AND BRAINS TO BOOT
The mare shown here is Milady
Minton by Crouch’s Chief, a descendant of Clark Chief and thus yet another descendant of Annie C. She is out of Bessie Wetherlite by Monte Mark by Monte Cristo by Montrose, with tail-female harking back to Washington Denmark and Coleman’s Eureka (see “A Vintage Blend,” EQUUS
513, for images of these foundational Saddlebreds). Milady Minton is the dam of Miss Chatterbox, a winning five-gaited mare, who is in turn the dam of The
Lemon Drop Kid.
Like Belle Beach, Milady Minton presents multiple crosses to Queen with some also to Black Hawk and Blackburn’s Whip. In terms of conformation, her proportions—with short back, close coupling and somewhat long legs—make one think of an Arabian.
Milady Minton’s pedigree contains a cross to Indian Chief, and every horse from Indian Chief descends not only from Sher
Milady Minton man Morgan but also from the Arabian Khasnadger. Khasnadger sired Grand Bashaw, who in turn sired Young Bashaw, who sired Ned Forrest, who sired the mare Lou Berry, Indian Chief’s dam—so the Arabian connection goes back a long way.
Of course the Bashaws are also important ancestors of the so-called Clay Arabians—also called “American Arabians”— and of the American Standardbred (see “The First American ‘Sport Horse’ Breed,” EQUUS 502, and “An American Original,” EQUUS 503).
Milady Minton presents a huge, powerful shoulder and hindquarters to match. The hind limb is very correctly formed, and all the limbs reflect substantial bone and well-made joints. Certainly, the neck is short by modern Saddlebred standards, but as we have seen in other examples given in this article, a neck of normal length was considered normal a century ago! Overall, Milady Minton shows nearlevel body balance and very likely had over-level action. Notice that she and her rider appear decked out for a five-gaited marathon, and yet the mare is barefoot. This, too, was not unusual a century ago.
The Lemon Drop Kid, a gelding named for his bright palomino color, was the Fine Harness Stakes winner at the Kentucky State Fair three years straight, from 1956 to 1959, and a champion many times over at all the shows on the Midwest circuit. He is by Cameo Kirby by Edna May’s King and thus a great-grandson of the BHF mare Edna May, who will be featured in our next installment. Through his dam Miss Chatterbox and her dam Milady Minton, he inherited multiple crosses to Daisy 2nd, while through his sireline he descends from Annie C. I have no conformation photo of this horse, but he seems to have the same short-backed, somewhat leggy proportions of his granddam. Certainly he displays over-level action, considered supremely important in the Saddle Seat milieu.
The main interest in The Lemon Drop Kid, however, is to appreciate how intelligent this horse was. After his retirement he continued to be exhibited for many years, not as a competitor but as a kind of novelty halftime entertainment at shows.
I myself witnessed one of these demonstrations, and it was truly remarkable, because the horse had memorized the whole competition scenario. This is probably more common than usually acknowledged, because the procedure in harness classes varies very little: The announcer calls the class, an attendant swings the gate wide to let the horses into the arena, they come in at a trot. Then the judge calls for gaits and reversals of direction in a very predictable order. In a harness class these would be trot, strong trot (“road trot”), trot, reverse, trot, strong trot, trot, and then “Come in and line ‘em up.” In the lineup, the horses halt and then “park out” (stretch); usually at this point a groom is permitted to come to the horse’s head. Then the judge approaches each horse to give it a cursorial visual inspection and may ask each horse to come out of his stretch, square up, and then take a few steps in reverse. She goes from horse to
horse until all have been inspected and/or backed. Then there is a pause of some minutes while her placements are conveyed by a runner up to the announcer’s booth. When the announcer gets the paper, he reads off the placements in order from lowest to highest. Each horse trots up to the judge to receive his ribbon and have his photo taken, and then proceeds to the out-gate. The blue-ribbon winner, however, will also take a victory lap to the cheers and applause of his admirers.
Everybody who has ever been to a saddle seat show has witnessed this, and a horse that is shown every weekend has certainly experienced it too. It is the nature of horses to avoid discomfort or trouble, and smart horses quickly figure out that the best way to avoid trouble is to anticipate it. This is the motivation behind their tendency to memorize routines: be there first and please everybody.
So, I saw The Lemon Drop Kid driven in the normal manner up to the in-gate, but as soon as it swung open, the driver hung the reins on the front rail of the cart and then leaned back and crossed his arms. The announcer called the “class” just as he would for a real harness class, and in response the horse himself performed all the required maneuvers. And he didn’t perform mechanically or robotically; he changed gaits in response to the announcer’s voice. Moreover, if the announcer broke the usual routine by calling a “time out”—a frequent occurrence in classes where horses wear weighted shoes—The Lemon Drop Kid would respond by circling in toward the center of the arena and trot
ting more slowly. Then, when the time-out was over and the announcer’s voice came over the loudspeakers with the command “Trot on!” he would retake the track and resume the normal routine of the class. And of course, The Lemon Drop Kid considered himself always to be the winner, so after pulling up to collect his ribbon, he took a glorious victory lap to loud shouts of admiration from the stands.
This was amazing to me at the time, for I saw this demonstration very early in my career with horses, one of the last The Lemon Drop Kid gave for he was nearing 20 years old at the time. But a few years later I had a horse on lease who would not stand still in the lineup and would sometimes rear. For safety’s sake, one stood him up until inspected but then took him out of the lineup and allowed him to circle at a walk, being careful not to let him get focused on the out-gate. This problem comes from the same intelligence, but it reflects an anxiety to “get it over with,” rather than The Lemon Drop Kid’s evident comfortable acceptance of a task that he found easy.