and as a result, she wasn’t afraid of me. After a year of work Honey began to settle into the game and relax.

  Out in the pasture one day, another horse kicked Honey in the leg and broke her splint bone, a small bone below the knee. After x-rays, our veterinarian told us that because the bone was shattered next to the knee he could not operate and Honey would have to be put down. This reality was hard to accept.

  In spite of the negative prognosis, we decided to risk the extra time and expense and give Honey a chance to heal. We had to try. Neal agreed to look after her while we left to work the summer polo circuit in Kansas City. He would confine her to a small stall and care for her. Before we left, Neal, Locke, and I prayed that Honey’s leg would heal with rest.

  We returned in September. Neal was standing at the gate, smiling. “Honey’s ready to go back to work,” he said.

  I was surprised. “Really?” Still, I did not believe it until I walked to Honey’s pen. I trotted her around and she showed zero lameness. “I can’t believe it.” However, her confinement had caused her massive muscles to atrophy terribly. “We’ll have to bring her along slowly to get her back in shape, and hope that the leg will hold up.”

  After a couple months of conditioning, Honey was back to playing. The leg never bothered her again. We were able to sell her for top dollar and she ended up playing high-goal polo in Florida. Her new owner called me and raved about her. “She’s my favorite horse,” he said.

  Neal helped Honey survive. Perhaps she helped him heal.

  The next month Neal came to Locke and me. He said, “It’s been twenty-five years since I’ve seen my family. It’s time.”

  This was sad news for Locke and me. We were losing our friend and groom, but we were happy he was going home to be with his family. He had been sober for almost two years. They would be greeting a new man.

  With tears in their eyes Tara and Locke hugged Neal and told him they loved him.

  I drove him to the bus station and sat waiting with him for his bus. In the terminal Neal turned to me and spilled everything: how he had become an alcoholic, how he had felt so ashamed of himself that he had ridden the rails all the way to California, and how he had lived homeless all those years.

  His bus pulled up and I embraced him. My voice cracked. “We love you, Neal. We sure will miss you.”

  Neal looked me right in the eye. “I love you, too,” he said, “Take good care of my little girl.” He walked away in his best suit of clothes, his hair neatly combed, his posture straight. Before getting on the bus to Arkansas, he turned and waved. Then he disappeared into the bus.

  Tears streaming down my face, I drove home thinking about Neal, about who he had become and how he had changed us. We never heard from him again.

  I often think about Neal and what he taught me. The gratification I felt from working with troubled horses paled in comparison to the satisfaction of helping him. The benefits ran both ways, for he made me a better person. The philosophy I had learned from Ray Hunt, Tom Dorrance, and Tink Elordi had helped with people, too. Those people had introduced me to ideas that had changed my life. Locke’s and my relationship still rested on rocky ground, but unknown to me Neal had tilted me toward my life’s work: people. But one of the first people I worked with nearly derailed that fate.

  20

  INDIO, CALIFORNIA, 1991

  CARL

  Tom Dorrance’s and Ray Hunt’s philosophies, I now believed, would succeed when applied to any horse or person. The experience with Neal inspired me—to Locke’s chagrin—to bring home another stray I had met in front of the grocery store. He was standing on his one good leg leaning against a pillar and holding a brown cardboard sign that read, “Wounded Vet. Please help.” An ice-cream bucket at his feet held a few dollars and change. His left pant leg had been tied up to a belt loop with a piece of string. His wood prosthesis leaned against the pillar.

  I walked by and he looked at me. “Hey buddy, could you spare a buck or two?”

  My thoughts turned to Neal. “Would you be interested in a job?” I asked.

  “What kind of a job? I can’t do much with one leg.”

  “I have some tack that needs cleaning. I think you could do it sitting down.”

  He nodded. “Sure, why not?”

  I purchased our groceries, and he strapped on his prosthesis, picked up a large plastic bag, and hobbled after me. He smelled just like Neal had when I picked him up. We both got into my truck.

  He looked to be in his early forties, skinny and slight, not more than five foot six. His blond hair was thin, his skin was tanned and wrinkled.

  At the end of the day Carl had most of my tack cleaned. He asked, “Can I stay a few days and work?”

  We had sold Neal’s trailer. “We don’t have a place for you to stay.”

  He shrugged. “Oh, I’ll just sleep on the ground,” and then he pulled a pair of insulated coveralls out of the plastic bag, slipped them on, stretched out under a big eucalyptus tree, and closed his eyes.

  The next morning he was lying in the same position. I asked, “Would you like some breakfast?”

  “Just some saltine crackers will do. That’s about all my stomach can handle these days.” This guy is in really bad shape, I thought. I felt energized about having the chance to help him.

  Carl got around well on his prosthesis, and he had no trouble cleaning stalls or tacking up horses. We had found our next groom. Carl had all sorts of opinions about everything, including how the system was messed up. “I’ve traveled all over the United States going from shelter to shelter,” he said. “It’s impossible to go hungry in this country. I can make more money panhandling than most people do working.”

  Carl confessed that he had
never been in the military.

  “Then how did you lose your leg?”

  “I got drunk and fell out of a train car. The train ran over my leg. I crawled several hundred yards to get help.”

  Carl talked disdainfully about the people who offered him help. “Suckers,” he called them. But I accepted him for who he was. There is hope for us all.

  Locke and five year old Tara didn’t share my sentiments; they both said he gave them the creeps.

  I made the same no-alcohol agreement with Carl, but he soon caught a ride to town and came back the following morning still drunk as a skunk, packing his bottle and spouting profanities in front of Locke and Tara.

  I confronted him. “We made a deal, Carl.”

  Carl’s light blue eyes glared at me like the eyes of a dog ready to attack. “You have no right to judge me. You’ve been taking advantage of me. You owe me money.” He became more and more belligerent.

  I handed him the money I owed him. “You need to move on.”

  He snatched his bag and hobbled away down the driveway mumbling curse words.

  I felt relieved. I should’ve listened to Locke and Tara.

  A week later our growling dog awakened Locke at two a.m. She got out of bed and looked out the window. “Grant, wake up,” she said. “Quick. Someone’s out there!”

  A shadowy figure was limping out of our tack room with a saddle.

  “It’s Carl,” she said. “He’s stealing our tack.” I grabbed my pistol out of the nightstand and sprinted out the door in my underwear. Locke phoned the police, but by the time I reached the tack room, Carl had melted into the night. I jumped in the car and hurried down the driveway to the highway to see if an accomplice was waiting for him. Sure enough, a beat-up old Mazda pickup sat on the roadside.

  Leaping out I pointed my pistol through the driver’s window. “Don’t move,” I said. A small Latino man sat behind the wheel, his eyes wide. I said, “I know you are waiting for Carl. The police are on their way.”

  The driver slurred his words. “Senor, I…don’t know…what you…talking about. I was…just sleeping.”