Photo courtesy of Hiltrud Melin.
Douglas, WY. Photo by Cathy Moser.
My autobiographical background remains a perpetual work-in-progress. Horses have always been prominent, and I especially love the Thoroughbreds. Never owning a horse as a child or teen, many of my school friends in my hometown of Broomfield, Colorado, owned them. That was the next best thing. Grey-colored Silver, chestnut-colored Radish, and Patches, a nasty paint, are a few of the horses I rode and was occasionally thrown from.
The years passed before I could afford the property on which to put my first horse. I was then age 42. Tanner was short legged, stocky, and frumpy looking, nothing near my love, a leggy, sexy Thoroughbred, and how I came to owning a Norwegian Fjord is a story for another day.
My work as a freelance writer took me to a Montana ranch, and what a thrill it was to pet a grandson of Secretariat. Research for my history-themed articles had me combing through musty newspapers dating to the 1880s and ’90s. Snippets of two or three sentences told of Thoroughbred horses from Montana winning eastern racing’s biggest prizes. The horses kept tapping me on the shoulder until the day the epiphany struck: “I’ve found a gem of a story.” This was the birth of When Montana Outraced the East: The Reign of Western Thoroughbreds, 1886-1900.
During the 14 years I’ve been involved with my book, researching, writing or marketing it, I’ve traveled to an eclectic mix of places.
Top row from left at Lexington, KY: Keeneland racetrack, book presentation at the Keeneland Library, petting Silver State at Claiborne Farm, Hamburg Place horse cemetery, broodmares at Wintstar Farm. Secretariat Memorial at Paris, KY.
Third row: Marcus Daly Mansion, Hamilton, MT; Larabie Brothers Bank and Samuel E. Larabie headstone, Hillcrest cemetery, Deer Lodge, MT.
Fourth row: Accepting an award for Scottish Chieftain at the 2015 Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame induction ceremony, Great Falls, MT, American Quarter Horse Museum, Amarillo, TX, book signing at National Museum of Racing.
Last row: At the racetrack, Saratoga Springs, NY.
Photo credits: Award for Scottish Chieftain by Donna Faber/MCHF. All others by Cathy Moser, Sharon Melin.
Links to My Writings About American Horse Racing
The Sixty-Miler
Montana Quarterly/Four Quarters LLC – Fall 2021
The Wrong Horse
Big Sky Journal LLC – Summer 2015
https://bigskyjournal.com/the-wrong-horse/
Miss Darebin foaled The Wrong Horse.
Cushing Memorial Library, Texas A&M University.
Inverness sired The Wrong Horse.
Marcus Daly Mansion.