By Walton Conway
I did not grow up with horses. But I did grow up dreaming of them.
Anse Maney's plow horse was the first I ever sat upon. We were visiting my grandmother in rural Appalachia. As he came in from plowing the tobacco field he spied me, 6 years old, standing behind the hedgerow, entranced to see his grey in full harness. The kindly old mountain man picked me up and set me on the horse’s back, while it enjoyed a moment's rest. That was fifty some years ago, and still I have such a clear memory of that momentous occasion.
I asked my mother if I could have one for my tenth birthday. "One what?" she asked. "A horse," I begged. I might as well have asked to be sent to the moon.
We lived in a residential neighborhood in the city. We had pets aplenty, and my siblings and I kept anything we could catch and cage, including once a fox kit, but taking on something as large as a horse was a nonstarter. "You had one when you were a kid," I argued. I had seen pictures of her jumping in horse shows and had more than once heard of how she could not stop Black Arrow from bolting once she turned him to the barn. Her parents ran a summer camp, so she had grown up with a barn full of horses at her disposal. It just wasn't fair.
My mother, Karen Johnson Conway, age 17, jumping on Echo at Camp Sequoyah, circa 1947
She had left horses in her youth. Boarding school, college, career and marriage had swept her downstream and she never saw fit to go back. There was no room in our yard or our lives for horses.
So instead she got me a book for my January birthday, Walter Farley's The Black Stallion. This book threw fuel on the fire. It perpetuated the romantic notion of how a boy's life could be dramatically changed by befriending and subduing a fiery, noble steed. I wanted to be Alec, the protagonist in this fairy tale, taming the wild black and becoming the one person the horse would let ride, and then race against Sun Raider and Cyclone in a climactic finish. My young impetuous heart burned for a best-friend horse all the more.
A great thing happened that summer when I was ten: I got to go to that same summer camp where my mother grew up. On the first day of camp I asked one of the riding counselors if he would lead me around on a horse. He laughed and said, "No, but you can ride one!" … which is just what I did…with the littlest bit of instruction. For three weeks that summer, and the following, I hung out at the riding stable, spending as much time as I could on horseback. I learned to tack up a horse, to walk, post a trot, hang on at a canter, and even did a little jumping. I got kicked, bitten, and hit the ground twice, but kept getting back up. Most of the horses were lesson sour and hard for a novice to engage, but there was one willing horse I loved to ride, a black named Midnight. He would go without being kicked to death. Like Black Arrow, the hard part was getting him to slow. So most days I raced to the barn to be given the horse of my choice, Midnight, the camp horse with a little life left, the closest thing this real boy could find to Alec's black stallion, and that was the stuff of childhood dreams!
Camp closed, I grew older, life went on without horses. My interaction with horses for the next seventeen years was pretty much limited to gazing at them in fields whenever the highway I was on happened to pass horse pasture. By the time I reached college I had completely given up my boyhood dream of having one, and never imagined horses would re-enter my life. I completed my studies and pursued a career in academia, never giving horses another thought.
Then I met Betty Dawn Miller. She had grown up with horses, and was known by all her classmates as the girl who was horse crazy. Crazy, in particular, about a sorrel named Blaze, a hot-headed saddlebred her dad had gotten her when she was 10. All she wanted to do growing up was ride that horse. Even when that was with a cast on the wrist she had broken falling off that wild devil. When she turned 16 her interest turned to boys, jobs, college and career, and she sold Blaze for the money to buy a Dodge Charger to carry her off into distant sunsets.
A decade later, having had a good taste of life elsewhere, she circled back home with a determined eagerness to bring horses back into her life, and into the lives of her daughters. Her dad still had horses, and they rode together while she got her bearings.
I don’t think horses had much to do with our falling in love, but I knew she and horses were inseparable when we married. She must have gambled on me having a latent farmer gene, as it wasn’t too long after we married that she began to talk about us finding a horse farm of our own. I didn’t have to dig too deeply to pull out and dust off the horse dreams of my youth. Betty rekindled them, and had enough horse husbandry smarts to make a reality of them.
Just when we were in a good position to buy, a miraculous thing happened–her grandmother’s cousin’s old horse farm came up for sale. Years of neglect had allowed the pastures to grow wild and the fences to fall down, but the age-old barn was still standing tall and still had horse name plates on each of the 10 stall doors. More than perfect, the old barn was steeped in authenticity and begged for new life, to once again have the smell of fresh horse sweat overpower the dry dust of ages. We shored up some sagging beams, brought in dirt to level out the floor, and converted one stall into a feed room. At the same time we launched into building a fancy new farmhouse, but it was that old barn that would always figure large into Betty’s idea of home.
That first glorious summer, before there were horses on the fields, was the only time we ever cut the grass to make hay. Her dad drove an old Ford Bronco pulling his 2-horse trailer, while Betty and I loaded. It seems like an impossible feat to me now, but we filled the loft with 400 bales, and though I have forgotten the aches and pains of that labor, I still remember the swelling pride I felt at such an honest day’s work. We were preparing for moving her father’s horses over. That day came sooner than we hoped, as his cancer had recently returned and his failing health did not allow him the energy needed for running his hobby farm. The timing seemed scripted by heaven: just as he saw we had Pal, Scar, Ponto and DJ happily quartered in our new old barn, he had to be taken to the hospital, not to return.
So that was how I got my first horse. Through a marriage, and a death, Pal, Papa’s riding horse, became mine. I hardly knew what I was doing, and I was wary, having seen the road rash on Papa’s side when Pal had wheeled and tossed him, then dragged him down Chestnut Grove Road, with Papa still stubbornly holding the reins. He had gotten back up and put enough miles on that horse over the next few years so that the likes of me would not have the same trouble.
Our mix of horses was ever changing. Horse shopping was a pastime and a pleasure, and a great learning opportunity. Many a time I would have loaded up a horse Betty simply would not have, and for good reason. It was too high headed, or not sound of hoof. It was a good deal older than claimed, or prone to lean into the bit. Its suspensory ligaments were going to suffer over the years, or you could tell it was just plain foolish by the look in its eyes. Nobody needs a rogue horse, and don’t even go look at a horse named Houdini. If you weren’t super cautious, you just might be saddled with a problem horse that would be a constant thorn in the side. Had it not been for Betty’s wit, I would have been burdened with a barn full of them.
What I didn’t know about caring for horses and riding, Betty did. And she was more than willing to let me know when I was holding the reins too tight or too loose, lol. She was the brains and I was the brawn of our hobby horse farm, and together we learned by doing, by consultation with neighbors, and sometimes by misadventure. She had me fence off the apple trees so the horses wouldn’t colic on green apples. She had me go back and put additional fence posts in between the posts I had already erected, but too widely spaced, so a horse would not be tempted to slip under or push on slack wire. And she always had me go the extra mile in grooming, and by all means straightening the forelocks under the bridle, even when just riding down the road, as you never knew how many neighbors might see you and judge you on the neatness of your horse or the cleanliness of your tack. I was attentive and a quick study; it only took me ten years to gain confidence in the saddle and feel like I had earned the long sought moniker “horse farmer.”
There came two moments that I count now as decisive milestones in my evolution as a horseman, one making an end, and the other a beginning. A horse usually lives to about 30 years, and from what we knew of Pal’s age, his time was running thin. He had dropped weight considerably, and had slowed, but it never hurt to look at him, which was Betty’s red line for giving up on a horse. Nevertheless, the day came when I found him broken down in the pasture, unable to stand. He could raise his head and forequarters, but his hind had given out and anchored him to the ground. I went inside and consulted with Betty. There was no hope, and it would be hours of suffering before a vet could reach us. She went to the closet and brought out Papa’s 30-30 hunting rifle. “I’m going to stay inside,” she told me.
An era ended with the crack of that rifle. To look that horse in the eye, to remember the golden glory of that palomino Papa was so proud of, and the rides he had given me, making me feel bound to a stream of life that was so much bigger than the moment at hand, and so much more magnificent, and beautiful...to pull the trigger that brought an abrupt end to that horse…that changed me forever.
The other thing was joyful, the birthing of our first foal. We had bred Lady, a gorgeous sorrel Tennessee Walker, to a black stallion over on Clark’s Creek Rd. The dam and the sire had rich blood, both being descendants of Ebony Masterpiece, so the resulting foal would have this champion’s blood on top and on bottom, as they say. Betty loved a sorrel horse, and wanted the foal to be a beautiful rich red like its mother, while I wanted our first black. The genetics of the stallion allowed a 50-50 chance of either. We waited long days in anticipation.
Finally, in the middle of a magical summer night, Betty went to the barn to check on Lady and found the newborn foal fresh out of the womb, and called me out to witness its first attempt to stand. Hardly looking like a horse, more like a baby moose, the precious thing rose and fell and rose again on wobbly stilt-like legs: a filly, mouse grey all over, that would darken over the summer months into a deep black with a hint of red highlights in the mane, Lady’s Midnight Masterpiece.
With the arrival of the foal came new responsibility, the need to train it, first to a halter, a lead, and human contact, and eventually to a saddle, a rider, and a million things in between. Betty had no experience in foal rearing, and knew herself well enough to know she didn’t have the patience to become a horse trainer. Her idea was to wean the foal and sell it as a yearling. I had no experience either, but I looked at that darling filly as I looked at my own child…no way was I going to let her go! With the arrival of the foal I experienced the rebirth of the boyish dream Walter Farley had inspired–to become the tamer of a wild horse…to build trust within a horse-human bond, to be the first she would ever let ride…perhaps the only. I had no idea where to start, but I knew I had to give it a try. Fate had brought her to me. Mare she may be, but there was no questioning that Midnight was going to be my Black Stallion.
In the beginning she was a doll. I put my hands all over her to get her used to being handled, and tried to introduce all sorts of scary things to her, such as bicycles and shopping bags, the sort of things that get people killed when they suddenly appear and the horse being ridden goes berserk with fright. Nothing phased her. She was curious and brave. And beautiful as she put on weight and grew into her legs and began to be unquestionably a horse.
It was such a delight to have that youthful exuberance on the farm; she gamboled in the field, one minute running wildly about and bucking for the sheer joy of it, and the next lying amongst the buttercups, sleeping under Lady who stood over her, grazing.
She grew bigger and bulkier and harder to handle. She led poorly, leaned on me, even ran me over. I really had no clue how to train her to follow politely, as all of our other horses seemed to naturally know how to do. The whole methodology of training had been left out of The Black Stallion, it seemed, and things were not progressing magically for me. Suddenly she was 4 years old and not only was her behavior not getting better, it was becoming atrocious. Her hormones were kicking in, and it became apparent she was going to be a very marish mare, with lots of grumpy attitude and laying back of ears. And biting! She was plenty old enough to be ridden, but I was nowhere near ready to ride her. Betty kept checking in, “Ready to sell her yet?” I knew I needed help but wasn’t certain where to find it.
Midnight, the early years…How Not to Train a Horse
Just at that moment, in came Max, an AppState student I hired as farm hand. Max had grown up with horses, and to the point, had just trained up their own black Tennessee Walking horse with the help of a professional trainer. Max was into Natural Horsemanship, a school of horse training that emphasizes “bond” over “broke” and uses firm but gentle encouragement to teach the horse. So, however unlikely and humbling, this college student less than half my age became my mentor, and together we started working with Midnight daily.
First there was substantial “ground work,” during which we taught the horse to respect human space, to follow a lead, give to rein pressure, listen for cues. The changes were incremental, but palpable. Midnight was so smart! She learned with astonishing speed. But to call her a good student would be a stretch: she was devious, always a step ahead of us, looking for a way out, ready to test our authority at every turn. She quickly figured out that if she threw her leg over the lunge line then the lesson was disrupted, so she looked to do that at every opportunity. “A very difficult first child,” Max mused. The dynamics were not easy, but they ensured that I would have to master being the master; Midnight was going to test me every step of the way.
A little before I was sure we were ready, the day for riding came. With Max on the ground coaching, I held my breath and mounted Midnight for the first time. She did not go bucking wildly around the arena! As if enchanted, she walked forward when I asked her to walk. She turned when queued to turn. And she halted when I asked her to whoa. There was hesitation on both of our parts, questions asked and answered, a little feeling our way through signals, but I was riding, and she was ready and willing to go without a fight. What a relief. What a joy! Magic indeed!
We practiced in a small round pen, then progressed to the full arena. Then the day came to trust her in the open field, on a trail ride, even on our quiet road where we might encounter traffic. It was not easy, she had her moments. The further we ventured from the comfort of the barn, the more unruly she became. She was a powerhouse of wildness, and I was asking her to contain all that energy and dispense it at my bidding–an absolutely remarkable and empowering proposition. The psychological challenge gave me pause. There were plenty of days I was simply not up to it. I had to squelch my fear of being bucked off and broken and calm her, and ask her to go each day a little further than she had gone before, a little beyond where she wanted to go, without asking too much. I was learning so much in the process! She was teaching me to ride while I was teaching her to be ridden, not an ideal scenario, but a fantastic one nonetheless.
Little by little we gained confidence together and ventured further from the farm. What fun it was to take her on her first field trip, a graduation from elementary school you might say, to go riding at the bridle trails in the public park. Such a milestone! “See, World, what I have done!?” I shouted to the heavens. “I am riding this magnificent creature, and I am the first one, and the only one, to have ridden her! Look at her go! How can this be!?” Over and over again, with each ride, it was a dream come true. And so it continues to be!
If only that were the end of the story. As Midnight turned 8, Betty succumbed to cancer. Near the end, her only request was to take her to the barn where she could be with her horses, in particular, Dakota, her heart horse, the golden palomino paint she called the best horse she had ever had. Later, hanging with the horses, with Dakota, was my therapy, too; Betty rode with me in spirit as I took Midnight on long, lonely all-day rides.
The mysteries of life are many, and the warp and weave never cease to amaze me. From having given up my childhood horse dreams, to marrying a horse-crazy woman, to being left with a barn full of horses I wasn’t sure how to take care of (Betty had been the medicine woman), the journey seemed to bring me to the brink of something new, but what? Betty’s passion had always been leisurely trail riding, covering many a mountain mile, all at a walk. That’s what we did together. When I went off on my own, it was to go bike racing: I liked the speed, the feeling of flying without leaving the earth. Midnight loved to GO! And she was fast. I knew she had gears I had never engaged. It seemed fortuitous that just at that moment I met someone who told me about horse endurance racing and nudged me to try it.
So I drove the two hours up to Cripple Creek, VA, without a horse, to volunteer at the Iron Mountain Jubilee, the closest endurance race I could find. I was stationed at a road crossing and given the job of shouting "All clear!" anytime horse and rider approached, which was often. What I saw that day fascinated me. All sorts of people on all breeds of horses set off in the morning fog to travel 25, 50, or even 100 miles as fast as they could, looping back through camp every few hours to pass a vet check to make sure their horses were fit to carry on. It looked like my kind of fun, and I could do the shortest distance, I thought, even though it would be longer than I had ever ridden before. I went home and immediately started training Midnight for a marathon 25 miler.
That January, with a fair amount of trepidation, I drove her down to Broxton Bridge Plantation, near Charleston, the furthest afield I’d ever trailered a horse. On race day she was so excited I could barely saddle her, and when the trail opened, I dared not mount her. Instead, to calm her down, I walked beside her the first quarter mile. Thus began my racing career! When finally I dared to mount, we were, as they say, off to the races! Midnight caught up with an Arabian, the breed that dominates the sport, and wouldn’t let go. The veteran rider kept a steady pace, trotting comfortably, while Midnight fought the bit and wanted to run. She had no idea how far we had to go! But even as the miles passed underhoof, she remained full of fire and eager, and super competitive. If a horse passed us from the rear, she was all about running it down and pushing back in front. At one point, on a sandy road that paralleled a highway, a big truck blew by us, and Midnight broke into an eye-watering gallup to chase that truck down. Never had I come anywhere close to riding so fast in my life. It was absolutely thrilling! She knocked out the 25 miles in less than four and half hours to finish 10th out of 17–very respectable for a non-Arab in her first race.
Midnight’s First Race, Broxton Bridge Jan 2025
Long story short, I started riding in all the races I could get to, and I began meeting other folks in the High Country who were eager to do the same. We trained together and rode the races as an unofficial team. Both Midnight and Dakota excelled at the 25-mile distance. The fun we were having must have been contagious, as it spread to several young riders who wanted to give it a try. So this past spring we set our sights on spending the summer to get four out-of-shape horses and three riders new to the sport all trained up and ready to race by summer’s end–at the Iron Mountain Jubilee where it all began for me.
I was excited to be getting my big black 5-year-old Tennessee Walker, Moonshine, Midnight’s son, ready for his racing debut. He had been showing promise as a riding horse, but remained largely untested, and headstrong, and needed wet saddle blankets. Bea would be riding Flapjack, my Kentucky Mountain Saddle Horse that had foundered in the fall and had been looking pretty pitiful all winter. Less than two years before, I'd given Bea her first horse ride ever, a lead line ride for her tenth birthday. Riding lessons had followed, and by spring she was just learning to canter. Was it possible she’d be ready to race by summer’s end? Vivan, a 15-year-old horse-crazy high schooler, had recently purchased her first horse, Avellana, a Missouri Foxtrotter with experience as a trail horse but the energy for more. Ave needed a job that would wear her out, and to be with other horses, so what better than to put her on an endurance team? Peyton, an AppState junior with a background in dressage and jumping, needed more horse in her life, and showed up on the farm one day eager to ride. Little did she know what she was getting into! I paired her with Elle, a Tennessee Walker that had overheated and melted in her first race attempt; this hefty mare was a heavy sweater, but, as Midnight’s half-sister, had potential and needed a second chance. A band of misfits? Well, perhaps that’s the way it would look to the many racers riding proven Arabians with fancy bloodlines. But we were not out to beat them. Our goal would be to just get these four gaited horses safely through the 25-mile mountainous racecourse within the allotted six hours, to earn a “completion.”
Midway through August there were still lots of questions. Could Elle take the heat, having just melted down again at South Mountains State Park? Would young Moonshine control himself emotionally with so many other horses around, in the midst of a competition? Or would he have the stamina, having seemingly nearly died of exhaustion on the Mount Rogers trip? Could Flapjack really recover from illness to get in good enough shape to go the distance? And would Ave's new Flex hoof boots stay on after we had had so much trouble with the first brand we’d tried?
Ready or not, the end of August arrived, and race day rolled around. At least the weather was with us: seasonably cool and not overly humid. Our race was on the second of the two-day event, so the horses had plenty of time to get rested up from the trip. The moment of truth was upon us!
The last thing I wanted with these untried horses was an unruly start. We had seen racers get bucked off frisky horses the morning before at the starting line. So we let the 40 other horses start off in front of us, and slowly, calmly set off on our way. Moonshine was on his best behavior...for a while. As our energy and pace increased, he showed his youth, tossing his head, and even bucking a little at the first canter. By 10 miles in he would have been mistaken for a seasoned veteran, and he never flagged. But he did sweat a ton, as did Elle. At every big creek crossing we doused them with water, being extra cautious not to let them overheat. Moonshine loved to lead, and would do so at a gliding rack to set a steady pace, but Flapjack was also a natural leader, and Bea did a great job reading the trail--slowing to a cautious pace where needed, but breaking into a lope and making time where possible. All the horses looked great at the mid-point vet check. So pleased he was with himself, Moonshine bucked and danced when asked to trot out to check for lameness, to the point that the vet made us trot out again!
A Sedate Start to our 25-Mile Journey.
Having gained confidence during the first 12 miles, we set out on the second loop with an intent to move out and gain ground. Indeed, there was no time to waste, but there was a mountain to climb. The heat of the day was upon us, and we struggled to keep the horses watered and cool on the ascent. Of all the horses, Flapjack was breathing the hardest, in distress I thought. We struggled to find the right balance between hurrying on as fast as possible, and yet not pushing the horses beyond their capabilities...the fine art of endurance racing. Finally we crested the mountain and found lovely trail for moving out along the ridge, but with only an hour before the trail closed, it became more and more evident that we would never make it back in time. Oh well, I thought, it's been a great ride anyway! I began composing my consolation speech. Failing was part of the journey, making us stronger for next time, right?
As the trail headed down the mountain and we came out on a gravel road, a change came over the horses. Our whole team momentum picked up, as if the horses knew they were headed back to camp, and pretty soon we were all cantering down the road completely unleashed. I had to stash my better judgment and go with the flow. Amid all the flying gravel I heard someone behind me call out--I turned and was shocked to see a lady on a long-legged Arabian barrelling down the mountain behind us at an even faster clip, trying to find room to pass. We had not seen another horse since the first hour of the race, and thought we were surely at the back of the pack. I swerved and was humbled as the tall bay sailed past at a gallop, which was all that was needed to further ignite our team. Off we all went at a dead run in hot pursuit! At the bottom of the long decline we overtook her and headed with full steam down the home stretch. A dozen minutes and a half mile to go and it dawned on me we actually had a chance to cut it close. "We're going to make it!" I yelled, and the girls cheered and raced on faster yet.
Switch to slow motion. I can no longer hear the clatter of hooves, but am listening to the Chariots of Fire soundtrack...swelling music signalling epic success. The camera moves in for a close up on Bea out in front, flying on Flapjack, as if born there. Pan to Moonshine, my baby, who had only just learned to canter under control, now he is cruising with wooden rocking horse aplomb. Pull back to an aerial of the four of us--on four fiery steeds, having gone further this day than ever before, yet still finding such heart we fight to hold them back. The flame and fun of life fills us all. Sun Raider and Cyclone might well have finished far ahead of us, but we are having our race, and I am on a big black! And I am going to remember that gallop down the mountain for the rest of my life.
Switch back to real time, the clatter of hooves, the finish line in sight. The time keeper greets us with a beaming smile. "Did we finish in time?" Bea asks breathlessly. And so we did...with heaving horses and a time of five hours 54 minutes...with six minutes out of six hours to spare! The only thing that did not cross the finish line in time was one of Avellana's boots, thrown to the wind on the last mile.
Needless to say, it took all the horses a good half hour to pulse down to 60 beats per minute, a criterion for finishing the race. Then we had to pass the vet's scrutiny before it was official. There was some question about Ave's sore feet, but after icing briefly, she, too, passed the vet check and cheers went up all around. The motto "To Finish is to Win" felt ever so right; in what other sport can you finish last and feel victorious? Those paying close attention witnessed the shedding of tears of joy. Such exciting race drama--who could have scripted it any better?
Now that we're home, back on the farm, dreams realized, letting it all soak in, it's with a heightened sense of pleasure and pride I look out at horses picking grass and think to myself that every one of them has earned its oats, and more. “Thank you, Anse Maney,” I say. “Thank you, Mom, for the inspiration. And thank you, Betty, for bringing horses back into my life and showing me the way. Well done and graze on!" I say to the horses. And then I can't help but start planning for the next outing.
