"They're at the Post" ... with me in the saddle ... come along for the ride?

When I was a kid, like many kids, I wanted a pony.  The fact that I grew up in downtown Toronto and was the last of ten children didn’t dissuade me.

I was a huge fan of Roy & Trigger and Gene & Champion, but my idol was The Range Rider.

He was TV’s best cowboy of the 1950s, played by a former Hollywood stuntman named Jock Mahoney. His horsemanship and trick riding on the show just couldn’t be beaten.

Note … Today, according to Mahoney’s step-daughter, Oscar-winning actor, Sally Field, Jocko was responsible for the abuse of her that would put him in prison in today’s #MeToo generation.

By the time I became a teenager, I still hadn’t gotten my pony, but I found the next best thing - the riding academy. That’s what they called horses-for-hire businesses that offered hourly rentals or trail rides.

I graduated from the trail rides pretty quickly and fancied myself as a skilled horseman. I was so sure of my equine skills that I set my sights on one day getting aboard a thoroughbred racehorse. In reality, I realized that was about as likely as owning a pony in downtown Toronto.

Time moved on. I got married and moved to the suburbs, and my dream of riding a racehorse was put out to pasture.

Then I met my new neighbour next door. He worked at Woodbine race track -- the Yankee Stadium of race tracks in Canada.

Over a backyard beer one afternoon, I described my racehorse dream. After a few more beers, he said, “I can make that happen”. That afternoon, he made some calls. No turning back now. He made a call to a trainer-friend and explained my once-in-a-lifetime dream.

The trainer agreed and offered to put me on his 3-year-old gelding.

That caught me a little off guard. I didn't know about a gelding.

I assumed that geldings were angry horses. You know ... because they're geldings.

The trainer confirmed that he would let me take it for a lap around the track, and I could also invite a half-dozen friends to watch me break my maiden. Wow! If only every once-in-a-lifetime dream were this easy. They even agreed that I could go out of the gate with the door flying open, just like a real race. I was very pumped.

Then I met Sandy Hawley at a party. Sandy is one of the leading jockeys in the world with 6450 career wins, to say nothing of his 2nd and 3rd place finishes.  He is in both the US and Canadian Horse Racing Halls of Fame - he won the Queen’s Plate four times.

I told him that I was set to ride a 3-year-old gelding during a morning workout at Woodbine in a week. He looked at me strangely, and when he realized I was serious, he started to laugh.

I don’t mean ha, ha laughing -- his beer actually started to come out of his nose. When he finally stopped, I told him that I would also have a chance to use the starting gate -- that’s when he went into convulsions.

I could see he was still laughing, but there was no sound coming out.

When he finally started breathing again, he told me I could not ride a racehorse, and I most definitely couldn’t use the starting gate.

I was crushed.

First, he explained that sitting on a thoroughbred is similar to sitting in a Ferrari with the engine idling - “the power under you is hard to describe”.

He asked what I was going to do when I wanted to stop as the horse reaches it’s cruising speed of 30 miles an hour.

I said, “I’ll pull on the reins and yell whoa!” 

That’s when he got angry with me.

He explained that the horse is trained to explode out of the starting gate, and I would not be prepared to defend myself from the shock. “It’s like a rocket taking off”. He explained that some starts are so powerful, many jockeys have to twist the horse’s mane around their free hand just to survive the first 3 seconds of the ride.

Stopping?  Well, that was a whole other thing.

I was crushed. The invites to my 5 am debut were already sent out. In fact, so many family and friends wanted to be a part of it, I had to ask for additional passes.

What started out as a dream was truly going to be a nightmare with me in the starring role. My previous confidence in my riding ability was shattered.

What happened next could only be described as pure racing luck. I got a call from the trainer. He apologized, but my ride had developed bronchitis and would not be able to race for a while. He offered to call me when the horse was better so we could reschedule my ride.

I thanked him but told him, “I’m moving to Germany and won‘t be back for 10 or 15 years".

I figured that by that time, "my" horse would be grazing on some tall, sweet grass and long-forgotten our date at Woodbine.