An Unlikely Champion
By Pam GleasonThe Eighty Dollar Champion
Snowman, the Horse That Inspired a Nation
By Elizabeth Letts. Ballantine Books, New York, 2011.
Hardcover, 336 pages with illustrations. $26.00


But it wasn't. A few days after Snowman went to live with the doctor, Harry got a call that the horse had jumped out of his pasture and was disturbing the neighbor's property. Harry didn't believe it: Snowman was no jumper. Surely the doctor had left a gate unlatched. The horse was captured and returned. A few days after that, Snowman showed up at Hollandia Farms. He had jumped out of his pasture again and run home. Harry took him back to the doctor, but Snowman would not be deterred. He continued to jump out and gallop back to Hollandia, even after Harry suggested that he be turned out with a tire tied to his halter. Clearly the horse had an opinion, and his opinion was that he should stay with Harry. Harry had no choice. He took him back.

It did not start out well. The horse that had cleared his 5-foot paddock
fence even while dragging a heavy tire was different under saddle. He
stumbled over rails on the ground and scattered the cavaletti like
pick-up sticks. He was heavy and clumsy and didn’t bother to lift his
feet. But then one day Harry was riding him in a ring where the jumps
were set to 4 feet. On a lark, he pointed Snowman at the higher fences,
and the horse sailed over cleanly – once the fences commanded respect,
Snowman would jump them.
And that was the beginning of Snowman's story. A little over two years
after he was saved from the slaughterhouse van, Snowman, with Harry
astride him, won the jumper championship at the National Horse Show at
Madison Square Garden and became the American Horse Shows Association
Horse of the Year. His jumping career lasted five years, during which
time he won many top competitions and prestigious titles. His story
captured popular attention, and he became a national sensation,
appearing on the Johnny Carson and Dick Cavett shows, and even doing an
episode of To Tell the Truth. He was the subject of two children's books
(The Cinderella Horse, by Tony Palazzo,1962; and Snowman, Rutherford
Montgomery, 1967) and he was inducted into the National Show Jumping
Hall of Fame in 1992. There is even a Breyer model of him.

Elizabeth Letts, who has also written two novels and an award winning
children's book, rode and competed extensively in eventing through her
teenage years. As an adult, her career in the field of obstetrics took
her away from horses, but she has always kept them close to her heart.

Elizabeth did some research, finding out not just that the horse was the
famous Snowman, but that his owner and trainer, Harry de Leyer, was
very much alive and that his Virginia farm was not more than three hours
from her home. Harry, who is 83, is still riding and teaching, despite a
bad fall he had while unloading hay in his barn in 2005. He was
delighted to tell her whatever she wanted to know about Snowman and to
provide her with the materials she needed.
"The horse is very close to me," says Harry, who still speaks with a
heavy Dutch accent. "The best thing about him was that he was so quiet
and so consistent. My kids loved him – they could ride him together,
they could take him swimming. I could give a lesson on him at the Knox
School, even after he was a champion. He could go in the leadline class
and win the jumpers on the same day. When I would take him from the
ring, all the little kids would come around him, and he would nuzzle
them, and sometimes they would pull a little hair from his tail as a
souvenir. All the people loved him."

"What really struck me when I was writing the book was that Harry and
Snowman had led somewhat parallel lives leading up to the moment that
they found each other," says Elizabeth. "It’s easy to lose sight of it
looking back, but at the time that Harry found Snowman, he was an
unlikely candidate to be winning the national jumping title. When he
came to the United States eight years earlier, he had a wooden crate
with all his belongings in it and $160. He didn’t think he would make a
living as a horseman; he didn’t know anyone and no one knew him."

The social history in the book helps put the Snowman story into context,
taking the reader back to a time when George Morris, the current chef
d'equipe of the U.S. showjumping team, was just a "kid" and Frank
Chapot, the former chef, was getting his professional start. More than
that, it discusses how the horse world fit into broader society.
"The more research that I did, the more I realized how iconic the image
of the horse was at that time," says Elizabeth. "If you look through
Life magazine from that era, every single person, politician, movie star
and so on, was being photographed with horses. Horseback riding was
expanding, but horses themselves were disappearing. Snowman caught
peoples' imaginations – to understand why he was so fascinating, why
they wanted him to go him on the Johnny Carson Show, you need to
understand the social background."
The book was released on Tuesday, August 23, and its first printing was
sold out by Thursday. There is no official word yet on whether The
Eighty Dollar Champion will become a movie, but Elizabeth says that this
is "not unlikely."
"The response has been beyond my wildest dreams," she says. "One thing
that I am really happy is about is the reception it has gotten in the
horse community. Horse people are very picky. They don’t want to read
something that sounds like the person doesn’t know what they're talking
about, and so far, the feedback from the horse community has been very
good. Of course, the book is written for a more general audience; the
response from them has been very good also."
Although the book is the story of Snowman and Harry, it also carries an
implicit message about unwanted or discarded horses, as well as about
people who may not appear destined for success.
"One thing that I am hoping will come out of the book is that the
publicity surrounding it will help shine a light on the problems of
unwanted horses in this country," says Elizabeth. "The 1950s were a bad
time for horses, and in a way the economic situation is creating a
similar problem for horses now – we have a much bigger surplus of horses
now than we had 10 years ago.
"
Elizabeth is currently developing a project in which people who have
rescue horses can share their stories of success. The idea is to inspire
people to give horses a second chance, and the theme is "don’t let the
next $80 champion pass you by."

"Then also, don’t give up too quick on yourself," he continues. "There
is always a chance to get there, so give yourself a chance. Give every
horse a chance."
A portion of the proceeds from The Eighty Dollar Champion will go to 4-H
Therapeutic Riding of Carroll County, Md. To read more about the book
go to www.elizabethletts.com or "like" the Facebook page:
Facebook/eightydollarchampion.
This article is copyrighted and first appeared in The Aiken Horse. It is reprinted here by permission.
This article is copyrighted and first appeared in The Aiken Horse. It is reprinted here by permission.