The Eighty-Dollar Champion: Snowman, the Horse That Inspired a Nation

In February 1956, Harry de Leyer, a young Dutch immigrant and riding instructor at the Knox School, an all-girls boarding school on Long Island, arrived late to the New Holland horse auction in Pennsylvania. The largest horse auction east of the Mississippi drew racetrack trainers, farmers, and stable owners; horses that found no buyers were sold to kill buyers, dealers who purchase horses for slaughter. By the time Harry arrived, only a truck loaded with slaughter-bound horses remained. Peering through the slatted sides, he noticed a big gray gelding (a castrated male horse) standing quietly amid the chaos. The animal was in terrible shape: matted coat, open wounds on both knees, a missing shoe, and harness scars from pulling a plow. Harry sensed a spark of life in the horse's calm brown eyes and paid eighty dollars to take him home.

That evening, the truck delivered the gray to Harry's small converted chicken farm in St. James, Long Island. His four-year-old daughter Harriet spotted snow dusting the horse's haunches and declared he looked like a snowman. The name stuck. Over the following weeks, the de Leyer family nursed the horse back to health. Harry discovered Snowman had never been ridden, but the horse accepted a saddle and rider without bucking and proved gentle enough for the children to ride bareback.

Harry moved Snowman to the Knox School's grand stable on a former Long Island estate. The school enforced rigid rules, but Harry's riding program gave the girls a welcome escape. He pushed the girls to be brave, drawing on his own wartime courage: As a thirteen-year-old in Nazi-occupied Holland, he had driven a horse cart past armed checkpoints to smuggle grain to his school. Among the school horses, Snowman was the quiet mount for timid beginners.

The author situates Snowman's story within the broader decline of the American horse population at midcentury. In 1950, six million horses remained in the country, but that number dropped by half over the next decade as tractors replaced plow horses. European draft breeds had been crossbred with thoroughbreds for generations, meaning a plain-looking horse at auction could carry distinguished bloodlines beneath a rough exterior.

When summer arrived and Knox closed, Harry sold Snowman to a neighboring doctor for $160, retaining first right to buy the horse back. Within days, Snowman jumped out of his pasture and appeared at Harry's barn, having cleared multiple five-foot fences across miles of countryside. Even after Harry tied him to a large rubber tire, Snowman turned up dragging the tire behind him. Harry bought the horse back, recognizing extraordinary heart and a jumping ability he had entirely overlooked.

The book traces Harry's path to America. He and his wife Johanna arrived in Hoboken, New Jersey, in August 1950 with only $160. They sharecropped on a tobacco farm in North Carolina, but the crop failed. At the North Carolina State Fair, Harry rode a plow horse to a blue ribbon, catching the eye of Mickey Walsh, a legendary steeplechase rider who helped him find work with horses. Captain Vladimir Littauer, a renowned horseman, eventually recommended Harry for the Knox position.

Harry began systematic jump training, setting up cavaletti (low training rails) and small fences. Snowman stumbled and showed no aptitude, stepping over obstacles rather than jumping them. Then one day, Harry entered the ring with fences already set at four feet for another horse. On impulse, he pointed Snowman at the big jump. The gray soared over it with room to spare. Harry raised the fences to five, six, and six and a half feet, and Snowman cleared each effortlessly. The horse needed fences high enough to command his respect.

At the North Shore Horse Show in September 1957, Snowman won a junior jumping class and placed third in the green jumper division, a class for inexperienced horses. Harry also campaigned his thoroughbred Sinjon at the 1957 National Horse Show, where the horse earned fourth place, but Sinjon's owner gave the horse to the U.S. Equestrian Team. Harry's only remaining hope for a champion was Snowman.

The 1958 season transformed everything. At the Sands Point Horse Show, Snowman defeated Andante, the two-time national champion. When Snowman gashed his pastern, the lower part of his leg above the hoof, during Saturday's class, Harry spent the night icing the wound. The horse went clean the next day to win the championship. Publicist Marie Lafrenz dubbed him the Cinderella Horse, and the story ran in the New York Herald Tribune. Through the summer, Snowman captured championships at Fairfield and other shows. Harry battled a cancer scare when a tongue tumor was diagnosed as malignant, but the biopsy slide had been mixed up with another patient's; the tumor was benign.

At the Piping Rock Horse Show in September, Snowman faced Diamant, an expensive German import owned by prominent horsewoman Eleonora Sears and ridden by U.S. Equestrian Team member Frank Chapot. Snowman won the Blitz Memorial Gold Challenge, the show's marquee jumper prize. Because Harry could not leave Knox for the fall indoor circuit, professional rider Dave Kelley rode Snowman at the Washington International Horse Show, winning the open jumper championship before President Eisenhower. Harry followed the results by telephone and vowed to ride before the president himself someday.

At the 1958 National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden, Harry and Snowman battled through eight grueling days. After a rocky start, Snowman won his first blue ribbon at the Garden after two tie-breaking rounds against First Chance, a talented young mare. Lafrenz arranged an appearance on The Tonight Show, where guest host Johnny Carson climbed onto Snowman's back on live television. On the final night, Snowman delivered the only clean round, clinching the championship and completing the horse show Triple Crown: the American Horse Shows Association (AHSA) Horse of the Year, the Professional Horseman's Association (PHA) Championship, and the National Horse Show Championship.

Real estate magnate Bert Firestone offered Harry a blank check. Harry declined, saying the horse was not for sale. In 1959, Snowman earned Horse of the Year again, becoming the first horse to win both the PHA and AHSA honors two years running. Life magazine published a multi-page feature, and the family toured the country giving exhibitions.

At the 1960 Washington International, Harry fulfilled his vow to ride before the president, and Snowman took the overall show championship. At the 1960 National Horse Show, Trail Guide, the last horse of the American cavalry, broke his neck in a fall and was euthanized in the darkened arena. The tragedy reinforced Harry's resolve never to push Snowman too hard.

Harry and Johanna purchased a forty-acre dairy farm near Knox and converted it into Hollandia Farms, with Snowman's hoofprints set in concrete near the barn entrance. The horse entered fewer competitions and spent his later years as a lesson horse and family companion. In 1969, he received a retirement ceremony at Madison Square Garden, parading through the arena in a blanket of roses to a standing ovation.

In the fall of 1974, Snowman's kidneys failed. When the time came, the horse refused to leave his stall for anyone but Harry. Harry grasped the lead rope and led his horse out to the pasture under the pine trees, stroking Snowman's neck as the horse closed his eyes for the last time. Harry drove away and did not return for two days. The epilogue recounts Harry's later life: A severe 2005 back injury nearly ended his riding career, but he drew strength from Snowman's memory and, at seventy-seven, competed at the Washington International Horse Show once more. Snowman's gravestone remains under the pine trees, where visitors still come to pay their respects.