An Odyssey:
Kelso and the Ultimate Cribbing Collar
When Kelso went gunning for his second Horse of the Year award in summer 1961, the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) syndicate plastered the U.S. with a light-hearted pen portrait of Mrs. Richard C. (Allaire) du Pont’s popular gelding:
“Kelso is so darned normal that if he were a human being he would be a crashing bore and death of a party.
“Unlike many great turf stars, Kelly, as he is known around the stables, has no idiosyncrasies. Not for him special diets of artichokes, watercress sandwiches, bamboo sprouts or such flapdoodle. He has no special pets such as ponies, pigs or Afghan hounds.”
Time would show that this wasn’t exactly true. Although Kelso’s various canine barn buddies weren’t exotic breeds, the Bohemia Stable star did drink only Mountain Valley water shipped from Hot Springs, Arkansas, after colicking at Saratoga in late July 1962. In a July 26, 1963, Newsday article by Lou DeFichy, groom Lawrence Joseph Fitzpatrick revealed: “At times he’s a little anxious when you wash him and sometimes he bites me when I rub him. I guess the brush tickles him. He’ll even try and take a bite at me when I’m cleaning the stall.” By 1964, Kelly was bedding down on extra-cushiony sugar cane material to ease his stifles (the large hind leg joint between the hip and hock). But he still could be feisty. Exercise rider Dick Jenkins would tell The Louisville Times sports editor Dean Eagle in late 1964, “Even now, you have to watch him because he’s always looking for an excuse to wheel [around with a rider up]. He gets mad when he doesn’t find one.”
Crashing bore? Death of a party? Kelso made each day lively. His trainer, Carl Hanford, and his groom both said he was mighty intelligent, too (a trait that Thoroughbred racing’s all-time greats tend to have in common). Groom Fitzpatrick called him “a playful horse” while mentioning that time Kelly kicked his thigh during the 1963 Hialeah, Florida, winter meet. “I still got the bruise but he didn’t mean it,” the groom told Lou DeFichy that July, while touching the sore spot.
Beyond his “playful” behavior, Kelso had a habit that horse people call a vice. Turf writer Lou DeFichy spilled the beans in Newsday on July 26, 1963:
