Old Stewball

Joel once bought a horse with his daughter Jen and they traveled across the I-90 west to go watch that horse race at the Fairgrounds in Saratoga.

He was Old Stewball meets Black Stallion – fast, raw, a fairytale. But Joel and Jen didn’t buy that horse for the money or fame. Before their horse retired, they took their winnings and bought a horse of a different color, this one much slower and oft injured, seemingly on his last leg, but on race day it poured like the rain in Spain and, wouldn’t you know it, that aging horse mucked her way to a win, like OId Rosebud circa 1916.

The last time Joel and his daughter went to the races was August 2016. Joel’s Parkinson’s has sidelined those summer trips to the Fairgrounds, and kept Jen from watching dad’s excitement down the stretch. On Saturday, amid a Kentucky Derby-like downpour, Jen married Craig with 12 others by her side.

Dad wasn’t there, held up at the nursing home, crippled by a disease that is pulling away his cognitive function, his movement and speech. But a day later, Jen took the cash from her Aunt Linda’s Hallmark and bought a couple cups of coffee and a few anisette cookies and popped a squat with her dad on the nursing home grounds.

Joel didn’t say much but it didn’t matter. The disease may have won yesterday, but not on this day, and if stem cell researchers continue to find ways to stop deterioration in Parkinson’s patients, maybe, just maybe, Jen and her old man will have another ride around the track.