YOU CAN LEAD A HORSE TO WALTER

My name is Walter.

I used to race under the name Frightening Lightning, although I wasn’t very frightening, and I wasn’t very fast. I didn’t win a lot of races, and when I retired, I was afraid I would be sent to the glue factory. But after a quick Google search, I was relieved to learn that they no longer make glue from horses.

Since my racing record was not that great, I was very surprised when my owner, Colonel Beauregard, informed me that I was going to be put out to stud.

“Why me, Colonel?” I asked.

“Frankly, Walter,” said the old man in his Southern drawl, “it’s because you’re hung like a horse.”

“But I AM a horse.”

“Even among horses, you’re hung like a horse. You do like mares, don’t you, Walter?”

“Sure,” I said. “What’s not to like?”

“Atta boy!” he said, offering me an apple from his pocket. “Good thing I decided against gelding you!”

Yes, that was a very good thing. While I was chewing, the Colonel explained how stud service worked. A small cocktail bar would be set up in the middle of a paddock, and a bartender would serve mint juleps to me and a succession of mares who would join me for fifteen minutes at a time - equine speed-dating, basically. As each potential love connection would leave, I would hit either a green button or a red button on the bar, electronically recording a hooves-up or a hooves-down, so to speak. The actual “dates” would commence the following day.

At cocktail hour on the day of the speed-dating event, I put on some Aqua Velva and trotted to the little bar in the paddock. The bartender, Ken, introduced himself and poured me a mint julep. Then a mare cantered up and joined me. Her mane and tail were platinum blond, but they had black roots.

“Hi, I’m Jasmine,” she said. “My racing name was High Maintenance Bitch.”

“I’m Walter.”

“May I call you Walt?”

“My mother called me Walt.”

“Is that a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’?”

“It’s a hard ‘no,’ if you don’t mind,” I said.

Speaking of hard, fifteen minutes later Jasmine still wasn’t doing it for me, and when she loped off I hit the red button.

The next contestant was Sapphire, and she literally galloped up to the bar. She was anxious to please, but she was a Republican. Another red button.

Horse after horse came and went, but none of them tickled my fancy. Finally, the last mare of the evening walked up calmly and asked Ken for a ginger ale and a basket of pretzels. She was cute. She told me her name was Sally.

“I won’t even tell you what my professional name was,” she added. “It’s too ridiculous.”

She had a down-to-earth quality that I found refreshing. She said she was a voracious reader, and she liked to paint. I guess that explained the beret.

“I like your beret,” I said.

“Thanks. I like your Meerschaum. My father also smoked a pipe.”

I guess she didn’t mind a romantic partner reminding her of a parent. Maybe I’d let her call me Walt. I wanted to get to know her.

“What kinds of things do you like to paint?” I asked.

“Baseboards.”

Maybe it was the mint juleps, but I think I was falling in love.

When Sally left I hit the green button for the first time. Then Colonel Beauregard drove up in his red, 1957 Cadillac convertible and yelled, “Good thing you finally picked one, Walter! I was afraid you might be heading to the glue factory!”

I shot back, “I Googled that, and…” But before I could finish my sentence he peeled rubber and sped off in a cloud of dust, laughing wildly and waving his white Stetson in the air.

That night I dreamed of Sally. I was a little nervous about the next day. I was a virgin. Sure, I was a big-shot Thoroughbred, but it’s not like being a rock star. We don’t get to have sex unless it’s for mating purposes. Sally and I would deflower each other, and it would be a beautiful thing.

When I awoke I ate a light breakfast and checked myself out in the full-length mirror in my stall. The Colonel was right: I was hung like a horse. But I hoped that Sally had also seen my inner qualities during our fifteen minutes together the night before. I eschewed the Aqua Velva this time. I wouldn’t need it with Sally.

I was running a little late, so I galloped to the appointed hilltop for our date. Sally was already there, along with a man in a lab coat holding a clipboard.

“Hi, Walter,” Sally said. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Same here, Sally,” I said. “Who’s he?”

The man looked at me through thick glasses. Then he read from his clipboard.

“To be registered as a Thoroughbred, a foal must be the product of a ‘live cover,’ meaning a witnessed natural mating of a stallion and a mare. Though artificial insemination and embryo transfer are possible and common in other horse breeds, it is banned with Thoroughbreds.”

I stared at him blankly. “So… What are you saying?” I asked.

“I’m the witness,” he said.

Whoa, Nellie! I didn’t sigh up for this! “That’s outrageous,” I said.

“I agree that it’s an invasion of your privacy,” he replied.

“Is this how you get your kicks?”

“I’ve never done this before. I’m filling in for the regular guy.”

“Does Colonel Beauregard know about this?”

“He’s the regular guy.”

I asked Sally if she wanted to call it off.

“I really don’t want to be sent to the glue factory, Walter,” she answered. I guess she didn’t have access to Google. I didn’t set her straight.

I turned to the lab-coat guy.

“OK, Dr. Strangelove, watch and learn.”

Although I had no sexual experience, I felt pretty confident. When I wasn’t Googling “Glue still made from horses?” I was Googling “Horses Kama Sutra.”

We went at it hammer and tongs, con gusto. It was fantastic. The witness’s glasses fogged up as he wrote furiously on his clipboard. The Internet is a wonderful font of information, and filth.

Sadly, that was the last time I saw Sally. I don’t know if our blissful encounter produced a future Kentucky Derby winner, or if Sally ever thinks of me, wherever she is.

Meanwhile, I plow ahead in my stud career. My heart isn’t in it, but you do what you must when you’re hung like a horse.