From Paddock to Penthouse

From Paddock to Penthouse – A Horses Tail

So, curious to know a little more about old Monty are we? I can hardly blame you. After all I am a fascinating creature. Pull up a chaise lounge, grab yourself a snifter of brandy and a nice fat Cuban and let uncle Monatgue tell you all about it.

I wasn’t always the impeccable sophisticate you see before you now. I come from humble beginnings on a small country farm in a dreary town whose name I shall not sully your ears by mentioning. But I always knew I was destined for better things, and one long ago spring morning when I was just a colt, I seized my opportunity to make the world my own.  Approached from behind by a pustulant farm hand brandishing rusty gelding shears, I threw one well-placed kick to the unsuspecting brute’s head, leapt over the paddock fence, and never looked back.

It wasn’t easy at first; eating rotting apples from abandoned orchards (more worm than fruit), endless miles wandering over rocky ground under relentless summer sun, quenching my thirst downstream from a hippy commune on their annual bathing day, and those desperate days when simple survival meant providing my services to rich old mares in retirement barns in the Hamptons. But as fate would have it, it was in this darkest time when I caught my first real break. One of the broken down old nags had been Morrissey’s polo pony. It turns out he’s a pretty upright sort of a lad and he would come by on his visits to New York to see her. That man was always already with a carrot to stick in your mouth, and we soon became fast friends.

It was Morrissey who introduced me to the right people, the best places and the finest things. He gave me my first smoking jacket, showed me the right way to hold a cup of tea (not easy with hooves), and introduced me to his many mono-monikered friends…Sting, Oprah, Secretariat. It was quite a ride. Parties at the Lake Como palazzo, skiing the Alps with Di and her “driver”, and of course my legendary performances on the track. I could go on but, well…you’ve all seen the movie.

But what does an old stallion do when the curtain falls? When your legs are worn like a broken ballerina’s? When a sweet juicy carrot no longer thrills? After the parties, the winner’s circles, and the pretty stable boys? When even the thought of kicking paparazzi square in the groin no longer brings a twinkle to your eye? Well for me, I knew it was time to retire. Not just from the track, but from the brat packing lifestyle. I tried going back to the Hamptons where it had all started. Then the Riviera, the Bahamas, Miami, Monte Carlo. But everywhere I went, they were there. The pretenders, the hangers-on, the gossips and the flotsam and jetsam of the high life. I needed to find a place where my big city tastes could meld with my humble country beginnings and I could live out my days in luxury and relative anonymity.

Tally-Ho…to Victoria!

 

Recommended Listening: “Last of the Famous International Playboys” by Morrissey