[RC] Fred: The Rest of the Story - Roberta Lieberman
I interviewed Matthew shortly after the original Fred-thread broke on Ridecamp. Here is what he told me:
?“I was looking through the EN ads and eventually found Fred, who had already been through ‘hors de combat’. The owner said he had a ‘mysterious hind-leg lameness’ that was apparently ‘cured’ when Fred lost half his hoof. They brought him to Johnstown, PA, where I saw and rode him for the first time and satisfied myself that his feet could be managed.
Fred?was always a difficult horse to ride. He dumped me at McCoy’s Ford and ran for two hours before I could catch him. He was spooky and willful—a whole lot of horse. I didn’t manage him as well as I could have the first couple of years. I should have traded less on his raw ability and worked more with his mind.
I decided in 1995 that I was just going to make a couple of rides. I wanted to go for my tenth Old Dominion buckle. Fred won that ride by default. I had made a deal with Jeannie (Waldron), as we rode together, that she could win. We both finished at 11:30 p.m. the year that only 11 of 44 horses finished. Unfortunately, Jeannie’s horse had pulled a muscle and was lame at the finish, leaving Fred the winner by default.
Fred still had different sized front feet (possibly from “scissoring” his front legs as he grazed as a youngster—the problem eventually cleared up after a winter at Jim Oury’s Montana ranch eating from a chest-level feed bunker)….he was a very good horse with some problems. After the OD I decided that if he bounced back in three to four days I would take him to California to try to get a buckle on the Tevis in the 90s….if we were successful, it would be my fourth decade to earn a Tevis buckle.
On the way to Tevis from Virginia, we stopped over at our friend Bob Oury’s place in northern Illinois. Bob had bought Rocky (Rachmaninoff) from me years before to do the Old Dominion. Bob offered to buy Fred when we stopped at his place. I was interested, because my wife Winkie had ordered me not to bring him home.??Did I say that?Fred was a very difficult horse to ride? A moment's inattention in the saddle or on the ground, and he'd be gone. If you lost your balance, he would squirt out from under you and take off for the hills. Winkie was concerned for her 62-year-old husband’s health. Fred had a giant engine and little sense of self-preservation.?(Editor's?note:?Fred?was?an?Anglo-Arab,?a?true?15.2?hands?and?1,100?pounds?the?year of his OD/Tevis wins.)
So we went out there…the ride story is well recounted in Marnye Langer’s book, The Tevis Cup. Fred had a fabulous day. Chris Knoch and I, who rode together in the lead for much of the day, agreed not to race until the last 100 yards. Bob Oury (who also was crewing for us) was waiting at the finish, where he asked if Fred was still for sale. I said yes, remembering my promise to my wife.
Bob’s goal was to ride Fred at Tevis. Two years later, he got on at Robie Park and arrived first in Robinson Flat at 7:45 a.m., having galloped the entire first 36 miles. Yes, he galloped over Cougar Rock! Even with this kind of start, Fred was fit to continue, but Bob gave out at Michigan Bluff. But he still had a smile on his face. He told me that nothing you could do on a horse had ever compared with the exhilaration he experienced on Fred that day.
Soon after, Fred was retired to Bob’s brother Jim’s place in Montana. Since 1988 or so, he has been back with Bob in Illinois, fat and happy, where Bob jumps on him bareback and runs him up a hill once and in a while for the sheer joy of it.”
