Goodbye, John Henry.

So long my friend.

John Henry 1991-2011

Kathleen Conklin, “John Henry’s human”, knew she had to be part of his life the moment she laid eyes on him in an Amish mule dealer’s barn in Lancaster County, PA. on a cold winter night in 1994. The impressive force of his charisma is rare among equines. He usually wasn’t hard to notice. 1200 pounds of 16.2 hand, black shiny Percheron Mule with 12” ears. Hard to be wallflower. Plus he had the uncanny ability to launch a loud, clear, friendly bellow at the precise moment that doing so would have the most powerful effect in a crowd of people and horses. We smiled. Everyone knew who it was and they were glad to have met John Henry. He even gave the lucky ones a kiss.

John Henry began educating Kathleen about mules as a 3 year old. He knew only how to be tied and to be lead. He would not let anyone touch him. What an education he would provide! And what a fortunate mule he was to have Kathleen to work his magic on. She was receptive. Dedicated. Horse smart. Kind and fair. She always did everything the right way for John Henry.

His competition championships stretch from Shelbyville to Saratoga to Gladstone to GMHA to Lorenzo….and to Walnut Hill. The prestigious summit of carriage driving … Walnut Hill! A Mule at walnut Hill!?! Imagine that. Invited there, even. A barrier broken. John Henry was a champion or reserve champion at Walnut Hill 6 of the last 7 years. Few that saw him will forget the turnout: the restored royal blue butcher’s cart with bright yellow trim and Kathleen absolutely correctly appointed in her blue and white striped apron. Every detail meticulously researched and executed. But the joke was on Walnut Hill. A mule would never have been used to pull a butcher’s cart! Only fast horses like hackneys’ would be able to make the rounds before the meat spoiled. But still he won and won and won. Always loved that joke. It was impossible not to smile at John Henry.

Few know that it was John Henry that caused the United States Equine Federation to overturn a 50 year ban on mules in competition. Mules were banned because their exceptional skills beat society’s horses. They were reinstated because of the skillful ambassadorship of John Henry and Kathleen. It was hard to say no to John Henry. A barrier broken with a smile.

I taught John Henry and Kathleen to dance in preparation for an invitational musical Kur at a meeting of the American Driving Society in Fair Hill, Maryland. How could I say no? But what music to use? This had to be special. The choice? I knew it the second I heard it. Canned Heat’s “Too Much Giddyup (Not Enough Whoa)”. Look it up. It was perfect. And of course John Henry was his usual superlative self and made everyone smile again.

John Henry’s legend is larger than space allows to tell it all here. His magic broke down barriers too numerous to list, but…. and I speak for the horsemen that knew him… in a lifetime, we count on the fingers of one hand the good horses by whom we measure all the rest. John Henry will always be at the top of our list. A mule on the top of the list? Imagine that! We are truly privileged to have known the magnificent John Henry.

“Take this hammer, and carry it to the captain,

Tell him I'm gone, tell him I'm gone”. 

A prison work song about John Henry, attributed to Leadbelly

Swimming in Cement: Sholokhov

A monument of a herd of horses followed by the writer Sholokhov in his boat crossing a river made of cement celebrating the legacy of writer on Gogolevsky Boulevard, Moscow, Russia. Mikhail Sholokhov is known all over the world as the author of the novel “And Quiet Flows the Don”, perhaps the most widely read book of Soviet fiction. He was awarded a Nobel Prize for it. The monument was inaugurated on the 24th of May 2007, on the author's 102nd birthday anniversary. The complicated sculpture was created by Russian national artist - Alexander Rukavishnikov*; the architect, member of the International Architectural Academy - Igor Voskresensky, and sculptors Iulian and Philip Rukavishnikov. The author is depicted sitting in the fishing boat. At the background of the composition there is a high relief that depicts the flow of the imaginary river, horses are swimming in two different directions into eternity, symbolizing the split of the Motherland, “the white” and “the red”, during the Civil War.

Perhaps the greatest feud of Soviet literary history involved Sholokhov and Aleksandr Solzhenitzsyn, who despised one another. Sholokhov wrote a scathing review of Solzhenitzsyn's work, and Solzhenitzsyn accused Sholokhov of plagiarism. (The plagiarism charge was ultimately proven to be false.) Many Moscow residents dislike the monument intensely--Sholokhov had nothing to do with Moscow, they say, and should not be memorialized in the city--certainly not on the street named Gogol Boulevard, The underlying issue seems to be that he's a Soviet author, and these latter days are a problematic time for monuments to Soviet authors.

      *The sculptor, Alexander Rukavishnikov,  is known as the creator of the monument to Fyodor Dostoevsky set up in front of the Russian State Library, and the monument to Yury Nikulin in Tsvetnoy Boulevard.