by Larry Chowning
Wayne Mount, 76, of Saluda was honored at Colonial Downs race track in New Kent on Saturday, August 24, in celebration of his birthday and for being the oldest exercise rider and pony boy at the track.
The race announcer interviewed Mount and the interview was aired over simulcast radio and television channels.
The job of an exercise rider is to work out horses in the morning before the races, and a pony boy leads horses to the starting gate for the evening races.
Mount has been associated with horses most of his life. He grew up in New Jersey where his father had horses. “I’ve been racing and breaking horses since I was 10 years old,” he said.
“My father loved horses and he taught me how to break horses,” said Mount. “We did a lot of racing at state and county fairs. Our horses weren’t very fast but by going to the races we got to know a lot of people in the horse business.”
As a young man, Mount landed a job breaking thoroughbred horses at Garden State Park in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Later, he moved to Florida and landed a job breaking horses in 1962. While in Florida, renowned horse trainer Casey Hayes approached him about working at The Meadows Stables in Doswell.
Meadows Stables was owned by the famous thoroughbred race horse owner Christopher Chenery. The farm was home to two of the most famous race horses of all time—Secretariat and Riva Ridge. Secretariat won the triple crown in 1973 in three record-setting races and is considered the greatest thoroughbred of all times.
The film “Secretariat,” aired in 2010 by Walt Disney Pictures, chronicles the life of the famous race horse. Mount, however, said the movie did not capture the true personalities of the people working at Meadows Stables.
