A tribute to black horsemen
August 15th, 2006The Philadelphia Inquirer published a really well written article and book review today, about a little known part of the horse industry and horse history — Black Horsemen.
For a 10-year-old boy, spending a weekend in the company of men - expert horse trainers - working side-by-side, listening to their conversations, and sharing their equine victories can leave a lasting memory.
Lee E. Downing experienced that weekend treat in 1959 with his father, Thomas Downing, a dedicated horse trainer, and his father’s friends, African American men who held similar jobs in the American Saddlebred show-horse business.
In A Forgotten Horseman: A Son’s Weekend Memoir ($26, hardcover), Downing, who lives in North Wales, pays tribute to his father and other black horse trainers who, over months of rehearsing and grooming, prepared the horses for show competition.
As in so many other cases, the horses and the men who worked with them taught young Mr. Downing more about life, than about the horses themselves.
Downing also stresses the strong male relationships - father and son, father-figure and son, friends - a universal theme that transcends time and setting, even that period of racial inequality. In fact, those bonds among black men seem more important in the limiting days of the 1950s.
“It was a small fraternity of men,” Downing said. “They were competitive, they wanted to win, but behind that they supported each other. They were all subjected to the same social injustices.”
A Forgotten Horseman doesn’t dwell on race, but uses it to put the horse trainers’ lives into a historical context. Just as there were racial barriers for trainers, there are ones for baseball players, youth, even for black men who pull up to service stations.
And of course, the virtues of the horse became apparent to all those around them, and left young Downing with powerful memories:
While Downing didn’t become a horseman, his father and the other trainers left him with lessons about humility, patience and good character - the traits they brought to work every day and the traits that compelled them to do outstanding jobs behind the scenes.
