Thoroughbred horses are Catherine Melin Moser's passion, but moving to Montana, she discovered something she hadn't know: winners of several of America's preeminent horse races in the 1880s and 1890s were raised on Montana bunch grass. Racers Spokane, Ben Holladay, Tammany, and Scottish Chieftain were raised by Montanans Noah Armstrong, Samuel Larabie, and Marcus Daly, and were winners of the Kentucky Derby, the Belmont Stakes, and other races.
Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit describes the speed, strength and grace of a thoroughbred horse: "Tipping the scales at up to 1,450 pounds, he can sustain speeds of forty miles per hour. Equipped with reflexes much faster than those of the most quick-wired athlete, he swoops over as much as twenty-eight feet of earth in a single stride, and corners on a dime."
(Broadcast: "Reflections West," 1/14/15 & 7/22/15. Listen weekly on the radio, Wednesdays at 4:54 p.m.)
