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Second Chances
Compiled with the assistance of
Katie Merwick
www.secondchanceranch.org
Rum Car
Rum Car My horse is now
deceased, but he raced at Portland Meadows back in the early ’70s. His
name was Rum Car. He was bred by C. R. Newton and born on February 15, 1972.
After his racing days, Rum Car became an eventing
horse and won a championship in 1981. I have the cooler. My sister and I first
met him at a stable in Northern California in 1989. He was 17 years old and was
in the most terrific condition. He’d been in all the local horse shows in
the San Francisco Bay area and usually won. It was love at first sight and we
purchased him without a vet check, because we knew that we wanted him in our
lives for the rest of his life. We didn’t do anything with him except ride
him, and he taught us just about everything we know about horses. He was always
the barn favorite and always the horse who would calm down the newcomers. Some
were even put right in his paddock with him.
I
took him to Europe in 1994 when I thought I might move there. Things
didn’t work out and we came back. In 2001, my sister and I moved to
Wisconsin and, of course, Rum Car came along too. We found a perfect place for
him to retire at Grand View Equestrian Center in McFarland. He thoroughly
enjoyed himself there and once again was the barn favorite. He had a best
friend and protégé named Charlie Brown. He and Charlie (who was
six at the time and had the same coloring) would race up and down the pasture
and the only way you could tell the two apart was that Rum Car was always in
the lead. At 30, he was still in terrific shape and going strong. He was even
featured in a clinic on older horses because of his excellent condition.
In November of 2004, Rum Car was diagnosed with a tumor
in his bladder. At 32 years old, surgery was not an option for him. We decided
to go on just as we had, but now it was with heavy hearts. Two months later on
a cold day in January he laid down outside in the snow and wouldn’t get
up. I was at work and got a frantic phone call from the barn. When I got there,
I was able to coax him up and get him in the barn. We observed him for the next
few days, but we knew it was over. He seemed more than ready to go. On January
13, 2005, we kept our promise that he would never suffer and let him go. The
vet said it was the easiest death she had ever seen. We had him cremated whole
and his ashes sit in a huge oak urn in our living room.
He had been retired for 8 1/2 years and those were
probably the best years I had with him. All there was to look forward to was
just spending time with him at the barn. Even though I loved riding him, I
loved just being in his company even more.
I’ve never met a horse like Rum Car. He touched
our lives and the lives of so many others in such a special way. I’ve been
trying to get his win photo from Portland Meadows, but it seems to be an
impossibility because it was so long ago. I do have lots and lots of photos of
him. He was a beautiful bay gelding and he packed a lot of muscle – I
suppose from his eventing days. He was the sweetest horse I’ve ever known.
If you fell off him (unless he was spooked) he would stand very still, not
wanting to step on you. He was also as hot as all get up. Even at 32, there
were times that as he left the paddock for the barn, he thought he was in the
starting gate and would just explode out of the paddock. The barn owner let him
because she loved him, and because he was old, she said he was entitled to do
as he pleased. When he was still being ridden, too many flying lead changes
(and he did these beautifully) and he would be ready to fly to the next county.
He was a very hot horse.
To this day, I still can
hardly make it through a day without shedding a tear for him. He was so
special. I know there will never be another horse for me like Rum Car. It was a
tremendous honor to have been his caretaker for 15 years. Rest in peace,
beautiful boy.
—Myrna
VandenBerg
Rum Car, 1972, g., Nictrum—Carrie Me, by Credit Me.
Raced two years, 34-1-1-5, $1,989.