Today
Equine ER takes a moment to honor the grooms, in the Bluegrass and beyond, who work so often unnoticed and yet who frequently become best friends with many horses, and miss them greatly when they move on to other farms and other owners. One of the many hard-working and excellent grooms I met while writing
Equine ER was Eduardo Hernandez, who was Barbaro's groom and then
Chelokee's.
Tom Wade, who was Seattle Slew's groom for two decades, said once,* "The good groom has focus. He doesn't allow outside interference. You put the horse first, above all else. ... You see, I think you're blessed to be around a good horse, and once you're given that opportunity – it's more of a huge responsibility, really – the focus, the dedication have to be there." [*This quote appeared "The Horse That God Built: The Untold Story of Secretariat, the World's Greatest Racehorse," by Lawrence Scanlon. Published in 2007, Thomas Dunne Books.]
So here's to the unsung and unseen friends of the horse who know them often better than we can imagine.
