‘My Year of the Racehorse: Falling in Love with the Sport of Kings’ by Kevin Chong
Posted: May 11, 2012
Book Reviews
Reviewed by Ryan McBride
Vancouver writer Kevin Chong’s latest book is a memoir, of sorts. It spoils none of the book’s many pleasures to learn, in the epilogue, that author Kevin Chong “took some creative license” in his portrayal of some of the people and events he describes “as a way of protecting the privacy of others and sheltering myself from their anger.”
He also admits to expedient exaggeration for comic effect and giving himself “the best one-liners in conversations,” but so what? Conflation, embellishment and even outright invention are hardly criminal acts – unless you’re James Frey, and even he received a pardon, of sorts.
Okay, so My Year of the Racehorse is no AMillion Little Pieces. Nor is it another Seabiscuit, a tale of an unlikely four-legged champion-slash-symbol-of-hope.
The horse in this case is Mocha Time, nicknamed Blackie, “a five-year-old, bay-coloured mare with a white star between her eyes” and “the equine personality of a biker chick.” Once a “glue-factory candidate,” Blackie runs the Hastings Racecourse as a bottom claimer, “the lowest rung of racehorse.” Chong’s year of adventure begins with his decision to buy a share of her. Ownership of a racehorse (or even part of one), he explains, signifies stability, but a less expensive form of stability than the Vancouver condo he can’t afford.
It also affords him something else he sorely needs: “something to write about, something that would double as an opportunity to be cool.” A novelist, journalist and creative writing instructor, Chong is excited by the prospect of getting his hands on a “laminated pass into a world that has always fascinated me from afar, while joining what I felt were rarified ranks.”
It turns out that that world and the ranks that fill it are less than rarified but always fascinating. As Chong delves into the trials and responsibilities of racehorse ownership (actually, he doesn’t so much “delve” as loaf around, get in the way and annoy people), we learn about everything from the complexities of horse betting, life on the “backside” of the track, and the genteel art of breeding thoroughbreds:
Inside, the barn feels less lived-in than an IKEA showroom. Sectioned off for the different stages of the breeding process, it is blocked out and monitored with exacting care to protect the well-being of the stallion. Of course, if safety was your utmost concern, you’d have your gazillion-dollar stud hump a dummy and then FedEx the frozen semen to the owners of the male for artificial insemination, but officially registered thoroughbreds need to be produced through “natural cover.” They say it’s to ensure genuine bloodlines and preserve the value of the stud horse, but everyone knows horses like being romanced.
Later on, Chong also teaches us more than we ever wanted to know about equine “dink-cleaning.” “You have to fucking have a knack for it,” explains Blackie’s trainer, Randi, who makes extra money cleaning horse junk part-time. “You have to be gentle.” Then, in one of those sentences so characteristic of Chong’s mastery of metaphor and wit, she arms herself with soap and sponge, and leans under a nearby stud “with her free hand dangling back for balance as though she were fencing.”
Randi is probably one of those semi-fictional composite characters Chong created to protect the privacy of the real people he met during his year as a racehorse owner. It’s impossible to know for sure. But whether she’s part invention or a scrupulously honest portrayal, Randi stands out as one of the book’s most compelling subjects. Tough as horseshoe nails, she delivers mail as a letter carrier for Canada Post. The rest of the day she spends at her stable, which she runs “like a halfway house and hospice for both ne’er-do-well horses and delinquent humans.” She puts everything she has into caring for her horses, whether they perform well on the track or not, for reasons it takes Chong the rest of the book to fully understand:
Your horse’s only job is to run. It’s your responsibility to love her. Your job is to show your appreciation for an animal who lets you live through her; who allows you to claim her determination, class, and grace as your own; who’s there for you to forget, momentarily, the muddle you’ve made of your life, your own awful way of going – your own sore spots and bad trips.
Sore spots and bad trips: Chong certainly has his share of these, and ultimately The Year of the Racehorse is less about his relationship with Randi and Blackie than it is about coming to terms with the consequences of being, as he puts it, someone who has spent an entire life “trying to conceal emotion.”
In fact, one of the greatest strengths of My Year as a Racehorse is Chong’s willingness to put his own human shortcomings on display. Even as we watch his obsession with horseracing overtake his life and hurt his relationships with friends and family, he manages to remain likeably unlikeable. The list of things he feels are lacking from his life, from true love to financial security, becomes something of a running joke throughout the memoir, and he uses his interest in horseracing as a pretext for filling these gaps, one chapter at a time. Just as we might expect, things don’t work out as planned.
Equally unsuccessful – and equally hilarious – are Chong’s attempts to build a rapport with Blackie, who bites him or, worse, ignores him, inviting “unwanted high-school memories. If I come with peppermints from the tack shop, she’ll deign to take the candy from my hand, and I’ll feel as though she’s just allowed me the privilege of doing her math homework for her.”
But that seems only fair, given that for much of the book, Chong is less interested in Blackie than in what she can do for him by crossing the finishing line first. All that changes in the memoir’s final pages, of course – even if the story’s climactic emotional epiphany does read like one of those moments artfully calculated to bring the story to a heartwarming finish.
Greystone | 232 pages | $22.95 | paper | ISBN #978-1553655206
‘My Year of the Racehorse: Falling in Love with the Sport of Kings’ by Kevin Chong
Book Reviews
Vancouver writer Kevin Chong’s latest book is a memoir, of sorts. It spoils none of the book’s many pleasures to learn, in the epilogue, that author Kevin Chong “took some creative license” in his portrayal of some of the people and events he describes “as a way of protecting the privacy of others and sheltering myself from their anger.”
He also admits to expedient exaggeration for comic effect and giving himself “the best one-liners in conversations,” but so what? Conflation, embellishment and even outright invention are hardly criminal acts – unless you’re James Frey, and even he received a pardon, of sorts.
Okay, so My Year of the Racehorse is no A Million Little Pieces. Nor is it another Seabiscuit, a tale of an unlikely four-legged champion-slash-symbol-of-hope.
The horse in this case is Mocha Time, nicknamed Blackie, “a five-year-old, bay-coloured mare with a white star between her eyes” and “the equine personality of a biker chick.” Once a “glue-factory candidate,” Blackie runs the Hastings Racecourse as a bottom claimer, “the lowest rung of racehorse.” Chong’s year of adventure begins with his decision to buy a share of her. Ownership of a racehorse (or even part of one), he explains, signifies stability, but a less expensive form of stability than the Vancouver condo he can’t afford.
It also affords him something else he sorely needs: “something to write about, something that would double as an opportunity to be cool.” A novelist, journalist and creative writing instructor, Chong is excited by the prospect of getting his hands on a “laminated pass into a world that has always fascinated me from afar, while joining what I felt were rarified ranks.”
It turns out that that world and the ranks that fill it are less than rarified but always fascinating. As Chong delves into the trials and responsibilities of racehorse ownership (actually, he doesn’t so much “delve” as loaf around, get in the way and annoy people), we learn about everything from the complexities of horse betting, life on the “backside” of the track, and the genteel art of breeding thoroughbreds:
Inside, the barn feels less lived-in than an IKEA showroom. Sectioned off for the different stages of the breeding process, it is blocked out and monitored with exacting care to protect the well-being of the stallion. Of course, if safety was your utmost concern, you’d have your gazillion-dollar stud hump a dummy and then FedEx the frozen semen to the owners of the male for artificial insemination, but officially registered thoroughbreds need to be produced through “natural cover.” They say it’s to ensure genuine bloodlines and preserve the value of the stud horse, but everyone knows horses like being romanced.
Later on, Chong also teaches us more than we ever wanted to know about equine “dink-cleaning.” “You have to fucking have a knack for it,” explains Blackie’s trainer, Randi, who makes extra money cleaning horse junk part-time. “You have to be gentle.” Then, in one of those sentences so characteristic of Chong’s mastery of metaphor and wit, she arms herself with soap and sponge, and leans under a nearby stud “with her free hand dangling back for balance as though she were fencing.”
Randi is probably one of those semi-fictional composite characters Chong created to protect the privacy of the real people he met during his year as a racehorse owner. It’s impossible to know for sure. But whether she’s part invention or a scrupulously honest portrayal, Randi stands out as one of the book’s most compelling subjects. Tough as horseshoe nails, she delivers mail as a letter carrier for Canada Post. The rest of the day she spends at her stable, which she runs “like a halfway house and hospice for both ne’er-do-well horses and delinquent humans.” She puts everything she has into caring for her horses, whether they perform well on the track or not, for reasons it takes Chong the rest of the book to fully understand:
Your horse’s only job is to run. It’s your responsibility to love her. Your job is to show your appreciation for an animal who lets you live through her; who allows you to claim her determination, class, and grace as your own; who’s there for you to forget, momentarily, the muddle you’ve made of your life, your own awful way of going – your own sore spots and bad trips.
Sore spots and bad trips: Chong certainly has his share of these, and ultimately The Year of the Racehorse is less about his relationship with Randi and Blackie than it is about coming to terms with the consequences of being, as he puts it, someone who has spent an entire life “trying to conceal emotion.”
In fact, one of the greatest strengths of My Year as a Racehorse is Chong’s willingness to put his own human shortcomings on display. Even as we watch his obsession with horseracing overtake his life and hurt his relationships with friends and family, he manages to remain likeably unlikeable. The list of things he feels are lacking from his life, from true love to financial security, becomes something of a running joke throughout the memoir, and he uses his interest in horseracing as a pretext for filling these gaps, one chapter at a time. Just as we might expect, things don’t work out as planned.
Equally unsuccessful – and equally hilarious – are Chong’s attempts to build a rapport with Blackie, who bites him or, worse, ignores him, inviting “unwanted high-school memories. If I come with peppermints from the tack shop, she’ll deign to take the candy from my hand, and I’ll feel as though she’s just allowed me the privilege of doing her math homework for her.”
But that seems only fair, given that for much of the book, Chong is less interested in Blackie than in what she can do for him by crossing the finishing line first. All that changes in the memoir’s final pages, of course – even if the story’s climactic emotional epiphany does read like one of those moments artfully calculated to bring the story to a heartwarming finish.
Greystone | 232 pages | $22.95 | paper | ISBN #978-1553655206