Home is where the horse is.
LOSING A LOC Cup of COFFEE
The Jocks’ Room Is Getting Lonely
D
By Sean Clancy
aniel M. Smithwick Jr., the last of the cavaliers, died April 23. Amateur jockey. Horse trainer. Husband. Father. Grandfather. Gone at 62.
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Growing up, there was only one Speedy Smithwick. An icon way out there, untouchable. Irish-knit cap, billowy britches, a twinkle in his eye and that nevergive-anything-away smirk. All the rich kids wanted to be Speedy Smithwick, riding rocket ships for his National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame father. All the Sean Clancy poor kids wanted to be Speedy Smithwick, riding pointto-point stalwarts for his Virginia Steeplechase Hall of Fame mother. Speedy welcomed the rich kids and the poor kids just the same; here’s an old couch, an exercise saddle, you don’t need a helmet, get to work, stay as long as you like. Too tall to be a professional but oh so perfect as an amateur. Long leg. Long hold. Soft hands. Soft touch. Cajoling rather than controlling. He was always in the middle of the horse, that’s as good a compliment as I can give. Oh, to have hands like Speedy Smithwick. Small horse. Big horse. The third in the Maryland Hunt Cup. The last in the Iroquois. Long spot. Short spot. Hurdles. Timber. Fox hunting. Logs in the woods. It’s an art form, to balance on a water hose of a horse, that perfect line from bit to hand, hip to toe…I failed that class but Speedy perfected it.
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His profile on Central Entry runs 15 pages. From Subway, a junior flat horse, in ’72 to Highland Bud, a champion, in ’91. From Anvil to Zoomy. Uncle Edwin to Aunt Rosa. Bardal to Balantic. Rockaround to Straight and True. A who’s-who list of immortals. For every race he rode, you could double the competition as he battled the scales as well as the race. Hot baths and hot cars. Epsom salts and Ex-Lax. Rubber suits and rubber meeting road. That’s when you test your mettle, your moxie. Once he crossed the scale, he folded that erector set body on top of a horse’s withers like he never missed a meal. All with a smile, an open door, a friendly hand. Sunny Bank provided a sanctuary; sometimes a pot-holed driveway, a musty couch, a cold beer, a cup of coffee or a hard-mileage fox hunter is all anybody needs. Some never left. An island of misfit toys. Speedy at the helm. Born to icons, Speedy tread his own path as best he could. First as a jockey, second as a. trainer. An arduous task, an unenviable burden. Complex and confounding, an inner tick of a click of a clock that only he knew.
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A few weeks ago, the remnants of Speedy’s jocks’ room converged under a gray and then sunny sky at Trinity Church in Upperville. A scrapbook of mourning. Smiles and stories. Friends and family. Jockeys and jokers. Grooms and groupies. Peers and proteges. All knowing Speedy Smithwick from various venues, from various vantage points and all with their own nostalgic nuance. Cook Edens III carried two old photo albums, unfolded them on a standup table under the tent in the grass behind the church. We took one last walk through the jocks’ room that had lost one its pillars. Speedy in birth and speedy in death. Speedy Smithwick, a kind soul, a rider’s rider, horseman’s horseman, a one off of all one offs, has left the room.
MIDDLEBURG SUSTAINABLE COMMITTEE| Summer 2022
