A few years ago, I had the opportunity to chat with Tim Bellasis, a C.T.T. Board member and a long-time friend who I made while training horses in Northern California. As a well-established trainer, Tim was a font of great stories about life on the backside. The following short story came into being from one such memory. And proof that heroes do live amongst us.
Blanche
It didn’t start with a rushing wall of water, nor was it a trickle.
Initially insidious, the water went unnoticed as it crept across the parking lot, filled the gutters to overflow, and quenched the parched earth around the barns. Many nooks and crannies would need to be filled before anyone took notice.
By the time the brown-stained water began to lap at the shed row, the horses had already been fed. Their stalls picked up, and the bottom doors closed for the night. Their human caregivers had left several hours before, headed home to their own dinner and warm bed. Life at the racetrack started early.
Contented equines snuffled through the straw bedding, looking for any morsel they may have missed as the water silently seeped under the bottom doors and slowly saturated their bedding.
But there was one who did take notice. Blanche, the goat. The water had reached the small straw bed and pile of alfalfa outside Chester’s stall, where a cotton rope secured Blanche to the wall.
“Baa,” Blanche bleated and pawed at her ruined dinner. Not three days before, she had been safe and dry with her brothers and sisters at the farm where she’d been born. Now, as long as she had a steady diet of alfalfa and first shot at any oats that dribbled from Chester’s mouth, she was content to keep the horse company.
The water began to rise faster, carrying discarded Styrofoam cups and cellophane wrappers onto the packed dirt of the shedrow.
“Baa,” Blanche butted the wooden door. Chester’s brown head appeared over the top, his nostrils flaring.
“Baa,” Blanche stretched to touch her muzzle to his. He nickered softly, nuzzling the top of her head. He liked his new friend.
Cold and filthy, the water was now more than hoof deep. Horses splashed around in their stalls, and their agitation filled the air.
Coddled Thoroughbreds snorted and whinnied in the failing light, and by the time the sun had fully set, the water had reached Blanche’s brown and white chest.
“Baa, baa…” Cold and frightened, Blanche stood on her hind legs, her tiny front hoofs scrambling against the slippery wooden door. But there was no escaping the rising water, not for her, not for anyone.
An explosion rocked the fairgrounds, plunging the entire area into complete darkness. Racehorses stampeded around their stalls, kicking the wooden walls and screaming in terror.
Blanche jerked against her restraint, bucking and twisting, further tightening the knot on her rope.
When Tim and Cassy left the barn area to do several loads of laundry, it never crossed their minds that within two hours, they’d be fighting to save the lives of their ten horses and many others. On their return, warm laundry piled in the back seat of their car; the barn area was already under two feet of water.
With anguished thoughts of their horses, helpless in their stalls, they didn’t hesitate as they drove their car into the swirling flood waters.
They abandoned the vehicle when a two-by-four wedged into the undercarriage. And in near total darkness, they struck out on foot through the rapidly rising water.
Tim found Blanche bleating in fear, struggling to keep her head above water. Using his pocket knife, he cut the rope binding the goat to the wall and deposited the trembling baby atop a stack of straw bales. Until he could return for Blanche, he could only hope she’d stay put.
With no telling how high the water would get and an obvious current pushing around the ends of the old green barns, it was clear that all the horses needed evacuating, or they would drown.
The closest high ground was at the far end of the Cal-Expo fairgrounds and too far away. That left only the racetrack, a one-mile oval, completely fenced inside and out, that stood ten feet above the barn area.
Desperate horses must be captured, haltered, and pressured to leave their stall—no easy feat.
Tim led six horses, while Cassie led the other four through the ever-deepening water.
Once the last of their horses had been moved to the 4H barns on the far side of the grandstand, the surging flood water reached Tim’s chin as he returned to the barn area for Blanche.
Forced to swim to where he’d left the tiny goat, he found she was no longer there. Blanche and the buoyant bales she’d stood on had floated away.
Treading water, Tim bleated into the dark. “Baa.”
“Baa,” Blanche answered.
Debris scratched and scored his skin, while submerged obstacles threatened more severe injuries. Tim swam to the end of the shed row, where he spotted Blanche, hoof deep in water, balanced precariously on her slowly sinking straw raft.
With the ominous sound of horses and people floundering in the darkness, Tim pushed partially submerged pitchforks and rakes aside to get to Blanche before she was swept away.
Meanwhile, back on the track, chaos reigned. Shouts and frantic whinnies filled the black night. Horses stampeded through the railing while others harassed the injured and terrified. Tim had to leave Blanche to fend for herself if he was to rescue horses still trapped in their stalls. Setting her beyond the inside rail, he dodged a pair of wild-eyed horses and rushed back into the water.
Once it was all over and the last of the loose horses confined, Tim was finally free to look for Blanche.
She wasn’t on the racetrack or in the infield, chewing on the lush grass. Blanche was nowhere to be found on the vast Cal-Expo grounds. Beyond exhausted, he made his way back to the sheep pens. In the soft light of daybreak, he found Cassy, cold, wet, and covered in caked mud, murmuring to Chester. To Tim’s surprise, the horse was lying on his side and cuddled between his legs—Blanche.
Astonished, Tim shook his head at what this baby goat had accomplished. Unguided, she’d crossed the backstretch, the infield, and the home stretch. She’d circled the massive grandstand. She’d wandered through acres of abandoned fairground buildings. And Blanche found her new friend, Chester—one horse from over a hundred displaced survivors of the Cal-Expo flood of 1986.
Thank you for taking the time to visit my website. I’m still determining what you’ll find here next week; I have a lot of thoughts. But if you have a question about the Triple Crown of horseracing or might be interested in any aspect of writing, feel free to ask. Or . . . do you have a good story that you would like to share? I will not sell or use your contact information.
I remember San Johnson and his wife. I remember Watch Wendy. I remember Silky’s Nurse who belonged to Jan Lutz a good friend. Both had stakes named after them at GGF for many years.
Thank you for visiting my website; it is an honor. Both horses were terrific and deserved to have stakes named after them. Did you take part in racing?