Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 5, 2024
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Jasper and his horses
The Lord has made his salvation known: in the sight of the nations he has revealed his justice.
For years we have gathered to watch the Kentucky Derby. We might be in Kentucky or Indiana, Illinois or Texas, but we are watching. Everyone has a favorite. Some of the women wear hats, at least around the house. I usually make a mint julep. This year Margaret had a significant amount of mint leaves, but I had no bourbon. So we put the leaves in some lemonade.
In this 150th Kentucky Derby a horse ran who was trained by Larry Demeritte, 74 years old, a black man from the Bahamas who has been battling cancer for decades. He sports a big smile. His work, especially with the horse West Saratoga, makes him happy. Harry Veruchi, the horses’s owner, simply says, “This horse, it gives him a reason to go to work.”
West Saratoga has been running as a 50 to 1 longshot for some days now. I have a feeling that doesn’t matter at all to Larry or Harry. So much love goes into the horse, its carding and petting and washing down and rubbing, all the talking they do, feeding him those carrots.
The horse wore the number 13 and rose to 22:1 odds, and he ran well for much of the race before falling back behind Mystik Dan, who won the race at odds of 18:1. Mystik Dan’s jockey Brian Hernandez also won the Kentucky Oaks race the day before the Derby, two huge victories after 21 years of racing. Two other horses ran a photo finish for second, just half a nose behind Mystik Dan. Closest race in Derby history.
On Tuesday this week when we visited two horses named Obie and Rocky with Mindy at her farm, we fed them grass, petted them, rubbed their withers, and marveled at the beauty of their rusty red coats. Obie is 22 and Rocky is 25 years old. They are likely to live eight or ten more years. Mindy has two grandchildren, and so she has two horses, horses that are very unlikely to be rough with those little kids.
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.
Jasper and Miles have ridden horses a few times, although it’s been a while. At a horse rescue farm north of Georgetown they took several turns around the track. Jasper cried when he had to stop, he did not want to get off his horse.
Jasper’s a bit small. I wonder if he’ll become a jockey at the Kentucky Derby years from now. Dressed in bright yellow, his silks clean and bright, carrying a whip but not planning to use it, here he is posing for the official photograph before the 175th Derby, with a mile-wide smile. I imagine Jasper will be peaceful and calm; his middle name refers to “a state of stillness where the wind has died down and the waves are calm.”
What horse will he be riding? There are Japanese owners and horses in the 150th Derby; there will likely be more in the 175th. Jasper, who will be much older then, spends a lot of time with the horses he rides, but he is also discovering the joys of fatherhood.
We are glad, in our imaginations and from this great distance, to wish him well.
I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.
(Acts 10, Psalm 98, 1 John 4, John 14, John 15)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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