Interview with Ronald "Tex" Cauthen, January 21, 2009

SMITH: All right, this is Kim Lady Smith. And today is--I'm gonna turn this down a little bit. Today is January 21st, 2009. I'm at the home of Ronald Tex Cauthen, in, um, Walton, Kentucky, doing an interview for the University of Kentucky's Horse Industry Oral History Project. So, Mr. Walton, to get started, if I could have you tell me your name, your full name, and when and where you were born.

CAUTHEN: Uh, my name is Ronald Cauthen. And I was born in Muleshoe, Texas.

SMITH: What was the name of that?

CAUTHEN: Muleshoe.

SMITH: Muleshoe?

CAUTHEN: Yes.

SMITH: (laughs) Okay. Never heard of that.

CAUTHEN: And raised at Sweetwater.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: Which has one of the biggest concentrations of electrical producing windmills at the moment. And who would a dreamed that wind 00:01:00would have been worth something? (both laugh) It certainly blows all the time. (laughs)

SMITH: That's true. (laughs) So what year were you born?

CAUTHEN: Nineteen thirty-two.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: In February. So I'm--

SMITH: So you're--

CAUTHEN: -- pretty close to seventy-seven.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: I'm seventy-six at the moment.

SMITH: For a few more weeks.

CAUTHEN: For a few more weeks. (Smith laughs) Yes.

SMITH: Okay. Um, well that sort of answers one of my questions about, uh, where you got the nickname.

CAUTHEN: I went from Texas to New Orleans, and I had a cowboy hat and high heel boots and the mudbugs couldn't understand. They said I talked to slow and they couldn't understand me. And I couldn't understand a word they were saying. (both laugh) So it was almost like 00:02:00being in a foreign--talking a foreign language.

SMITH: Oh my.

CAUTHEN: Uh, so it was quite an experience. But anyway, they, they didn't fool with Ronald. It went to Tex and it kind of stuck.

SMITH: Okay. Now the--uh, how old were you then when you moved here?

CAUTHEN: Fifteen.

SMITH: Okay. Let's go back to, uh, to Texas. And tell me, uh, who your parents were and what your dad did for a living.

CAUTHEN: Uh, my mother was a, uh, uh, housewife. Her name was Leafy Car-, --

SMITH: Leafy?

CAUTHEN: Leafy.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: Leafy Cauthen. And, um, my father's name was George--Speedy was his nickname. Uh, I didn't--they were divorced very early so my grandfather actually--my mother and my grandfather raised me. His name was J.R. Carson, uh, and that's where we lived. He was a farmer. And 00:03:00I'm gonna tell you, that part of Texas is not farm country. (laughs)

SMITH: Oh.

CAUTHEN: He'd a been a multimillionaire if he'd a been raised in Illinois. (laughs)

SMITH: Oh no.

CAUTHEN: But anyway, he made a living. And I wanted to be a cowboy, was my aspiration. And--

SMITH: Did your grandfather have horses? Or what, what--

CAUTHEN: Uh--

SMITH: --what kind of a farm was it?

CAUTHEN: --uh, raised--had, had cows. I didn't know he had horses. Uh, but apparently was from Ten-, they were from Tennessee, he was from Tennessee. Uh, but apparently we found some old pictures afterwards and he had a stallion. And he owned a stallion--

SMITH: Oh.

CAUTHEN: --and quite a few mares from somewhere. But I didn't-- I knew- -didn't know this at all. We had a couple of work-horses and a couple mules was the horse livestock that we had.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: And there was a real good race mare born, it, from Sweetwater, 00:04:00Panzaretta.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: Uh, she started a hundred, I think, five times if I'm not mistaken, and won seventy-eight of them.

SMITH: That was--

CAUTHEN: So she was kind of a, a champion of that era.

SMITH: Now, so she was owned--

CAUTHEN: And--

SMITH: --by your grandfather?

CAUTHEN: Oh no, no, not--

SMITH: Just, just from that--

CAUTHEN: Mose Newman's, from that ar-, from that area. And I didn't even know that when I was there.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, there was, uh, one of the Proctor's, J.D., worked on a ranch near one of my uncles. And Willard Proctor had send four Thoroughbreds down there, one stallion, he had a big ole ankle, and as I recall he was a nice looking horse. But I didn't have a clue about Thoroughbreds at that time.

SMITH: Okay. So did you live on the farm, your grandfather's--

CAUTHEN: Lived on the--

SMITH: --farm?

CAUTHEN: --farm. Had horses. Rode bare-- you know, rode 'em. Didn't own a saddle. Didn't have the means to get one. Rode bareback. Uh, 00:05:00and had--got an English or a plantation saddle. And I must a fell off of that thing a hundred times. (both laugh) So anyway, I just--but, uh, you know, this wasn't unusual. About everybody--most people there or a great portion of the people, you know, had horses, rode horses.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: We'd catch the neighbor's milk cows and ride them, play cowboy. (laughs) Of course they didn't know about it. (laughs)

SMITH: Did you have, uh, did you have siblings?

CAUTHEN: I have two sisters quite a lot younger than me. They were born around '42, about ten years younger. Uh, and they live in--that--we were out in New Mexico at that time. And that was World War II and, uh, my mother had remarried. My stepfather went in the Army and, uh, so we came back to Texas and, uh, they grew up there. And then--they 00:06:00had a farm in Oklahoma. And they moved up there. One of 'em still lives on it.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: Uh, and the other lives in Denver. So I didn't really interact with them very much because I was around, probably for three or four years.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: And then I went to the racetrack and traveled.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: I went to New Orleans and then to Keeneland, Churchill and Detroit was the circuit that we raced on.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: And Beulah Park.

SMITH: So tell me how you got interested in, in working with horses.

CAUTHEN: I wanted to be a cowboy. So you, you rode. Uh, cowboys at that time got a hundred dollars a month in Texas. And they paid me sixty. (laughs) So I was working for two dollars a day, and that was 00:07:00after I got to be about thirteen or four-, thirteen I guess. I broke broncs. And so that's how I got started in it. And one of my uncles raced horses in Texas at San Angelo. So I went down there and there was a, a banker from Robert Lee, and they had--he had two horses for them. They were gonna take 'em to New Orleans, asked me if I'd go with him and help him. So I decided I'd go. And that's how I got to New Orleans. And of course, very fortunately, I always had somebody looking out for me for some--I was--

SMITH: That's pretty young.

CAUTHEN: Yeah, well it's--but see, it was a different world then. It's not the same world that it is now. And a different part of the world too.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: I mean it wasn't--everybody went to work then when you were big enough. They didn't, there wasn't any, I--when I was about eleven 00:08:00years old I was getting a quarter an hour to rub Hereford calves-- (laughs)--and took some to the Fat Stock Show, I think, when I was about twelve at Fort Worth. And that's about two hundred and fifty miles from Sweetwater. Uh--

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: --and they, the man I was working for give me a, a handful of money, more than I'd ever seen--(laughs)--and I went. There wasn't anybody--and a bunch of other kids went. It was a, a 4-H kind of a thing.

SMITH: What about school? Were you--

CAUTHEN: I went to school until I went to New Orleans.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: Uh, and I left in, uh--they had eleven grades then and it--this was about, well it was--I started when everyone started in the fall. And I left in about November.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: And I went to New Orleans and then I was six-, I turned 00:09:00sixteen, so I didn't finish school.

SMITH: Okay. Okay.

CAUTHEN: I took a GED thing and, when I was in the Army and, uh, got a degree.

SMITH: Okay, so--

CAUTHEN: And--

SMITH: --you were fifteen and you left home to go to New Orleans. Were you--was that supposed to be a temporary job?

CAUTHEN: No.

SMITH: Okay. (Cauthen laughs) Okay.

CAUTHEN: It was gone because I decided I wasn't gonna stay in Texas.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: And I mean it was acceptable--

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: --to my mother--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --my grandfather. You know, they didn't, uh--it wasn't something--but I mean they took kids out of school then, not everybody, but a lot of people. Uh, my generation was probably one of the first ones that went on to college, finish high school and went on to college.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, I've got quite a few cousins that went on to college. But 00:10:00we didn't have any money. So there wasn't a--that wasn't gonna happen. You was gonna get a job doing something. And I picked cotton for a penny a pound, by hand. And I'm gonna tell you something, I could only pick about two hundred and something--(laughs)--pounds on the very best day I ever had. (laughs)

SMITH: Oh my.

CAUTHEN: So this was not a--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: These were choices that were made for you, more or less, you know. You, you didn't, uh--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: I hear people complain about what they've got now. They don't know how well off they are when times are bad. Uh--

SMITH: That's true.

CAUTHEN: And I mean I don't feel like I was ever deprived of anything. I, I had a, as much opportunity. And if I'd a really wanted to go to school, I could have probably done it. But I didn't have the knowledge to know what, how to go about it.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Uh--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --and I didn't have--anyway, I just didn't, didn't know how to approach people and ask--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --for something that I might, might or might not a got. You know, you--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --you didn't realize if people said no it didn't--wasn't the end of the world, you just asked somebody else. (laughs)

SMITH: Did you have friends, um, that were around your age that were off working doing kind of the same thing in Texas? Did you have other--

CAUTHEN: I wasn't--I, I, we didn't--my cousins were about the only friends I had other than the ones at school.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: Uh, and, uh, so the great portion of 'em had, uh, had families that, uh, I--one of my uncles had two, a boy and a girl, younger than me, both--and he was working for a hundred dollars a month on a farm 00:12:00when I was getting a hundred and sixty. And my granddad let me have two mules, and I'd go devil's (??) cotton one summer and I got five dollars a day. Uh, and I didn't realize it at the time, but the mules were worth more than me. And he was working--uh, this was on the same farm that my uncle worked for, worked on. And, uh, and he was getting--

SMITH: And this was ----------(??)?

CAUTHEN: --a hundred dollars a month.

SMITH: Huh.

CAUTHEN: And I, I would make--well, let's see, I'd make, uh, six-, I'd make thirty, thirty, sixty--I'd make a hundred twenty dollars or so a month. I was--but the mules were actually what was making and they were very angry with my father--grandfather because he had loaned me the, he gave, he gave me the mules. You know, he was giving me a way to work--

SMITH: Right.

CAUTHEN: --that's what he was doing. And of course I didn't--I mean, and he didn't give any of them that because he didn't have, he didn't 00:13:00have the means to do it when they were growing up.

SMITH: Okay, I see.

CAUTHEN: And by the time I came along, uh, he was pretty well set. So he didn't have to--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --and he didn't have any children to raise.

SMITH: Right.

CAUTHEN: Uh, but, I guess in my opinion they raised labor is what-- that's what big families were for at that time.

SMITH: Um-hm. Um-hm. Now tell me again who you went to Louisiana with. Who ----------(??).

CAUTHEN: Uh, a man called Lee, from Robert Lee, Texas. And he--his son had been around and I got, I got, I got on the horses and rode them for them. They had one nice horse. Uh, we were down there not too long. They had a, a nice horse. Uh, his name was Texas Portden (??), uh.

SMITH: What was the last part?

CAUTHEN: Portden (??). He was a, a rem-, from, from a remount horse 00:14:00from the Army that was raised in Texas.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: And he could run. I mean he was a nice little horse. Uh, he would have been probably an allowance horse now. I think he was second, just got, didn't get beat too far for, I think, his 3250 or something. And that was, uh--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --they run thousand dollar races there. So that would've been- -he would a probably been an allowance horse in today's racing.

SMITH: He was a Thoroughbred?

CAUTHEN: He was a Thoroughbred. And they had a filly and I don't remember what her name was. They sold her. She could run some, but she wasn't--and he sold her for I think, twenty-five hundred. And I had a choice of going back to Texas and work for them on the ranch or staying in New Orleans. And I chose to stay in New Orleans.

SMITH: Hmm, I have to ask, what was New Orleans like at that time for a--

CAUTHEN: It was a great place.

SMITH: --a sixteen-year-old?

CAUTHEN: Well, you know, people always took care of you. There was 00:15:00always somebody around that didn't let you get in trouble. Or there was around me anyway, I'll put that. And there was absolutely anything that you could imagine there. People were nice. You could get a, a half a loaf of Frank's bread made into a poor boy sandwich for a quarter, which was a big meal.

SMITH: Yeah.

CAUTHEN: You could go into a cafe and get a plate full of beans and, um, French bread or cornbread, whichever, uh, and rice and sausages, you know, those sausages for a half a buck. And you could have a steak dinner for a buck, buck fifteen or something like that.

SMITH: And this was the late forties probably?

CAUTHEN: Would have been '47.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: I saw Citation win the Derby. We came up and it was so--and that was '48. So that would a been '47 when I went to--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --New Orleans.

SMITH: What'd you think of, uh, the Derby? Was that your first Derby?

CAUTHEN: First Derby. I thought they looked like a bunch of ri-, bicycle riders. And, uh, Eddie Arcaro rode a horse for us and he had an ankle as big as a teapot, great big ole osselet. And should a won as far as you could knock a golf ball. And of course he looked at his ankle, I'm sure, he was just riding him to get a feel of the racetrack.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, he hadn't been riding her and he--he just gave him a very sanitary trip around there and I hated him.

SMITH: Ah.

CAUTHEN: Steve Brooks rode him the next time. And he won by about seven or eight. (both laugh)

SMITH: What was the horse's name?

CAUTHEN: You know, I'm not sure, but I think it was Alaflag.

SMITH: Alaflame?

CAUTHEN: A-l-a-f-l-a-g.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: But I'm, I'm not absolutely sure of that. But Al Wellman was the trainer and owner.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: (laughs) So you could go back to a chart and put me down, certainly find it. (laughs)

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: It's--

SMITH: So now he, he was, he brought you up from Louisiana to see the--

CAUTHEN: Uh, well I went to work for him. I was working--

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: --for him and came up. I was a, a groom first and, uh, then I, uh, they put me u-, I could ride. But I didn't know how to ride exercise saddles, which was very hard to--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --to learn how to do. You put your feet in front of you, uh, bareback and stocks out, you set 'em in front a little bit. But--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --bareback you ride. So every time the horse do something kind of jumpy or spooky, I'd jerk my feet back behind me and if, if they do 00:18:00anything very serious you fall off. (laughs)

SMITH: Oh, okay.

CAUTHEN: So I eventually--there was people that were, I was working with that they kept telling me what to do, and eventually I figured it out. (laughs)

SMITH: So what were your job responsibilities when, as a young man--

CAUTHEN: Take--

SMITH: --starting out?

CAUTHEN: --take care of four horses. Feed 'em, water, clean their stalls, get 'em ready and then I started learn some riding on--along with that.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: And I got fifty a week for that.

SMITH: For doing all that?

CAUTHEN: Yeah. And it was, you know, basically you stayed in a barn, so you had a place to stay. You had to feed yourself. And I--after, uh, hmm, a long--first I thought it was great to eat in restaurants. And 00:19:00then you eventually got to where you didn't--I could tell you what was on the menu without looking--(laughs)--because it was kind of a cut and dried--

SMITH: Yeah.

CAUTHEN: --thing. So I tried to cook some beans. I'd burn about three pots to get one cooked. (both laugh) Didn't have a clue about what-- how to do it. And a hot plate.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Pot. But it was--I enjoyed it. I really, I really liked it. You know, the--a lot of the things you really enjoy, it's a shame you can't make a living at. (laughs)

SMITH: I agree with that. What, um, so basically you lived on the backside?

CAUTHEN: Yeah.

SMITH: Were there's other people?

CAUTHEN: Oh every--

SMITH: Every--

CAUTHEN: --everybody lived there, practically. In fact, uh, some fairly prominent trainers and so forth lived on the backside. It's very convenient because you just get up, walk out and do whatever you're 00:20:00gonna do. And you can go back into your tack room, lay down, rest, sleep. You don't--you're there.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: And if something happens, you're there. You know, if a horse gets cast you're aware of it. Or if something happens--

SMITH: Um-hm. Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: So it's, it's actually good. I, I like it. And I would probably prefer it today, given a choice. The bad thing was the people that lived there, most--a lot of 'em didn't take very good care of, like, the showers where you can clean up and things like that. That was inconvenient. That was, that was not too good.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: But I liked, I liked, I enjoyed that.

SMITH: Hmm. Hmm. Now, um, so how long were you--is this the Fair Grounds? Is this the track?

CAUTHEN: Yeah, um-hm. We are at the Fair Grounds there. We raced there in the winter. Uh, they didn't start--we stayed down there two 00:21:00or three weeks after the meet usually and grazed the horses. We would worm them and give 'em a physic ball, clean 'em out, just kind of freshen 'em up. And then we'd come to Keeneland and there was a couple week meet there. And then if the bad horses, the cheaper horses, we went to Beulah Park for a couple of years. I don't--I did that for about two years I think.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, and, uh--

SMITH: How'd you like the traveling?

CAUTHEN: Oh, I thought it was fine. I, I thought this was the most beautiful country I'd ever seen in my life. The part of Texas where I was raised was brown and dry and it was green really for about a couple week--as I remember it, a couple of weeks in the spring.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: And then it was brown and dry again.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: The only thing green was the mesquite trees and machinery (??). (laughs) And New Orleans I--there's so much grey and moss, I didn't 00:22:00remember that as being, you know, really neat looking. But I, I came up to Keeneland and that's the coldest place in the world, up on that hill with that wind blowing. I didn't have the right kind of clothes.

SMITH: Oh.

CAUTHEN: Didn't know what to get. And there wasn't that good a clothes then. You know, wool was probably the warmest thing. They didn't--if there was any goose-down, I didn't--they didn't anybody know anything about that.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, so--

SMITH: When you came to Keeneland, did you stay on the backside of Keeneland as well?

CAUTHEN: Stayed on the backside at Keeneland. Uh, and I don't recall, but I don't think it was that year, but I think, I think it was the next year I was in Keeneland and they had what they called a baby tornado that we got blown away in--(laughs)--

SMITH: Oh.

CAUTHEN: --literally. Uh, one fellow got killed. They didn't anybody 00:23:00in our barn get killed.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: It blowed the roofs of the barns and both ends off, and we wound up in a ditch, oh, as far as from here out to--

SMITH: Oh, this is at--

CAUTHEN: --the front of the house.

SMITH: Keeneland?

CAUTHEN: I woke up in a roll away bed and it was folding up, and I'm going up towards the corner. (laughs)

SMITH: Oh no.

CAUTHEN: But nobody got--you know, didn't anybody get hurt other than--

SMITH: One.

CAUTHEN: And Keen-, Keeneland very kindly, they took us down. Mr. Bassett was a--not Mr. Bassett, uh, oh, can't think of his name. Uh--

SMITH: Uh, Haggin or Headley?

CAUTHEN: No, the--he was, uh, um, he went to Hot Springs and has been down there and was there--was president of Hot Springs at, at, uh, and he was at Keeneland. He was a very precise kind of a gentleman.

SMITH: I'm thinking--

CAUTHEN: Can't think of his name.

SMITH: --it was, uh, Major Beard.

CAUTHEN: No.

SMITH: Hal Price Headley. Bishop.

CAUTHEN: Nope.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: No, uh, I can't, anyway, I can't think of his name. I, I just- -my memory's not as good as--

SMITH: That's okay. That's okay.

CAUTHEN: --could, could be. But, uh, anyway, they took us downtown, bought us all clothes, all fresh, all our clothes, everything was gone. I mean, literally, it, it was just gone.

SMITH: Oh.

CAUTHEN: The only thing left on the concrete slab was two cans of gasoline. And that's the only thing I could--when I--when we hid out there, I hollered, "Don't strike any matches." It--didn't move the gasoline. And somebody else said, "Don't move around, the electric wires might be hot." (laughs)

SMITH: Did this happen at night?

CAUTHEN: Yeah, about three or four in the morning.

SMITH: Hmm. Hmm.

CAUTHEN: I don't--it was still dark, was dark for a while.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: But it was, uh, it was spooky. I didn't--

SMITH: So what did you, other than getting blown away, uh, what did you think of Keeneland when you first came here?

CAUTHEN: I thought it was cold. (both laugh)

SMITH: Cold and windy.

CAUTHEN: It was way out in the country. (laughs) It was hard to get anywhere, uh, and I had no transportation of course. Uh, but that--you know, I mean it was okay. Uh--

SMITH: Now did you go to Churchill as well?

CAUTHEN: I went to--

SMITH: ----------(??)

CAUTHEN: --Churchill. I watched. We were at a barn, there's a parking lot there now, right by the kitchen.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, and we got up on top of the barn and watched the Derby.

SMITH: Oh.

CAUTHEN: Uh, and I've gone, I've gone quite a few times to the backside and watched the Derby. Uh.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: And really the only Derby that I ever watched from the front side was when Steve won and I could have gone when Swaps won. I went 00:26:00to school with a fellow that worked on the ranch--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --for, uh, with Tenney. And they invited me to come down. And I was in Saint Louis with some horses at the time that was worth about two dead flies. (laughs) And I chose to stay with my horses rather than come to the Derby, which was one of the bad choices that I've made in life. (laughs)

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: I should have gone. I went to Chicago to watch him wor-, run in the match race with Nashua.

SMITH: Yeah. Yeah.

CAUTHEN: Uh, and it--

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: --I thought it was--

SMITH: So you--

CAUTHEN: --it was one of the things that you kind of--hey, he had a hole about the size of a dime through the sole of his foot. And they'd put a leather patch over it, uh--

SMITH: Now which horse?

CAUTHEN: Swaps.

SMITH: Swaps.

CAUTHEN: And he should a never run with, I didn't think--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --but they run him anyway. It was, you know, they had built it up so big that it would a had, uh, Ellsworth and them were very good friends of the lenders.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: They--anyway, they chose to run him. And, uh, I thought it was very unfair. And of course they didn't say anything. You know, they said they thought it might have bothered him. But I guarantee you it bothered him. (laughs)

SMITH: Yeah.

CAUTHEN: And I don't know whether he could outrun Nashua anyway. You know? But--

SMITH: Right. Um, so these first few years you were working primarily as a groom and an exercise rider?

CAUTHEN: I was a groom, an exercise boy, they, they made me stable foreman when I was about seventeen. (laughs)

SMITH: Now who were you working for then?

CAUTHEN: Al Wellman.

SMITH: Al Wellman. Okay.

CAUTHEN: Uh--

SMITH: ----------(??).

CAUTHEN: Uh, and, uh, then I quit. I went to Hot Springs in the winter 00:28:00of '50. Uh, and, uh, it was raining and sleeting and I had money, so I just laid in the motel for, till I ran out of money. (laughs) Uh, and then I went out and galloped some horse and tore all the hide off my legs because I didn't have boots on. (laughs)

SMITH: Oh no.

CAUTHEN: Or, you know, wore it off. Uh, and I, I liked Hot Springs. And then I went to work for Shorty McDonald--

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: --rubbing horses again. Uh, and then I--when that meeting was over, they'd brought that horse that had been--that I'd gone from Texas to New Orleans with up there, and he was a five year old then. They had turned him out. He was three. He had been turned out. And he was--they got him ready to run, run him, I think. And he didn't run, 00:29:00he run real bad.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: So they sold him to me on the cuff. Uh, which was pay me if he wins. (laughs) So I took him and I bought a pony and then I went to, from there to Beulah Park and got him shipped to Beulah Park, and the pony, and was gonna pony, and went up there and ponied the horses. And then I trained horses for a little bit. Uh, and I applied to Michigan State to go to horseshoeing school up there. Uh, and they drafted me in the Army. I was--I had gone up to, uh, I was at, uh, Wheeling. And, uh--

SMITH: West Virginia?

CAUTHEN: Very--West Virginia. And we'd gone over to what's Mountaineer now. It was Waterford Park then. And they had a big fire there. I 00:30:00had a per-, we had a pretty nice, I was training a pretty nice mare that we hadn't run. Uh, and it burned about four or five barns down. And all these horses got turned loose, and she was one of 'em. And about that time I, uh, and it-- we had another horse called Easter Dandy. So anyway, we--they'd been trying to figure out where I was at, the Army, and, and I got a letter from 'em that if I didn't show up in Cincinnati. I had a Cincinnati address, I'd lived here at one time, or stayed here, you know, when I was around here. And I got a letter from 'em that if I didn't show up, I think I got the letter, like, Thursday or Friday, if I didn't show up, uh, Monday or Tuesday for, be examined to go in the Army--(laughs)--that there'd be a warrant for my arrest. (laughs)

SMITH: Oh.

CAUTHEN: So I came down, uh, and incidentally didn't get into the horseshoeing school. They were--only, only could take thirteen people. So they were full. They had all they could handle. So I couldn't get in. And I don't know how I'd a paid for it anyway, but anyway-- (laughs)--uh--

SMITH: So, uh, you were drafted.

CAUTHEN: I was drafted in the Army. I went to, uh, they sent me to, uh, Fort Sill, Arkansas to take basic training. And then I went to Oklahoma and became a meteorologist for, for anti- aircraft guns and field artillery.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, I wanted to--I fooled around with ham radios, so I, I wanted to go to radio repair school. And of course they never let you do what you want to do. (laughs) So I became a meteorologist and they 00:32:00sent me to Panama.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: I went to New York and got on a boat and went to Panama. I spent about, I was in the Army eighteen months. So that's probably two and a half, three months of that training. So I was probably in Panama about fifteen months. And then I got out. Uh, and I really didn't conform real good to the Army. (laughs) But--

SMITH: So when--

CAUTHEN: --it--

SMITH: --when you left Panama you were out of the Army at that point?

CAUTHEN: Well they--I, yeah, I came back here to get out. I don't, I, I guess I mustered out here. They sent me back. I got back to here.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: And so--

SMITH: Did you--

CAUTHEN: --and so I went to training horses again.

SMITH: So now I want to ask you a little bit more about your military service but, when you went into the Army, did you have any horses that you owned at that time?

CAUTHEN: No. No.

SMITH: Okay, so you didn't--

CAUTHEN: No, no--

SMITH: --you weren't leaving any--

CAUTHEN: --no, I was training other people's horses.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: Because I, I'd, I became aware that you better have one that 00:33:00could run a little bit--(laughs)--or you didn't want to do it.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, and I, you know, they cost money then, even then, you know, and I--anyway, I never did get one that was a real runner. Uh--

SMITH: So in the service, you said you didn't conform too well, what did you not--

CAUTHEN: Oh, I, I, well, I don't see how we ever won a war today. (laughs) Because they, they sure did things all funny I thought. (laughs) They, they did things in a very wasteful, from my opinion, and--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --I probably just didn't real-, really conform too well to organization. And the first sergeant that I had, well, the one, of course, actually looking back in basic training, I hated him. Uh, I 00:34:00mean literally. About as much as I could hate anybody. Uh, with what he was trying to do was make us be able to take care of ourselves. The Korean Conflict was going on then. And they wanted you fit and strong and they wanted you to obey orders--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --to, if they told you, stand on your head, they wanted you to already have your head and hands on the ground raising up.

SMITH: Right.

CAUTHEN: So I didn't, I'd never lived that way. (laughs)

SMITH: Hmm. So how long were you in the service then? Two--

CAUTHEN: Uh, I believe I lacked two months being two years, which is what you were required to be there--(laughs)--

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: --at that time. And I was certainly glad to get out.

SMITH: So what--did you like being a meterolog-, meterolo-, --(laughs)-- 00:35:00can't say it.

CAUTHEN: Meterologist?

SMITH: Right.

CAUTHEN: Well, it was okay. I, you know, they, they had, and I understand some of it better now than I did then. Uh, the first sergeant that I was taking orders from took an eighth grade GED test and failed it. And he was a master sergeant, been in there a long time. And that's, well, we seemed to be butting heads all the time. And of course in theory I should a been following what he--and they wanted to keep you working all the time. Well, I thought if you had something to do, that was fine. But if you didn't have anything to do, I didn't want nobody poking me. And they tried to reclaim--I'm gonna tell you, those banana trees will grow about three foot overnight-- (both laugh)--literally.

SMITH: Huh.

CAUTHEN: I mean it just, they just spout--sprout up. And they--we kept, 00:36:00kept all those cut down with machetes. Uh, and I found out we had, you could get a lawn mower, you know, like a big lawn mower that you could check out at the motor pool. So one day when he wasn't there I checked one out--(laughs)--cleared all that land out for him. (laughs)

SMITH: What did he--

CAUTHEN: And--

SMITH: --think of that?

CAUTHEN: --he didn't like it. (laughs) They, they didn't like you doing something on your own. They wanted to tell you what to do.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: And of course they, uh, anyway I, like I said, I was not a--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --I didn't, I could do a lot better if I had it to do today. (laughs)

SMITH: Yeah. Yeah.

CAUTHEN: Uh--

SMITH: So how, how old were you when you got out of the service?

CAUTHEN: I got out in '54. I was born in '32. I was twenty-two.

SMITH: Okay. Pretty young.

CAUTHEN: Yeah. Went in in '52, got out at twenty or '54. Uh--

SMITH: So you were mustered out here in this area?

CAUTHEN: Yeah. And I got a letter from Michigan State that I could come to their horseshoeing school. So I went. Uh, I got mustered out, I don't know, it would have been November or December.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Uh--

SMITH: Now what--

CAUTHEN: --for--

SMITH: --what had made you decide you wanted to go to horseshoeing school?

CAUTHEN: Well, I'd galloped horses and I--you're getting a dollar a head to gallop 'em at that time. And the very most you could get on was twenty. So you could make twenty dollars a day, which wasn't bad. You know, that wasn't bad. But horseshoers made about a hundred dollars a day. They were getting about fourteen and a half to shoe.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: So a good horseshoer could--

MRS. CAUTHEN: Hi.

CAUTHEN: This is my wife--

SMITH: Hi.

CAUTHEN: --Myra. Kim Smith.

SMITH: Nice to meet you.

MRS. CAUTHEN: Nice to meet you.

CAUTHEN: Uh, so I looked around at the things that were available to me as I saw them. And I thought--and you couldn't--you had to belong to the union to work on the racetrack.

SMITH: Oh, okay, in what state or in--

CAUTHEN: Everywhere.

SMITH: Oh.

CAUTHEN: Uh, to get a license you had to belong to the union at that time. And the only people that could get and there, you took a test and you almost had to be related to, or be tied pretty close to a horseshoer because there was a lot of them. There was more horseshoers at that time than were needed.

SMITH: Oh.

CAUTHEN: Uh, in World War II they were still using horses a lot. So there was a lot of people that were horseshoers. They used horseshoers, there was cart horses delivering milk--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --butter and ice, and I don't even know what all. And they were used on farms. So there was a lot of horseshoers. And so they had, there was an abundance of 'em. And their--the racetrack was probably more lucrative than farms or other places. So there was a lot of horseshoers. I was at River Downs when there were seventeen horseshoers and eight hundred head of horses.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: And probably two of 'em, two horseshoers were probably shoeing three hundred of 'em. So the other fifteen were dividing five hundred horses roughly.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: So it was, oh, it was, you could make quite a bit doing it. There was only so much--and a lot of people didn't have money. They couldn't pay you. It was real simple.

SMITH: The people, the trainers and the--

CAUTHEN: Yeah.

SMITH: --owners?

CAUTHEN: They just, there wasn't, the purses were, like, seven hundred--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --maybe a thousand dollars for some of 'em. And some of 'em more than that, but not many. A ten thousand dollar stake would be the equivalent to probably, uh, a hundred and fifty thousand dollar stake or maybe two hundred now.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: So that's kind of puts a little, you know, a little bit of a handle on one of the, of the value of money.

SMITH: Um-hm. Now did you want to be a track horseshoer?

CAUTHEN: Well, uh, yeah. That's all I knew. I didn't know anything else. That's where I'd been. And it, it was also, it was where the money was that I was aware of. I didn't, I wasn't aware of any--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: So anyway, I went to, I went to Michigan State, went to school. Came out, was training horses. I wrassled around with, uh, the union 00:41:00for a while and eventually got in.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: Uh, and, uh--

SMITH: What'd you think of your--the schooling, the education?

CAUTHEN: Uh, I thought I knew more about horses bone structure, the confirmation and way of moving than the teachers. They knew a whole lot more about working iron, making shoes--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --and we had a, uh, a tractor trailer full of feet on, on the cannon bone. It's cold up there.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: And we had metal things we could put this in. So we could actually trim up a horse's foot. So I learned how to do that, which I didn't know. And the people were very nice. There was John Jack McAllen taught this course. And they were from--

SMITH: McGowan?

CAUTHEN: McAllen.

SMITH: McAllen, okay.

CAUTHEN: Uh, they were from, uh, I believe Ireland.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, or their folks were from Ireland. And there was a Scotsman came over that made a--took a piece of, square piece of, one inch piece of square iron and made two roses, and the leaves and petals with the hammer, with a hammer and a fire on an anvil, right there, and it took him a good half, most of a day to do it.

SMITH: Huh.

CAUTHEN: It was fantastic. So, but I learned to work iron. And what you had to do to take a test, we, and of course they were, they, they had big horses, but we swedged out shoes. You know, cut a groove in 'em on a thing, hammered 'em into a thing that shaped 'em, and then bent 'em and shaped 'em. And the test was to make two bar shoes and two open 00:43:00hind shoes, which could be block stickers or, and put 'em on a horse.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: And that's from a bar stock you'd swedge 'em, bend 'em, finish 'em, punch 'em. Swedge the to-, or raise the toe in 'em--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --and then put 'em on. And of course you, you welded the bar in the fire.

SMITH: Um-hm. Um-hm. Now I know in, um, talking with, I've, I've listened to an interview that was done with Jackie Thompson.

CAUTHEN: Um-hm

SMITH: And, um, I've talked with Glenn Greathouse. And, and a lot of the horseshoers didn't have any kind of formal training, they just did apprenticeships. Is that correct?

CAUTHEN: Yes, they--apprenticeship was, at that time, was three years or five years, uh, and basically you got paid enough to, but the first 00:44:00thing you had to do was get somebody to take you as an apprentice. They had to have enough work to need you. Uh, and that's why many people were related. Jackie, uh, actually taught three or four people that I know of, but he was one of the more prominent horseshoers in Lexington. He was--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --he was the man at the racetrack. You know. So he had work. Uh, and he could use somebody. And there was a horseshoer at, uh, the Red Mile on, at the trotting horse, Jackie Tompkins, uh, who was very talented. Uh--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, and--

SMITH: It, wasn't he the one that trained Jackie, er?

CAUTHEN: Yeah.

SMITH: Or, was--

CAUTHEN: Jackie--

SMITH: --there more Thompsons?

CAUTHEN: --Jackie Thompson worked for--

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: --Jackie Thompson. I believe his name, or maybe it was--

SMITH: No, it was George--

CAUTHEN: --George.

SMITH: --Tompkins.

CAUTHEN: Joe--

SMITH: George Tompkins.

CAUTHEN: --George Tompkins.

SMITH: We're ----------(??).

CAUTHEN: Okay. (Smith laughs) Yeah.

SMITH: Yeah, I've heard of him.

CAUTHEN: Yeah, he was, he was--I didn't know how, uh, prominent he was. I knew Jackie simply because he was at, but he was a--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --a very exceptional man. But they learned, they observed.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: You know, they--I'd like, I'd rather know today what some of them knew--(laughs)--than, than any, than what we've got a, what's available today and the new things.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Because they, they observed and it was passed down from the people before, you know, before them. Uh, so anyway, I, I went on, 00:46:00went to school, got out, worked around here. I had thought about going to Maryland and Florida, uh, but I knew more people in this area--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --uh, so I worked here.

SMITH: What were the tracks that you worked at?

CAUTHEN: Here, uh, worked at River Downs. Uh, Hamilton, Ohio there was a half mile track there. Uh, I went to, uh, Akron, up near, and Toledo. Uh, I didn't go up there much. I worked here mostly. Uh, and I met a horseshoer from New Orleans and he told me, uh, suggested I come down there. So I went to New Orleans where I worked. I'd worked here, Keeneland, Churchill, New Orleans.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: And then I'd come, I come back and I worked at River Downs. I worked at Miles Park, at Louisville. Uh, and then finally I was 00:47:00working just at New Orleans and River Downs.

SMITH: Now were you--

CAUTHEN: And then I cut River Downs out and worked just at Miles Park. I didn't go back to New Orleans. Uh, and then--

SMITH: Did you work for the track or did you work for a trainer?

CAUTHEN: No, I worked for trainers, different, different trainers. I, I never worked other than I've helped somebody, you know, done their, done their work for 'em in the paddock in the track. But no, we were independent contractors. Uh, and I worked in Chicago, Maine, at Rockingham.

SMITH: You've seen a lot of 'em, very different tracks too as I--

CAUTHEN: Well through this, through the--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --through the east. I--and, uh, then when we had a, Steve, 00:48:00when it's time for him to start school, I thought he needed to be in one place to go to school. Or actually I had two. Doug was born then too, I guess.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: So I thought they should go to school in one place and we had been looking around. We had some horses I re-, we were racing some horses. But anyway, we, her brother and sister found this place for us--

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: --uh, so and we moved here in '65.

SMITH: Okay. Um, now during this time, as you were going from track to track, uh, where were you living? Did you have--

CAUTHEN: Rented an apartment wherever you--

SMITH: Wherever you went, you had--

CAUTHEN: --wherever we, wherever we went. We had a home, we lived in an apartment or well, we had a house trailer for a little while. And Steve wound up in the middle of Airline Highway. (laughs) And we 00:49:00thought we better get more--a safer place or we might not have it, uh.

SMITH: Uh, well, now tell me about meeting your wife.

CAUTHEN: Well, her father actually owned a farm and had horses, uh, at Richwood.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, and, uh, I, uh, I was going, I went down, I worked for them. I worked for-- when I first started trying to shoe, I worked with a old horseshoer at, from Ben Lampe (??) that was doing their work.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: So we went, we went over turn I trimmed horses for her dad with Ben. Uh, so we had met then. And she was going to school and she was working for her brother-in-law who had horses at Raceway Park, it was 00:50:00up in the edge of Florence here.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: So, uh, I was shoeing for him. And I thought, Boy, that's a cute girl here. (laughs) We--so that's where we met. And she's rued the day most of the time since. (laughs) But anyway, we, uh, so that's where we met--

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: --and we started to go together and I think got married the next year.

SMITH: Uh, what year was--

CAUTHEN: And I can't--

SMITH: --that?

CAUTHEN: --I can't, uh ----------(??).

SMITH: Oh. (laughs) Sorry. Okay, we'll--

CAUTHEN: Fifty-nine I think it was.

SMITH: Okay. Okay.

CAUTHEN: When'd we get married? In '59? We got married in '59?

MRS. CAUTHEN: Fifty-nine.

SMITH: Okay, you were--

CAUTHEN: Okay.

SMITH: --right, you were right. Um, uh, so what was your career like at that point as a horseshoer? How, how--were you working a lot? Did you feel like you were--

CAUTHEN: Oh yeah, I--by the time I got around, when I first came around there was a lot of horseshoers.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: But it wasn't very long until most of 'em, you know, they were old, so they quit or left and, uh, so, and there was more racing. You know, there was more demand. And people, see they-- I think, now this may not be right, but this is how I remember it. Uh, the horse population was very high in America. But then there was poverty right before World War II. You know, I guess probably from the Depression on, '32 on up to '40--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --'42. Uh, and after World War, peop-, II people had a little money. So they had leisure money to spend on race horses, on pleasure 00:52:00horses and different kind of horses, but they-- they had kind of died down from the, you know, probably from the Depression up till then.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: I don't really know that much about that. We had ranch horses, but they were work, they were for work. You know. We had plow horses, they, they were for work. Uh, so it, uh--

SMITH: Anyway.

CAUTHEN: --anyway there wasn't too, wasn't a lot of horseshoers. And I, I had got to where I could. I was competent.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: So there was plenty of demand. You know.

SMITH: Who were some of the trainers you were working for then?

CAUTHEN: Hmm.

SMITH: Do you remember?

CAUTHEN: Well, I worked for her brother, uh, Tommy Bischoff. Gosh, I haven't, I don't--

SMITH: Haven't ----------(??).

CAUTHEN: --I don't re-, I don't remember. I've worked for, uh, Neil Howard--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --some, little later on, not right then.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, that trains Lane's End's horses. Uh, I worked for a f--

SMITH: Do you remember any of the horses that you worked on then?

CAUTHEN: Oh, I did but not, not really. Nothing of, if you're talking about a prominent horse, no, I didn't really, I worked mostly in this area. And when you're working, like, at River Downs and--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --uh, Hamilton and Beulah Park and-- in New Orleans there were some good horses. I, I shod a few horses down there that were expected to be good horses, none of which turned out--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --uh, to be significant. Uh, and I didn't work on farms. I didn't really like that. Uh--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --but later on I found out that was a pretty good place to be 00:54:00at, after, you know, after we stabilized and were here and I didn't go away. I went first to work for Warnerton Farm.

SMITH: What's that again?

CAUTHEN: Warnerton.

SMITH: Warnerton, okay.

CAUTHEN: It was up here. It was in Ohio. He was the lead owner in Ohio. I recall a friend of ours that trained for him, fellow I actually worked for, they were, he--had a Christmas dinner and he had to make a speech and told him, told Mr. Warner, he said, "If your money holds out Mr. Warner, we're gonna make you the leading owner in Ohio." (both laugh) And I think the next year he was. (both laugh) Uh, but this fellow had quite a sense of humor, Chuck Taliaferro. But then I worked--Warnerton became Walmac Farm in Lexington now, which is, uh, relatively prominent. And I worked for them. I, and I got to wo-, I did shoe some horses there that had retired, uh, Alleged and Nureyev, 00:55:00you know, some of the more prominent horses.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, I, I'd worked over at, uh, uh, Prestonwood, which turned into WinStar Farm, uh, when Kenny Troutt and them bought it--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --you know, bought it. And that was actually one of the reasons they wanted me down there. They bought a horse, it was a champion sprinter, Groovy, and--

SMITH: Groovy?

CAUTHEN: Yeah.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: He didn't make a very good stallion. His--he was a champion sprinter and--(laughs)--that was it. But, uh, so anyway I, I did work on some horses that turned out to be nice horses.

SMITH: Tell me what the difference, um, as a blacksmith, the, the 00:56:00difference between a horse-- taking care of a horse at the track and taking care of a horse on the farm. How's the work differ?

CAUTHEN: Oh, well, really on a farm I prefer to keep 'em barefooted if at all possible.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, so they're, they're like country kids, they run around barefooted all the time. So all you have to do is kind of like shaping your fingernails, you polish 'em up however often you choose to do it. And that's usually a month I think, you know, it could be longer than that. Some want to do it in three weeks, but--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --and I did some babies every two weeks--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --because I think you can correct some of the--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --malformaties that they have, malformation. But, and on the racetrack everything's shod. Uh, and of course there's a lot of 00:57:00controversy now about whether you use flat plates or--we use toes.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: And that's what I know.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: Uh--

SMITH: Explain what that means.

CAUTHEN: Grabs.

SMITH: The toe grabs.

CAUTHEN: Toe grabs that--

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: --is one of the--

SMITH: I know they're being sort of outlawed now.

CAUTHEN: They're banned--

SMITH: Banned.

CAUTHEN: --for all intents and purposes.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, they, and I don't think they have to be big high toe grabs, but--(coughs)--you can control the flight path of the foot somewhat by the way horses are made to break over. And, anyway you could, we could, our, we could talk about that all day. (laughs)

SMITH: Okay. (Cauthen laughs) But is that what you were using a lot of in the early years?

CAUTHEN: Yeah, we, we used toe grabs on practically everything other than something that was just legging up and trying to get fit. And they usually used flat steel shoes.

SMITH: Now did you make your own shoes or--

CAUTHEN: A great portion of 'em. And I made I think--I either had two or three bushel baskets of shoes that I made when I was practicing to get in the union. And I made an awful lot of 'em size three, which are very small. So they didn't use too much steel. (laughs) And it took me a lot--I used 'em all up. (Smith laughs) But boy--(laughs)--it took a long time.

SMITH: So did you, um, so did you make them at the track? Did you have a place there?

CAUTHEN: Yeah.

SMITH: Did you-- okay.

CAUTHEN: They don't, people have trucks now and rarely, there's still a few people that make shoes, but not very many because you can buy ready-made almost any kind of shoe you want.

SMITH: Are they as good?

CAUTHEN: Huh?

SMITH: Are they as good as the ones you make yourself?

CAUTHEN: Oh, well, they're different I guess whi-, is the way I would say it. Uh, we didn't think so, but we have more information. I would-- if I had something that I really wanted to use steel on, which is basically the ones you make, you can't make the aluminum, uh, I would probably still want a make it. But you didn't really make very many. It--you didn't make many because they're--you can adapt, and we've got--everybody's got an acetylene outfit so they can shape and bend anything they want with acetylene, a gas forge where you can put--

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: --metal in and sh-, get it hot, reshape it if you need to, and 01:00:00a welding torch where you can put clips, bars, whatever you need--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --uh, and--where people didn't have the money to buy that when I started, most people.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: While I was shoeing, about everybody, you know, you--it made sense to do it.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: Made sense to have the means to do it. And you could do anything, I'd say almost anything, there may be some things you can't do in a fire that you can do with this other equipment. But if you had fire it didn't cost you anything hardly.

SMITH: Right.

CAUTHEN: And you'd have to pay for the equipment and get the--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --welding rods.

SMITH: Okay. Okay.

CAUTHEN: Acetylene and so forth.

SMITH: I'm gonna ask you a question because I still get confused on this. Um, when I was listening to Jackie Thompson's interview, he was talking about being-- he described himself as a master mechanic. And I've heard the term farrier, horseshoer, blacksmith, master mechanic. What, what does all that mean?

CAUTHEN: Well, a master mechanic would mean that you were very good at what you do. Uh, they're--it doesn't really fit. A farrier is a man that shoes horses and makes shoes for them, I guess would be. A horseshoer would be the same thing. It's two--farrier would be the probably proper word, and a shoer of horses would be, not necessarily the slang. But a blacksmith actually is an iron worker that would make, like, wheels for wagons--

SMITH: Oh.

CAUTHEN: --axels, uh, uh, fences, iron fences, gates--

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: --uh, there's a lot of, like, doors and window--ironwork windows in New Orleans, especially. Nobody does it anymore because it's not--

SMITH: Can't prof-, it's not profitable.

CAUTHEN: Right--(laughs)--most people can't afford it.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: If you made 'em, you couldn't, you know, so--

SMITH: But they would--could also make horseshoes?

CAUTHEN: But they made horseshoes, yeah.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: And most--when I first came around there was a lot of horseshoers, that's what you did when you weren't shoeing horses. Shoeing horses made more money, but making shoes saved you that money.

SMITH: Okay. Okay.

CAUTHEN: So you--and it also kept you out of the bar room and from doing 01:03:00things that you get to do when you get bored if you got enough money to do it.

SMITH: Um-hm. Yeah, I hear a lot of stories about that, uh--(Cauthen laughs)--when they talk about the backside. Uh, uh, that there, there was a lot of partying going on, so to speak.

CAUTHEN: They did. I mean I thought it--you know, it was completely different world than it is now. Now it's more of a business--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --to me. Uh, and I enjoyed it. Everybody was friends. Most people looked after one another.

SMITH: Um-hm. Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, and, you know, if Bill Smith's horse was run bad, and he didn't have any money, they might very well have hustled up, you know, different people get the money together so he could ship from, let's say, River Downs to Beulah Park or Akron or wherever he needed to--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --get to the next town, and maybe give him eating money or--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --uh--

SMITH: Hmm. The sense of family.

CAUTHEN: That's kind of gone, yeah. And somebody'd maybe put a big pot of soup or stew or something on. Anybody that wanted to come around and eat, you just could go around and do it.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: They, they had fire pots outside. They warmed the water. They wouldn't have any--there wasn't any hot water heaters. Had a big pot. And you put wood under it and built a fire. And that's what you used to wash your horses with--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --or your clothes or whatever you wanted hot water for, yourself. (laughs)

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, and there was a cornfield right over the fence, Dade Park--

SMITH: Dade? Okay.

CAUTHEN: Which is Ellis now. Uh, had all the corn you wanted to eat all--(laughs)--day down there. They eat a lot of corn maybe.

SMITH: Did you have a favorite track from those days where you went to work?

CAUTHEN: Uh, I always liked Keeneland. I thought it was a, uh, after 01:05:00I, you know, got to know, it was a nice, classy racetrack. My two favorite racetracks today are Saratoga and Keeneland. They're the two racetracks that are, I think are really--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --exceptional. And what made the other racetrack, I like Beulah Park. I thought it was--but there were the people that were there. You know--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --the people that were running 'em, the people that, uh, and I never was too fond of the people that ran River Downs. And there was--there's been some people, there was Horace Wade.

SMITH: What's--say that again?

CAUTHEN: Horace Wade.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: He ran it a year or two, about the time Steve started riding. And I knew him before that. He wrote two or three books. But he was a nice guy and he wrote 'em with one finger. (both laugh) He was a one 01:06:00finger writer. (laughs) Or maybe two. I don't know. He might have used two. But he wrote--they were relatively interesting. I thought they were good. And he was, and he ran Miles Park also.

SMITH: Okay. Now Miles Park got--not a lot of people seem to remember, have too many stories about Miles Park. What was it like?

CAUTHEN: I liked Miles Park. It was--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --it was, I thought, a good racetrack. And I was also at Douglas Park one year. We've stabled there.

SMITH: Now where is that?

CAUTHEN: (laughs) It was in Louisville.

SMITH: Really? I don't remember anyone--

CAUTHEN: It's--

SMITH: --mention that.

CAUTHEN: (laughs) (coughs) It was quite a nice racetrack, racetrack. It was, I couldn't tell you exactly how, I'd want to say that it was out Southern Parkway, out that way, and it's a big subdivision, they--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --is what they've turned, what it turned into. Uh, and they moved the surface of Douglas Park over to Churchill Downs. It wasn't a 01:07:00very successful move. Uh, Douglas Park had a great surface to train on.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: It was, and it was not very fast. You--they didn't run--horses didn't run very fast. But they stayed very sound. It was a, it was a good--and if you could get one could work 'em about seventeen, he could-- you could take him somewhere and bet on him. (laughs)

SMITH: That brings up another question. The, uh, this--the track surfaces. Were they significantly different from track to track?

CAUTHEN: Oh yeah.

SMITH: And did that impact your work?

CAUTHEN: Somewhat. Somewhat. Uh, there's things that you learned, and I'm sure that some of the older horseshoers, uh, they knew things. There was, uh, Andy Clements who was--had a shop at Churchill Downs. Most of the shop was--like all the other horseshoers had a shop along 01:08:00the end of it. He had a little shop, real small, just big enough for him. And that's how long he had been there. (laughs)

SMITH: Oh, okay.

CAUTHEN: And, uh, he was working out here at Raceway Park, which was a racetrack that ran Thoroughbreds one year and trotters maybe a couple other years, and quarter horses--

SMITH: Oh, okay.

CAUTHEN: --one of those years also. And I was working--I had worked up at Hamilton, and we'd put what we called inserts, which were little grabs on the back of the foot. And that'd keep their feet from slipping. They were mud or clay, and when they were hard, they were just like that brick floor. And when it was muddy it--the horses go in halfway up their cannon bones.

SMITH: Oh.

CAUTHEN: And they had spread shoes, but anyway, we got over here and 01:09:00I had been working in Hamilton. And it was over, and this was muddy, knee deep, and then it dried out and it was like a roadway. Another bunch of horses that went to running down in front, and, uh, Andy Clements was a--was an old man at the--I don't know how old he was, but I thought he was old. (laughs) And so--and there--he was real grouchy. Didn't anybody seem to like him, didn't many people get along with him. So I went over, had these horses running down, there wasn't nobody else around there that I knew that I thought might be able to tell me what I could do about it, because it wasn't working very good. (laughs) So I went over and asked him. I said, "Mr. Clements," I said, "I got some horses running down. And I'd like you to come over and look at 'em and tell me what to do." "Hmph," he says, "Cut their 01:10:00damned heels down and take them inserts off of 'em and they'll quit running down." And said, "You got their heels too high." (laughs) I was thinking that that's, you know, the more you raised 'em up, the higher they'd get. That wasn't, that's not the way it works. So I went back and pulled a shoe, pulled the shoes on one that they was gonna run. Broke the inserts off. He didn't touch a hair. (laughs)

SMITH: Oh.

CAUTHEN: So then I had to go through and do all that. (laughs) Ed--the guy just had four or five. But I was try--standing 'em up too high. So I--what I was doing wasn't working. Uh, and--

SMITH: Did you have other, uh, was it common for the farriers to ask each other for help if they had a question?

CAUTHEN: Uh, yeah. They--people wouldn't show, a lot of people wouldn't show you anything when you first, when there was a lot of horseshoers, 01:11:00because the things that they knew got them work. (coughs) But a little later and then after you built relationships or friendships with them, they were very, they'd do anything for you. I mean I've had, thank the lord for the people, I was very fortunate to be around some very good horseshoers. Jackie Thompson, he helped me with a horse that was hitting his elbow. Uh, you know, which is very odd--in my lifetime I had two do that.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: It's more common with trotters. But Thoroughbreds rarely do it. And I think they're, I think horses are double jointed like some people.

SMITH: Oh.

CAUTHEN: You know, you just, I mean I think, but I mean that's just an opinion. I don't, you, you don't look for those things. Uh, I had, uh, Jack Reynolds who was a very good friend of mine, uh, his dad made 01:12:00eight sets of horseshoes every day in New Orleans in the morning. And worked in the paddock in the afternoon. He had retired. He didn't shoe horses then. Or didn't, he didn't, didn't shoe very many horses. He would do, he had a son-in-law and Jack, his son, uh, and he'd do their work in New Orleans. They worked in Detroit until they got down there.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: So some people shipped in earlier and he'd do that. Uh, but I had him, I had a fellow that was just tearing up her scalp. And, or I thought she was scalping. And I went over and, uh, I asked him, I said, "Uncle John," and he was a great big man. And his hands were, like, that long and that wide. I mean he was just--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --he was what you'd think a blacksmith ought to look like. (laughs) And I said, "Uncle John, would you look at this horse for me?" He said, "Yes," said, "Come back at 10:30." (laughs) I, this was 01:13:00probably at nine in the morning. He said, "We'll go up and look at him. I'll be through by then and we'll go up and look at him before I go home and clean up to go to the paddock." So we went up there, this fellow had three gray mares. And he led this thing out, and every time she had--her whole foot would just be bloody from where it--he had blocks on her, which are little caulks on the ends of the shoes. And when he led her out, he went to laughing. I said, "It's not too funny where--(laughs)--I'm standing." And he said, "She's stepping on herself." Says, "Cut them damn--(laughs)--blocks off on the inside. She'll still step on herself, but she won't cut herself up so bad." I said, "But she only does it when she goes to the gate to work." He 01:14:00said, "I don't care when she--(laughs)--does it." Said, "That's what she's doing." He said, "If those cuts are across or up, they're hitting themselves. If their cuts are down, they're stepping on themselves." Said, "So you can remember that." You know, and you'd think you could figure that out, but until somebody told me, I didn't.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, so he was right. Uh, we did it. It didn't happen anymore.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: So, yeah the, you, they did help. Uh, they, and I, you know, you, I mean anything that somebody could tell you or you see and are able to--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --understand, and I've had several things that I didn't understand and after somebody explains it to you, you wonder, Why was I so dumb I couldn't a figured that out to start with.

SMITH: Hmm. Um, you said that after a while, when you first started 01:15:00there were a lot of track farriers, that sort of went away and there were fewer and your work was and you were working more.

CAUTHEN: There were more racetracks running too.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: So it spread out, some, a lot of people got, you know, they're, they're like I am now. I, I can't work anymore.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: I, I mean I do a little, little bit. I take care of mom's horses, that's, that's the extent. Because I can go out there and trim two feet. (coughs) If I get to where I can't do it, then I go back tomorrow and trim the other two. Uh, and, uh, so you've got--that went away and--

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: --and some people, you know, they broke down. Uh, some of 'em, uh, I went to work for the Russeguetts in New Orleans, uh, and there was like four of th-, four of them, four, three brothers and a son over 01:16:00time. Uh, there was Bill and there was Milton and I don't remember their father's name. And he didn't, he only off-, he'd, he'd take four yearlings to New Orleans and train 'em, break 'em--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --and maybe run 'em, very rarely run one, and then sell 'em to somebody. Uh, and another son, Bill, Bill, Russeguett's son, Billy, he trained horses for a few years.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, and their horseshoer, uh, had a heart attack and died. And his son went to doing the work. And they drafted him in the Army. So then I got the job.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: And when, they had about, Bill was a pretty prom-, prominent trainer. And I don't know, he had twenty-some-odd horses. And the first time I shod that whole barn, every time I'd go to shoe a horse 01:17:00he'd set down on a stool and watch me. Uh, and I don't think he ever, after I thought, I don't know whether I'm gonna last here or not. (laughs) I, I think this one might go. (laughs) I might, this job, I don't think I'm gonna make it, huh. Uh, I don't think he ever watched me shoe another complete horse ever, his li-, and I worked for him for probably a ler-, I worked for him as long as I was in New Orleans--

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: --until I moved here, which was two or three, four yea-, two, three or four years, I don't remember.

SMITH: What was the last name again?

CAUTHEN: Russeguett. R-u-s-s-e-g-u-e-t-t, I guess. Or maybe one T.

SMITH: Okay. Okay.

CAUTHEN: Uh--

SMITH: Um, so let's take you into the sixties. Let's go back to the sixties time period. Uh, so at that point, Steve was born in 1960?

CAUTHEN: Sixty.

SMITH: Okay. So you decided to settle in this area?

CAUTHEN: Well it just, I probably didn't decide in '60, but probably about '63 or four.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: Uh, I'd bought a farm in Oklahoma--

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: --uh, and I, my back went out. I broke down and couldn't work.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: --so I went out there and spent a summer, we built a barn. Uh, and I, I went from New Orleans out there. I didn't work that summer up here. And we built a barn, worked on the farm that we had out there and then went back to New Orleans. And I also decided I didn't want to go to Oklahoma. (laughs) Oklahoma's kind of like Texas. It wasn't, I, I, I'd seen the bright lights by then. (blows nose) So, uh, went back 01:19:00to New Orleans and, um, Steve was born and I, I don't remember exactly what year that was. But it would a been '62 probably, maybe or, maybe three. I don't know. Uh, and we worked down there and probably about, probably came here in '65. So that we came here when he was five or while he would have been, would have been four.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: I guess. Or it could have been five. I don't, I don't know. Uh. We came, we bought, uh, we bought this place in, in January and 01:20:00moved here in March, I guess, when the Fair Grounds was over. Uh--

SMITH: And what size of, it was, it was a farm at that time?

CAUTHEN: This for-, we bought forty acres and this house. And two boys are in Lexington and Steve's got a place at Verona. So they didn't anybody want to be here. And we didn't know where we wanted to go or if we wanted to go anywhere. So we got a chance to sell the back part of it for a subdivision. And we kept six acres here.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: Or six and a half, I think it is.

SMITH: But at the time, you operated it as a farm?

CAUTHEN: Yeah, we, we had horses here. Uh, you know--

SMITH: So you owned horses? Or is this something--

CAUTHEN: Oh yeah, always. About, we still got horses. Or I, I haven't got any, my wife's got three--(laughs)--two, two retired Thoroughbreds and a Shetland pony--(laughs)--uh.

SMITH: So you were raising Thoroughbreds at the time?

CAUTHEN: Yeah, um-hm. Uh, and never raised any of any great success. 01:21:00Raised probably the best horse was, uh, a horse called Angel's Beaver (??). He set a couple of track records at River Downs on the grass going short. But, uh, I kept trying and I probably had too many horses where I should had less horses and bought a little better ones. (laughs) But, uh, at any rate it was, it was a good upbringing for my children. Uh, and I think I could have managed it a little bit better. But it, at any rate, that's past. Uh--

SMITH: Now your wife also trained horses? Did I read that?

CAUTHEN: She trained horses, yes, for, well she trained 'em off and on from the time we were married, you know, in fact she had a horse when 01:22:00we got married.

SMITH: Now did she train primarily the horses you all owned or did she work for other people?

CAUTHEN: More or less, yeah. But she just trained the horses that we had. Uh, and a few, you know, a few outside horses for friends. I mean never, never really, I don't think you'd say did it with the expectation of becoming a--(laughs)--a trainer, per se, to make a, she had a pretty good job keeping track of them boys, you know--(laughs)-- and the horses and stuff, that I--(laughs)-- acquired.

SMITH: But your primary job was still as a horseshoer?

CAUTHEN: I was always a horseshoer. That's--

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: Uh--

SMITH: Now how did coming here change how you worked--

CAUTHEN: Well--

SMITH: --when you settled down?

CAUTHEN: --instead of doing a lot of traveling, I went up to, uh, Toledo 01:23:00the first year we got here because I needed to go somewhere, uh, and I worked up there. But it wasn't a very good, it wasn't a very good thing. And of course I was very, I had a lot of work here. I had all the work I, more work than I should a done probably. And I would work at River Downs--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --and Turfway Park--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --and Beulah Park. And I'd go to Keeneland and Churchill.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: And then I'd come back here, because there'd be a few horses here at Turfway in the winter.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: It was, uh, Latonia then.

SMITH: So does this mean you had a lot of time away from home or did you--

CAUTHEN: Oh I spent, yeah, I, I, like when I'd go to Beulah Park I would, the way I did that I'd usually, I'd come home on Friday night, usually, I wouldn't stay up there Saturday. And I'd be here Saturday, 01:24:00Sunday and I'd be here Friday night, Saturday and Sunday, and I'd go back Monday morning. I'd get up real early and drive to Beulah Park, be there when it got light enough to work.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: Uh, and then when I was going to River Downs, of course you could commute back-and-forth daily. It's twenty-nine miles from here to River Downs--(both laugh)--in case you're ever interested.

SMITH: You know exactly.

CAUTHEN: (laughs) It wasn't bad the first two or three months they were racing. But then, kind of the end of it--(laughs)--it got long, it'd get, that gets to be a long way. (laughs)

SMITH: I can imagine. The, um, now at that time in the sixties, um, were you seeing, is that when you were seeing fewer track farriers? Or was it changing again?

CAUTHEN: Oh, there were, it was, there, there, there was sufficient, 01:25:00there was enough. But you know, after you build a clientele you, uh, you--or at least I never did have--I always had more work than I could do. And I had friends, you know, your friends, a lot of times you, uh, like I could own a shoe, you could only shoe so many horses. So if you had more than you could shoe, you'd give some of your work to somebody else. And while your, while the union said you couldn't do that, it was still done.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Hey, I don't--(laughs)--care what they said.

SMITH: So about how many clients did you have at that time?

CAUTHEN: Well, it could vary.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: Uh, I would probably take care of a couple a hundred horses or 01:26:00a little more.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: Of course, I worked--

SMITH: --over a year's period?

CAUTHEN: No, no.

SMITH: Just, each track?

CAUTHEN: Uh, at each racetrack. You'd probably shoe the, them every month.

SMITH: That's a lot of work.

CAUTHEN: Tell me about it.

SMITH: (laughs) No, you tell me about it.

CAUTHEN: The--(both laugh)--that's, wh-, that, that's, well, I mean your--

SMITH: Is it physic-, I, I've heard from, of course, others that it's very physically demanding. And--

CAUTHEN: Well, I think, yeah, yes it is. It's, it's hard work. But it's, if you pace yourself, if you could, you can't really pace yourself because people--an example, when the horses would first ship in out here at Turfway, I'd probably might have forty or fifty come in one day that wanted to get shod.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: Today that I was working on. You know.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: So in my opinion, probably eight horses is all the most people should shoe in a day.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: Race horses. Without the possibility of injuring yourself. Uh, so if you could, the people that I really respected, that lasted a long time, they were able to do that. You know, because you organized your work that way, way. Well, you, when you got forty or fifty horses to shoe, you're not gonna, it's awful hard to keep everybody happy when you can only shoe eight a day. And at that time we didn't really, now you could get, now, in today, the way it's set up today, you could get help. You could get people to help you probably. Or you would get 01:28:00people to help you.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, but then you basically did it yourself.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: Uh--

SMITH: You never had any help?

CAUTHEN: No. Well, I've had apprentices, but quite frequently didn't. You know.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: And I never did really, I wasn't much of a-- Jackie Thompson taught several people. I never really, that wasn't something I wanted to do, because they were a liability and they were an aggravation-- (both laugh)--to me. Now getting past that, I've, I, there's a fellow that, uh, was my apprentice, Sam Schwartz. He's in Florida now. I, still working, and he taught one of his sons how to shoe. They work, he does, I don't know who all he does down there, but he does a big farm, Sam-Son Farm.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, and I tried to teach another boy, and he lasted about a 01:29:00month. He wasn't, wouldn't work as hard as--and I had another fellow about the time Steve started riding that was working for me, Stuart Holman. And, uh, he worked with me probably a year and a half, or something like that, because I was still working. But Steve started riding. And I realized that, because I was having to--he was only sixteen when he started, so--and he was making a lot of money. Uh, somebody had to kind of keep track of it, and that seemed to make the most sense to me. So I looked after his and was still trying to work at the same time. And I'd get my friends to do, but anyway, I didn't 01:30:00feel like I could teach somebody. So I suggested--(coughs)--Stu, I turned over a job to him in Lexington, the Walmac Farm I turned over to him. And, uh, I got a guy for him to go to work. And I sent him around with another fellow here that helped him, you know.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: And then he wind up going to Lexington. And he had a couple horseshoers down there that he'd, like, work for one then work for the other one part time. And then do what--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --what he was doing, but he was actually competent. Well, he became a very good horseshoer.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: And he was doing Lane's End, or not Lane's End, Three, Three Chimneys.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: He was doing Three Chimneys and he was doing Walmac. Didn't get along too well with the farm manager at Walmac, so they, they sacked him. But he picked up, uh, Prestonwood Farm. Oh, and there was 01:31:00another guy, Hamil-, Sycamore Hill Farm, the guy that was a farm manager up there was managing it. So I got, I got him in there. So he had--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --plenty of good work. And, uh, he pull-, popped a hernia and could no longer work.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: And I'd kind of, I'd basically, I was gonna retire about that time, because I, I couldn't work on the racetrack because you can't not show up for a week or ten days at a time. And I'd have to go off. Poor Steve was, he had a lot of things going and had choices to make that he probably didn't need to make at that time. Uh, was doing commercials and various things. And I'd, you know, and I didn't know beans about it. So I had to find somebody that did know something 01:32:00about it as we went along. It worked out okay I guess. So I did some farm, I did a little farm work. And then finally it got to where I couldn't do any farm work. So I thought, Well, I'll just do, I'll take care of Steve's stuff. I'll just kind of retire. And I had about six months of that. And after about two I knew I didn't want to do it, and I didn't know what to do about it.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: So when he, when Stuart popped the hernia, he try, he moved his apprentices in and the one farm, which was Prestonwood, which evolved into WinStar eventually, uh, they had about twenty-five horses. And they, they didn't want, they're the ones that bought that Groo-, horse Groovy.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: And they gave four million for him, which was, and they wanted, 01:33:00they wanted a, an old horseshoer to do the work. So they happened to call, they said, "Well, call Tex. Maybe he'll do it." They had about twenty-five horses. And, I, manna from heaven. (laughs) I said, "Certainly, I'll be glad to." And so I said, "But you gotta keep the one apprentice, one of his apprentices." I, I said, "Any time I don't come down there, he's got to fix it because I'm not coming down there-- (laughs)--twice a month."

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: So that evolved into a good thing. And he does Three Chimney's and WinStar's work now, which is more than one man can do. But--

SMITH: So at that time though it gave you something to do without having to, uh, totally--

CAUTHEN: Well--

SMITH: --give up?

CAUTHEN: --and with, without being tied down, because I, you know, you can move that around a week or so. But if a horse is running today- -(coughs)--and he needs to be shod or needs his shoe off, there's got, 01:34:00lost a shoe or something, somebody's got to do it today because he's got to run this afternoon.

SMITH: So--

CAUTHEN: And you know, you can impose on your friends, but only so much. You know, you, you--(laughs)--you can't because the people you want to do your work for you, they were already doing all the work they wanted to do.

SMITH: So you pretty much gave up working as a track farrier at that time?

CAUTHEN: Uh, at that, well, I mean I've worked quite, I did work some more at, at there after that. But it wasn't a, it was kind of a specialty thing rather than, uh, working full-time or committing to work full-time, you know.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: It's--and I mean I enjoyed it. I've, I got to where I really enjoyed shoeing horses. You know, most people think it's a, wasn't a, you know, but I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the people.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: And, uh, became adequate at it or professional or what however you'd like to put it.

SMITH: Well, I think I've read, you've been pretty successful.

CAUTHEN: Yeah. It was, it was, it was good. You know, you could--

SMITH: Um-hm. So you raised, uh, three boys on the farm and all three of them, uh, have stayed in the industry, to some extent.

CAUTHEN: Yeah, I, uh--

SMITH: Was that something you expected? Did you--

CAUTHEN: I don't know--

SMITH: --when they were growing up?

CAUTHEN: --not necessarily. I, I, and I, and I apply this to anybody; I think you should do something that you enjoy if at all possible, uh, in life. And I'd give that advice to any young person that might ask. And don't worry about it if you don't. If you think you want to do 01:36:00it, try it. If you don't like it, you can quit and try something else.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Just don't go too far. Uh, they, uh, I think if you try to impose on somebody else what you think they ought to do in the first place, you're probably wrong. (laughs) Uh, but, uh, Steve wanted to ride. And one of the hardest decisions, or one, one of the decisions that I had to make at the end of the day was should I let him go on and ride or should I make him go on or try to make him go on and go to school. And the reality was that I chose to let him ride, because I didn't think he'd be small long enough. And, uh--(pause)--he was, took some correspondence courses and so forth, finally wind up getting a, a GED, uh.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: But, uh, he was very good at what he did. Uh, and--

SMITH: Did you recognize that early?

CAUTHEN: No. No. And as bad as that, even if he'd a been good, I thought he was gonna get big. You look at his hands, he's got big hands and big feet. And he was too big. He weighs about 145. He 01:37:00needed to do twelve, here, which means he needed to weigh 109. Of course he was light then. But I thought he would grow big, uh--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --and, uh, he managed to stay relatively small, uh, until he finally--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --got to where he wasn't willing to do it any longer. And I mean what, that was for, like, seventeen years or so. It was for a long time.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: And he, uh, that, that's a tough life. I'll guarantee you. So anyway, he was successful and gratefully he's got two brain cells, he's good people, so that makes it nice. And he's still got a good career, a lot of it--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --comes from where he was at. And the other boys got a lot of opportunity. It's like everything, is always some good and bad. But they got to travel a lot and go around all over the world and, uh, were able to go on--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --go to school, which they did themselves, primarily. Uh, and they both went to school. They both became lawyers. They both 01:39:00practiced law one year. And then they both--(laughs)--wind up back in the horse business because it's something you like and--

SMITH: Yeah.

CAUTHEN: --uh--

SMITH: Now when Steve, um, Steve became successful fairly quickly. I think I read where you got him on his first, helped get him on his first mount at, was it, where was that?

CAUTHEN: Churchill Downs.

SMITH: Churchill Downs. That's right.

CAUTHEN: You had to be eighteen to get a license in Ohio. You could get a license when you were sixteen in Kentucky.

SMITH: Okay. Okay.

CAUTHEN: And his birthday happened to be Derby day that year. And he wanted to go to Churchill and get his license--(laughs)--that day. (both laugh)

SMITH: Appropriate.

CAUTHEN: And, and, uh, the state steward, Mr. Daingerfield was a friend of mine as long as he was alive. And he was a fantastic man. And I met him when I was seventeen or eighteen. No, I was eighteen. I had, 01:40:00they'd sent me to River Downs as a trainer, to race horses. I brought, took six horses over there when I was seventeen. And the man I was work-, working for, Al Wellman, got me a license in Beulah Park. I didn't even go over to the office to get it. He just brought it back and handed it to me. (laughs) He said, "Here, you go and take them six horses to River Downs--(laughs)--and run 'em." So I did. And, uh, they were not real happy because, I guess, he had, uh, they'd gave him stalls for the whole stable.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: And he sent me with six horses and took the rest of 'em to Detroit. (laughs)

SMITH: Oh.

CAUTHEN: So, and I didn't know beans. But anyway, I had a license. So we raced. I didn't win a race. Was a couple of seconds I think. And I got the idea was to get rid of all of 'em. And I got rid of all of 01:41:00'em but one. I, we had one little old mare that was very fast. I took her back to Detroit. But when I got through, I'd got 'em all sold. (both laugh) Uh, and, uh, so, anyway, they, it was just, uh, where was I? I lost my place.

SMITH: Oh, you were talking about Keene Daingerfield.

CAUTHEN: Keene Daingerfield. So, uh, when I was eighteen the next year I had gotten a couple of horses to train, another--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --fellow, som-, some friends of mind that were my age or a little older, I guess they were a year or two older than me, they had to go in the Army. And they, they had some horse, had a couple of horses, their dad did.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: So they gave them to me to train. They thought it--I'd work cheap. (laughs) So I wa-, I was all right, anyway, that's, I got these things. And I went in to get a trainer's license and Mr. Daingerfield 01:42:00was the state steward at River Downs. And, ----------(??) okay he looked up at me. He says, "You ain't got any business with the trainer's license." He said, "But being as you had one last year, I've got to give it to you. But I want to tell you, the first time you do something wrong, I'm gonna send you down the road. (both laugh) So that was my introduction to Mr. Daingerfield.

SMITH: And that was a--

CAUTHEN: But he was very straight--

SMITH: --at Churchill Downs or--

CAUTHEN: No, at River Downs.

SMITH: River Downs, okay.

CAUTHEN: Oh, he was, a lot of people, most people didn't even know that he had ever worked at River Downs. But he did.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: So, uh, a little later when I had had some trouble trying to get in the union, the, anyway, they were hassling me about something. Uh, and I went to, went to him--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --and asked him about it. And I don't even remember exactly what it was. But--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --it was something. And whatever it was I wanted, he agreed 01:43:00with me. He said I was right. And, anyway, we, over, over time I'd alway-, we'd had a good rapport. He was, because he was straight as a die and he was a gentleman. And I, that's, was my requirements-- (laughs)--of people I liked, usually, and still is. Uh--

SMITH: This--some of these contacts, um, helped you help Steve get started?

CAUTHEN: Well, uh, oh absolutely. Yeah. I, uh, because you could ask people--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --for favors that maybe you'd done favors for in the past, or that you just knew.

SMITH: Right.

CAUTHEN: So yeah, they would, you know, just like, just like with the horseshoeing, people, you know, people that you'd, that was because when there was not enough horseshoers, one of the things that really 01:44:00upset people and they, they were always concerned about, that you would they're to steal their work.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, there was one horseshoer in New Orleans that he'd go around for anybody that he even knew, and especially if he had worked for 'em, and he'd let 'em know that he was there. You know, and available. He'd almost meet the vans.

SMITH: Oh.

CAUTHEN: And I, I went way out of my way to make sure that everybody that I work for knew I was there. (laughs)

SMITH: Absolutely.

CAUTHEN: Because, uh, and, uh, you know, and that was, what he was doing was not ethical.

SMITH: Right.

CAUTHEN: If he had worked for 'em last year, that was fine. Or if he had been working for 'em. But he was just out trying to hustle, and that was illegal by union standards.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: So, anyway, it all takes care of itself with time.

SMITH: So you had the union standards, but you, was there also, like, a code of conduct among the farriers?

CAUTHEN: Oh, yeah, I think still is. You know, you don't, you don't, now I didn't, it doesn't make any difference because the competent horseshoers, they've absolutely got more than they can do.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: I--a friend of mine asked me about getting some horseshoers for a real big farm in Lexington. They wanted their own private horseshoer. Uh, and, uh, I looked around. And everybody that I knew that I would recommend was already doing all the work they could do.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: They wouldn't a--this was a big job.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: It was a job that was a, would have been a full-time job. And the fellow that worked with me at WinStar actually wound up with it.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: But it, you know, it, and not, he's not their sole horseshoer.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: He's got help. Because that's the only way you can do it. And actually it's better for them, you know, hindsight. Uh, and I didn't happen to figure that out. But it--

SMITH: So do-, are the number of horseshoers that you have today adequate for the amount of work?

CAUTHEN: Oh, there's more than enough. Uh, there's, um, and there's too many horseshoers, some people tell me.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: You know, there's a lot of horseshoers that--(coughs)--but probably they don't, you see, after you've been an apprentice for three years or five with somebody that was competent and maybe, and like Jackie, I know he's got--the fellow that does Lane's End, Greathouse's work--uh, he sent him to a friend of mine in Florida every winter to 01:47:00work on the racetrack--

SMITH: Oh, okay.

CAUTHEN: --for a couple of years, you know, before he came back, really went to working. He's a very comp-, you know, a real good horseshoer.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: But you've got to get that experience somewhere. And--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --if you've got a good teacher, it helps.

SMITH: Yeah. I would think so. Well, let's, um, do you need a drink of water or anything? Do you want, need to stop for any reason?

CAUTHEN: Pardon?

SMITH: Do you want to get--

CAUTHEN: No.

SMITH: --you okay?

CAUTHEN: No, I'm okay.

SMITH: Okay, okay. I've, we've been talking a while. (laughs)

CAUTHEN: Oh I can--mom says I can rattle on forever. (laughs)

SMITH: Okay, well, then we'll rattle on because I've got a few more questions. Um, you were talking about the work that you had to take on when Steve became so successful. Now he became successful very quickly, how did that, how did you manage that?

CAUTHEN: Really, it's just the very best you can. You did--

SMITH: Was it a surprise?

CAUTHEN: Pardon?

SMITH: Were you surprised by how quickly he became so successful?

CAUTHEN: Well, uh, you never know how somebody, uh, and after he had ridden a little bit, yeah, I knew he was a very, very good race rider. You could see that. Uh, and he kept improving, because, you see--(coughs)--he does that himself. We don't do it for him. You can't do it for anybody else. Uh, but he'd, you know, they made him an overnight success. Well, when he was twelve years old he decided he wanted to be a race rider. So he spent four years practicing, which, I mean he galloped horses over here on a farm. He sneaked on the racetrack and galloped horses. He won a race at Keeneland when he was 01:49:00fifteen. Uh, in the morning, they had those mor-, uh, yearling trials. And he wasn't even supposed to be there. (laughs) But, uh, he rode one horse there and won. Uh, so it's a, two year old trials I believe they called 'em.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, but I don't, to my knowledge they don't do it anymore, but they did, they were then.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: So you, you know, it, he wasn't an overnight success. And of course you never really know how good you can do. And we were fortunate, we had a fellow, Eddie Campbell that was his agent, what was, was a very good agent. And I've known him ever since he got out of college.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: When he was still painting and being an agent--(both laugh)-- 01:50:00uh, so he, he rode there. Uh, and then only reason he rode there was so he could get a license, so they'd have to license him in Ohio.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: So then he came to Ohio and they had to give him a license. Uh, because if he'd applied in Ohio he couldn't a gotten one.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: You had to be eighteen--

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: --to get a license. Uh, so then he rode at River Downs. He was the leading rider there.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: And we made arrangements for him to go to Chicago with a friend of ours, and another friend of ours was his agent, Paul Blair. So he rode in Chicago. And, you know, the things that you, and I, I think he--I don't remember he was third leading rider up there--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --or something like that, he was relatively successful, but not super. Uh, came to Churchill Downs and rode there. I think he was leading apprentice there.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, he was going on to Miami. He had talked to some of the riders, so he decided he'd like to go to New York. And I, we had a friend there, so he went to New York, Bert Sonja (??) was supposed to look after him. He said, "All--(laughs)--all Bert did was say hi to him every morning." (laughs) But anyway, the fellow that he'd been with in Chicago who had-- it was at River Downs, a real good friend of ours, he and his wife went to New York--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --and, well after Chicago--they were at, at Chicago and, uh, they had, they were gonna go to New York. So we went up to New York, got him a place to stay and, uh, then when they came up there, well, 01:52:00he moved in with them. And, uh, we had been able to find another good agent for him up there--

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: --that was a friend of the agent down here. You know, so you, you, they're all relationships or friendships that we had. And Lenny, Lenny Goodman was his agent.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: And he was very good in New York, in the east he, he was very good. He was handicapped on the west coast, I think, but he was very good on the east coast. And he became an overnight sensation then.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: And--

SMITH: Wow. And then there was the Triple Crown.

CAUTHEN: And then there was Triple Crown, yeah.

SMITH: So how did that, yeah, um, as a father, how would you describe what you were feeling as he became, particularly after the Triple Crown, when--

CAUTHEN: Well, you can't--I guess what I felt, I mean any time any of your children succeed at anything, if it's a softball game up the street, uh, I think it's a great feeling. It's an emotion that you, uh, I don't know that I can put it into words. Uh, but at any rate, you want them to succeed, and this is way--but you also realize they have to keep their head on their shoulders and, because there's, you realize that regardless of how much success they have, it'll never do 'em any good. It might do 'em harm if you're not careful. And having spent a lifetime around a racetrack, I've seen a lot of it. You know, 01:54:00I've seen a lot of people that had a tremendous talent and wasted it. Uh, and you don't want those things to happen, you know, I'd also seen several people that killed themselves dieting, uh, I mean literally. I don't mean figuratively. They're dead.

SMITH: Jockeys?

CAUTHEN: Yeah. Uh, and I didn't want that to happen. You know, you don't, and you didn't get through it perfect, but you got through it. And he's fortunately got a nice wife--

SMITH: Yeah.

CAUTHEN: --they're very happy. So it turned out, it worked well.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Uh--

SMITH: So it was a mixture of, of pride and concern? So you were feeling a mixture of pride and concern?

CAUTHEN: Oh, I think, you, well, you realize that you can only do the very best you can. You know, it's kind of like me talking to you. I, as long as I'm telling you the truth as I see it, there's not too much bad gonna happen. Uh, and I think that applies to anybody. And you have to want to do it. And he wanted to ride, like many people. An another example of this, a lot of people, I mean I'll give you an example and you can realize, uh, do you know who Steve Asmussen is?

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Okay. Well, did you know he, you know he rode?

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Okay. Well, I mean you can look at him now and you, you can't, it's hard to envision him being a race rider because he's so big. And he managed to do it, they said, two years. I didn't know because I was off in another world at that time.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: But, uh, I knew when he went up, he went up and stayed with, 01:56:00he and Cash both stayed with Chuck Taliaferro because he was friends with the Asmussens before he came to race quarter horses out west. And how I got to know him, I worked for him when he worked for Warner at River Downs.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: And we, I mean that's, that was, you know, how those things knit together.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: So--

SMITH: Now Steve went on, uh, it wasn't long after, when was it he went to England to race?

CAUTHEN: Uh, well he raced here in '78. He went over there in '79.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: Uh, yeah, '79.

SMITH: Now that, that's a long ways to be away from the family. Was that--

CAUTHEN: Well, and that--

SMITH: --difficult?

CAUTHEN: --you know, and sometimes you get lucky. It, you know, it, uh, he stayed with Barry and Penny Hills who trained the horses for Sangster. And they had approached him to go to England to ride a horse, 01:57:00I don't remember his name. He, he was second in the Derby. Shoemaker rode him for Sangster the year before. Uh, and they gave him a very good contract to go over there and ride. And he, he realized that he was getting big. He was having to reduce then. And he could probably last, he figured he could a lasted a little longer over there, uh.

SMITH: The weight requirements were different?

CAUTHEN: Weight requirements. You know, you probably, you know, if you can do sixteen over there, do twelve here, you do sixteen over there. You might even to get by a little heavier than that if you can--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --prove yourself, which he was successful. He was, I think, the leading rider twice.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, and, uh, so he's, anyway that, that was a good thing and 01:58:00probably took him a year to learn how to maneuver those ra-, racetracks because it was different.

SMITH: Yeah.

CAUTHEN: But he, they gave him a lot of help. And he was able to--he stayed with Penny and Barry for, I think, about a year and then he got a place on his own. But it was right--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --it was right there. You know, and they were do, they were just like a mother and father to him for, till he was--

SMITH: Um-hm. Did you go over and watch him race or visit him very much?

CAUTHEN: Quite a little bit, yeah. In fact saw him more in Europe than I did here because you could go and stay a week or ten days, maybe two weeks. Where here I'd fly to New York, spend a day or two while I had something to do there, and then fly, because I had two more boys here.

SMITH: Right.

CAUTHEN: And a wife.

SMITH: Now Kerry and Doug, did they ever, were they ever, ever, excuse me, ever interested in riding or--

CAUTHEN: Oh yeah, they both rode.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: I mean--

SMITH: But not like--

CAUTHEN: Well, Steve--

SMITH: --not to be a jockey--

CAUTHEN: --uh, Doug was big. And Kerry, he led a little different life simply because he was--Doug had came up when things were a little bit more difficult. And Kerry, he missed out on a lot of the riding and a lot of the things that we got to do with, that Steve and Doug--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --did that, because there simply wasn't enough time for 'em.

SMITH: Right.

CAUTHEN: There wasn't enough time for everything.

SMITH: Now when Steve went to England, did that, how did that impact your working here in the United States? Did you--

CAUTHEN: Not really a whole lot.

SMITH: --did you, now you had the one farm you were working with at that point?

CAUTHEN: Yeah, and I could pretty well dictate the way I did it.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: As long as I could, and I could get somebody else, because I had Stuart--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --and I finally, I, like I said, I quit probably along, somewhere along there--

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: --for all intents and purposes, working for a period of time.

SMITH: But did you ever go back to the track to work?

CAUTHEN: Not, not really.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: Because I'd gotten to do farm work. And farm work was more lucrative, was easier and you didn't have to be there every day.

SMITH: Okay. So when did you retire, completely, so to speak?

CAUTHEN: I got cancer about five years ago.

SMITH: Oh, I see.

CAUTHEN: And, uh, I just can't do anything. And I wish I could. Because, I was, I was still doing the WinStar babies.

SMITH: Aw.

CAUTHEN: I'd, I'd turned everything else over to Steve. But I was doing the foals. I'd do 'em up until they turned yearlings. And when they were yearlings I'd only, I might do a fe-, two or three of 'em that I was trying to do something with. But really I turned 'em over to Steve. He, he did them after--Steve Simon, who does their work. Uh, 02:01:00on--and that, and that was really about all I did. And, you know, whatever we had around here--

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: --of Steve's. I did Steve's, I did all of Steve's.

SMITH: Steve?

CAUTHEN: Cauthen?

SMITH: Your son's?

CAUTHEN: My son.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: I did his babies. And then I, well I, I even quit doing the, I just did the babies. I got another guy to do the mares.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: Uh, the, he was doing, uh, he's got a training center over there, and I didn't want to do that because that's very confining.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: You know, I mean they lose shoes too. And you gotta, you know, when one loses a shoe, you gotta go put him back on.

SMITH: Right. (Cauthen laughs) That's right.

CAUTHEN: And I didn't, uh, it wasn't, it wasn't a good, it, somebody else needed to do it. So and I'd loved, I wish I could do it now. I really do. I mean not--

SMITH: What do you miss about it?

CAUTHEN: --a whole lot, but some.

SMITH: What do you miss about it? Just--

CAUTHEN: Oh, I think the challenge of trying to improve a horse, making it better. Uh, make his legs straighter, you know, more--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --uh, probably miss relationships with people. Uh, I don't know. And I, I think it gets you out of the house.

SMITH: (laughs) I can appreciate that. Now, uh, do you keep in touch with people like Glenn Greathouse, some of the other farriers, do you still--

CAUTHEN: Oh, some. Yeah, some, I, there's a seminar here that I'm gonna try to go to one day next month. This cold weather just really is hard on me.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: Besides not breathing good.

SMITH: Oh, okay.

CAUTHEN: Uh, and, um, I, Steve Simon and I are close, you know, close 02:03:00friends, and the one fellow. So, yeah, I still keep in touch with, and I'd do more of it. I, I was looking at horses for some people. And I just can't do it. I can't say I'm gonna go look at horses for you--

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: --because I, I can't, I might--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --I, I tried last July and went and looked at about a dozen, and I was exhausted. So, and I had to quit. So if you'd a had thirty to look at--

SMITH: Right.

CAUTHEN: --they'd a been, been not having somebody to look at 'em. So you just, you know, there's a, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. (laughs)

SMITH: And you--

CAUTHEN: --I can't say how graceful I am--(laughs)--but--

SMITH: I think--

CAUTHEN: --you will surrender them. (laughs)

SMITH: Mack Miller expressed similar sentiments about, uh--

CAUTHEN: Yeah.

SMITH: --stepping away. Now let me, um, ask you, as you look back over all your years of, uh, in the horseshoeing business, what do you think 02:04:00have been the most significant changes--

CAUTHEN: Changes?

SMITH: --that you've witnessed?

CAUTHEN: Uh, the ability to rebuild shoes with epoxies.

SMITH: Oh, okay.

CAUTHEN: Rebuild feet. You know, you can, they've got glues that actually stick to feet. You can stick shoes to 'em without putting nails in 'em. You don't have to nail 'em on.

SMITH: Is that a good change?

CAUTHEN: Well, it's, it gives you, it lets you be able to put, to protect a horse's foot, where you couldn't do it, there wasn't any ways to do it sometimes. You know, like if he's got half a foot gone, you can rebuild him a half a foot there.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: Put the pressure up against the part of the foot that's still good. Uh, there's disadvantages to it too, but we didn't have that.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: I was in New Orleans and they had designed a new shoe made out of nylon that, uh, was expand and contract, you know, like a foot--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --I mean they're gonna expand and, uh, there was three, four fellows flew down there. And this was in some of the kind of poverty times, uh, where there wasn't as much lu-, there wasn't as much money--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --around. And that, it just amazed me that they flew four engineers or chemists down there and they had four different kinds of shoes. A friend of mine helped 'em put them on. They had one that was, uh, a contact cement that they just stuck on. And they put about four nails in it to hold it on while it set up. They had another one that they heated. And they had a couple of epoxies that they mixed to try to stick shoes on. Well, to make a long story short, the next morning I was out there when they were gonna see how successful they'd been. And they pull the nails out and the shoes fell off. And one of 02:06:00those engineers was so flustered, he said, "We can stick that damned airplane," there was a big plane flying. Says, "We can stick that together and you can't stick that to a--(laughs)--horse's foot. I, I can't understand--(laughs)--it." So, uh--

SMITH: What about hoof care itself? It seems like, of course it's been in the news a lot with, um, Big Brown's hoof problems and what about--

CAUTHEN: These horses that have hoof problems, uh, because of the way they're made. Uh, and, you know, you--it's always easy to cut somebody, what somebody else is doing up. And the only way you can ever know is if you're there real close, or maybe even doing it yourself. Then you, then you got a little better idea, uh, and there's 02:07:00very conflicting differences, even among horseshoers--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --about what should always be done. And they, uh, there's a tremendous amount of pressure on feet and when it's designed to hit no, in a certain way. Well, if that foot's a little crooked, and in this horse--particular case, I think it is, the heel rolls in under it. So you've got different lines of pressure. And that's what causes quarter cracks or some, but sometimes. And I don't know about those people, they don't, they, I'm not sure that all they, some of their stuff they put out might have been publicity--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --rather than--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --reality. I don't know. But anyway, that would--

SMITH: Did you have to deal with horses with that kind of a condition?

CAUTHEN: Oh yeah.

SMITH: Oh, it's not an uncommon--

CAUTHEN: We've, I've cut, helped cut a quarter crack out, uh, and the horse running elevens and change that evening. And that was before the epoxies.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, so--

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: --it's, uh, it's not a, you have problems in there, you know?

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Probably one of the--you get infections from just a little whatever, microbe getting up the--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --the white line into sensitive tissue, uh--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --you have-- my nails are, they're not too pretty, but they've started to break off. These are real short.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: I used to, they'd stay out. Now they're more brittle.

SMITH: Right.

CAUTHEN: I'm not sure. I have neuropathy in both hands and feet from 02:09:00medication that I took. Uh, and this hand didn't seem to be so bad. This one, for some reason, and you don't know what causes that.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Or at least the doctors I've been going to--(both laugh)--don't know.

SMITH: So the farriers weren't gonna know either.

CAUTHEN: Uh, so, um--

SMITH: When you had horses with problems like that, did, were there times when you had, would say to the trainer, this horse can't run, this, this, you know, I, the shoes.

CAUTHEN: Oh yeah. And sometimes--then usually go on and run, they just don't run good.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: And there's innumerable different reasons that they want them to run, just like the story that I mentioned about Swaps. That was, that's an example of a problem. (coughs) He shod his own horse, Mesh Tenney.

SMITH: Oh, okay.

CAUTHEN: But I mean he was a horseshoer, and he was a good horseshoer 02:10:00too. He was the trainer also. But he was a good horseshoer. That man right there, his father, uh, that's Mandella.

SMITH: Oh okay.

CAUTHEN: Richard Mandella. His father was a horseshoer. I, apparently he goes around and touches his up a little bit. He's got a hired horseshoer, but, and of course he doesn't, he said it's like he's just touching it up. But you have opinions. I, my feet--these tennis shoes that I've got, I've had some trouble with my feet over the last few years. My, they've gotten bigger, they've spread out. Uh, and they've gotten sore. And we've worked on 'em some. But anyway, uh, they've got a walking treadmill--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --down there at the shoe store. And I don't know who told me, oh, a friend of mine had gone to the doctor and they sent him over there for some shoes. So I went down there and either I've got a pair 02:11:00of tennis shoes I had. And I'm hitting like this and then rolling over. And you could see it. And he said, "Well, try these other shoe- -." And I didn't even get on the treadmill. But anyway, he put these things on me and I've always hit on kind of the outside of my heel. My feet have just worn that way and I just left 'em that way. I thought that was a pretty good way.

SMITH: Yeah.

CAUTHEN: Anyway, they put these shoes on me and I bruised my heel a little bit. So I said, "I ain't wearing them things." And I kept on wearing whatever I was wearing. So I went back down there one day, I thought, I'd, I'd seen the treadmill with, and they got a video up there.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: So I went with my, uh, other tennis shoes on. And I put them on and walked on this thing. And I could see my foot rolling over. And I put these on and I'm hitting and going over. I said, "Well, that's exactly how I'd want a horse to travel. (laughs) I'm gonna put 02:12:00them things back on." So I put 'em on, and they were aggravating for about a week or ten days. And they've changed my way of going.

SMITH: Yeah.

CAUTHEN: And I rarely wear anything other than these. And I've ordered another pair and they've been ordered for about three weeks and I haven't got 'em yet. (Smith laughs) Because I, I thought I'd get a pair a different color than white. (both laugh) They had a choice of white, black and brown.

SMITH: Yep, yep. One of all three, huh?

CAUTHEN: No, I, I just went for a brown pair. (Smith laughs) But, or at least, I don't know whether I'm gonna get 'em or not. But they've had 'em ordered for about two or three weeks and I gotta call 'em and see if I can find out.

SMITH: Well, I guess, uh, you're right, whatever problems we deal with, similar to what the horses have to deal with when you think--

CAUTHEN: Oh I think, yeah.

SMITH: --about their feet.

CAUTHEN: So--

SMITH: Now Jackie Thompson made a comment in his interview, and this was done, like, in 1992 with Jackie that, uh, he passed away before I was able to interview him. This is an older interview. But he, um, said that he thought at the time that we were breeding the feet off the Thoroughbreds.

CAUTHEN: (pause) Well, I think you do to a certain degree. Because they breed fast horses. But you can go to the Keeneland library and look at Tour Billions (??) and Flash's feet. And they don't look too frosty to me.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: And you can look at the shoes that they had. The shoes Regret wore were about that wide, a little thin piece of steel.

SMITH: Yeah.

CAUTHEN: So you can look back, and people had an awful of the of trouble in the past--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --also. And that's reaching back pretty far.

SMITH: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

CAUTHEN: So, and there's, uh, up at Richmond, Indiana, they've got a display of some horseshoer shoes he made, a great big case of 'em. Uh, 02:14:00and I would love to know, and there's no, he left no records.

SMITH: So, what horses are--

CAUTHEN: Well, not only, what horses, but what the shoes were for or what they were supposed to do. So, you, it's so hard to do that. And, you know, it was just like Mr. Clements when he told me to cut the heels down. He had observed and it had been passed down to him or whatever, he knew what needed to be done.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: And I guarantee you, if I hadn't went and asked him, he'd a never told me.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: But it, uh, and, or, Uncle John Reynolds talking about that horse stepping on himself.

SMITH: Right.

CAUTHEN: And I mean I, I could sit here and tell you half a dozen different stories. Uh--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --but, where people had helped you. Uh, and that's something 02:15:00that you don't hear about too much now. And they've got new things. They've got videos where you can really see how a horse travels. So they didn't have that prior to, you know--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --you talked about new innovations. To me, the miscellaneous glues as innumerable epoxies, those are the big things. Uh, the videos, you can actually tell how a foot lights--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --you know, because they've got high speed cameras--

SMITH: --the technology--

CAUTHEN: --where you can slow 'em down. Uh, so you can see a lot of things that I've never been able to see. I'm not sure that some people couldn't see it, because some people have exceptional eyesight--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --and I can see things that I know--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --but some of it gets past you, I'm sure.

SMITH: Um-hm. Um, so basically you're saying there's, there's more things now that can help educate a farrier, uh, whereas before it was a lot of, just, experience and learning from, from that experience?

CAUTHEN: Yeah. Uh, absolutely. But I, I think that overall, I don't think there's as much, maybe, many of the farriers are not nearly as observant as some of the older farriers were, probably because they had to be.

SMITH: Right, right.

CAUTHEN: You know, they, those, some of those guys were phenomenal.

SMITH: So who were the ones that you respected the most?

CAUTHEN: Well, um, a lot of 'em I can't remember the name.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: But in New Orleans there was Cotton Caulkins, uh--

SMITH: Cotton?

CAUTHEN: Cotton Caulkins.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: Uh, and Jack Reynolds and Uncle John. Um, Jimmie Jenkins (??). Uh, Emery Detray whom nobody probably would have ever heard of.

SMITH: All right.

CAUTHEN: Uh, those were people that I worked with down there. And there was two or three guys that I don't remember their names now. But they'd work in New Orleans and then go to Hot Springs. Uh--

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: --there were tool makers, uh, Baker. There was a kid called, a young man called, or he was older than I was, Baker, in Saint Louis. Uh, around Lexington, the people that I knew was Jackie Thompson and Pat Hillock. Uh, Harry Clements would come down. Uh, Gene and Bob Rice were two brothers and their dad, he didn't shoe while I knew him. But he knew--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --because he'd sit there and chew tobacco and spit all day long, you know, and he could see more, something walking down the road 02:18:00than most people, people could say, see, looking at him, you know.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, so, you know, um, I--

SMITH: Did you ever work with, uh, any other breeds besides Thoroughbred?

CAUTHEN: Uh, shod trotting horses one winter when I first started--

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: --about three or four months. Uh, I didn't really care for it. Didn't want to do it. Had to.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: It was just, uh, and I, I would probably enjoy it, because I had two or three real good friends that shod trotting horses that, uh, they were very good horseshoers. They knew a whole lot more about horses hind ends than I did and most of the people--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --uh, I think. And I know Steve Stanley, who works over at Red Mile, is a trotting horseshoer that we did a, I did an interview or a 02:19:00s-, talk with him at the farriers' convention last year. Uh, and the, they were, and I'm sure there's just a whole bunch more that I can't, you know, that co-, because my memory's--

SMITH: Oh, that's okay.

CAUTHEN: --leave, well, I mean that I just don't remember.

SMITH: I understand.

CAUTHEN: You know, I don't remember. I never did remember people's names. I'd see them and I used to could tell you everything we'd ever done together. But--

SMITH: I have the same problem. So I, I, I totally understand.

CAUTHEN: My kids tell me they do too. But I didn't, if I had it when I was younger I didn't know it. (both laugh)

SMITH: The, there was another question that, um, it seems like there's a--the relationship with veterinarians. Did the blacksmiths or the farriers have a good work-, do you have to have a good working relationship with the vets? And has that changed over the years?

CAUTHEN: Uh, I think so. And no, I don't necessarily think it changed. 02:20:00Um, I think, I think most people think they know what they think they know, whether they're veterinarian or far-, farrier. And they have different opinions. And I know in my own case, I used--when I first started I'd get pretty well up in the air about things that I really believed in. Uh, which doesn't make too much sense. Uh, but there's things th-, I used to know a lot. I'm convinced of a few things now. (both laugh) Uh, but I, I never really had on the racetrack much--any trouble with veterinarians. Uh, they, uh, and some of 'em were, uh, were very helpful and quite frequently the ones that you knew that 02:21:00weren't uppity. They'd ask you for advice when they were having to suggest something to--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --people that you were working for. An example, I was working for a farm in Lex-, for Prestonwood. Uh--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --and they had a, oh, I can't remember, chestnut colt. Anyway, he was upright, uh, his feet were kind of contracted. And then they were wanting to try to get 'em better. And they had a veterinarian, an old friend that, he's been, he's been a friend of mine for a long time. And look at--examined him and all the other yearlings. And, uh, he's supposed to be telling 'em what to do. That was his job. They was paying him for it. (laughs) And he walked over and he said, "What 02:22:00can I tell them?" (laughs) Said, "What can we do?" I said, "Tell 'em we need to cut the bars out a little bit." Uh, I said, "There ain't nothing gonna make any difference." So that's what he told 'em. (Smith laughs) So we cut the bars out for two or three months on all the foals. Then--and when I say cut 'em out, you don't really cut 'em out, you just, you trim 'em up nice and smooth. And I don't tri-, I never trimmed the bars out unless they were really bad on horses on a farm.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: I did, or do on the racetrack, because it let's 'em shed the dirt that they pick up in-- you know, inside the shoe.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: (coughs) The reason you don't on, on a farm, it let's the foot spread a little bit more if you don't. And the excess will break off. 02:23:00And if it doesn't you cut it, you know, you cut it off. But you only cut the excess off.

SMITH: Did it help these horses?

CAUTHEN: Well, no, it--(Smith laughs)--I knew it wasn't gonna help 'em. He knew it wasn't gonna help 'em. He wasn't a--he was a good veterinarian. Craig was his name.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: He's passed away ten or fifteen years.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: Uh, it, uh, you know, you--so that's an example of where you work. And, of course, sometimes you've got people that are-- veterinarians that, well they, usually when they're pretty early out of school, they're arrogant and they are pushing. And they think they've got to know, you know, it's, they don't want--people don't want to say, I don't know. Uh--

SMITH: Right.

CAUTHEN: --and you, on-, once you realize that there's a lot you don't know and that sometimes you might find somebody that does know, that 02:24:00can help you. And examples of that was Uncle John Reynolds--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --uh, and Jackie when we were working on that thing that was hitting its elbow. You know--

SMITH: Yeah.

SMITH: --it, so you, so you, you, you seek this advice and it may not help you because they may not know either. But they've had some experience and they've tried it--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --and they can try to help you.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, and after, after people realize that you're not going to try to undermine them, they almost all, always will. And the same thing was true of the veterinarians. The veterinarians, some people have, you know, seem--there seems to be some controversy. But I never, I never experienced that ever.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: Harthill at Churchill was a friend of mine. I met him in 1948 02:25:00and knew him till he died. And he was a friend all the time. He was one of the more--

SMITH: He's kind of a controversial figure.

CAUTHEN: Absolutely. Hey, he was, he had reason to be--(both laugh)-- controversial. (laughs) But he, he worked very hard at what he did.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: He was very good to people that were all right and didn't, you know, you met Hard-, I don't, he didn't charge me ever for shoeing--for working on a horse.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: He, he just, he wouldn't for-, forever. I paid him for medicine that I bought from the, from his company. But never, he, he wouldn't charge me. Uh, he'd done some X-ray on some old mare I had 02:26:00down there. (laughs) And I kept aggravating him about paying him. He said, "Leave me alone." He said, "Warner Jones is paying your bills. (laughs) Don't worry about it. (laughs) And don't be aggravating me."

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: Uh, but I did him some favors too. It wasn't a one-way street.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: You know, life is not that way.

SMITH: No. No. And Warner Jones is another person I wish I'd, we'd gotten to interview before he passed away.

CAUTHEN: Yes, he would have been--

SMITH: Did you know him very well?

CAUTHEN: Not real well, but I knew a lot of people that did know him very well. Uh, I didn't. I met him. Uh, he was kind of a tack above where I was. You know, he was dealing in the, a little--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --higher level than where I, where I was.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: But I had a friend, Kenny Brighton, uh--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --that was good friends of his. Pat Devereux and ---------- (??) if this thing ever picks back up, he would be an interesting to--

SMITH: Pat?

CAUTHEN: Devereux.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: Uh, I think, I'm pretty sure he's still alive. Uh, they had a big farm out on Paris Pike. Uh--

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: --uh, a long time ago out past Grissom's place. Uh, and he had a horse called Royal Harmony.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: Uh, but I mean he, he was quite a character and, uh, trained horses for quite a long time.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: And had some nice horses were--I guess Royal Harmony was probably the best. He made nine hundred and something thousand--

SMITH: Oh.

CAUTHEN: --forty years ago.

SMITH: Oh.

CAUTHEN: Thirty year, not forty, probably thirty years ago.

SMITH: Okay. Okay. Yeah, I bet that's a lot.

CAUTHEN: Yeah, it was a--

SMITH: Okay. Well I've, oh goodness, we've talked for two and a half hours. Um, okay, I'll wrap it up. Thanks. I've, I've certainly kept you a long time here. If you--when you look at the industry today, from the perspective of a farrier, what do you think, what are the, what's positive about it and what are your concerns? I know that's kind of a big question, but--

CAUTHEN: Uh, well the industry of, of itself, it's hard, and especially right at the moment because it's very ge-, but it is declining because you've got so many other forms of entertainment and places to go and things to do. And younger--and like I came up on a farm riding horses in Texas. I, we had horses here and all my kids rode 'em. Uh, 02:29:00most people now that have riding horses go to a, a riding stable in this area. In other parts of the country you have, you know, more competition. So many people, young people, you know, I was, I wanted to go to horses necessarily and not necessarily for the money.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: You know, not for money. But it's got to be supported. And the cost of doing business is so much higher now. I mean, for instance I started shoeing horses, we got fourteen dollars and a half, I think it was, either thirt-, $14.35 or fourteen and a half to shoe a horse. Now you're probably starting at seventy or eighty and running to two 02:30:00hundred or past.

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: So the cost of doing business. You could get a horse trained when, when I trained horses you got eight, I was getting eight dollars a day for training horses, and making money.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: Now a trainer might be getting sixty to a hundred and some odd--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --and not making any money.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: And much of this, in my opinion's because of the government and all the rules and things that they set in, simply like a minimum wage. If I'd a had, if they'd a had a minimum wage when I learned to shoe horses, and I don't really care much what it was, I probably could a never learned the craft.

SMITH: Okay.

CAUTHEN: Uh, because I wasn't worth nothing. They couldn't anybody pay me anything for what I could produce, because I couldn't produce anything.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: All I could do is go get 'em the tools or, you know--

SMITH: Right.

CAUTHEN: --do a little brushing off or something.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: So to me if it were up to me, I, we, there wouldn't be any minimum wage. Get paid what you're worth. If you ain't worth nothing, you don't get paid.

SMITH: That's right.

CAUTHEN: Uh, and as you become, as you develop more talent, then you can get more money.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: A bad blacksmith is a liability; a good blacksmith is an asset. Same thing applies to cooks, race riders--

SMITH: Um-hm, um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --uh, and--

SMITH: So you see all that's reflected in the, how the industry is being regulated and--

CAUTHEN: Yeah. You, you, and you've, you got rules. They've taken, they've just taken the toe grabs off, you gotta run with flat shoes now because they think it's gonna keep horses from breaking down. Uh, I find that a fallacy. Uh, in my opinion. Uh, and you know, it's hard, when you're not in there doing it, it's one of the hard things that I've found for me, was to try to tell somebody else how to shoe a horse--

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: --because I've done some of that. And you can't make it come out like you would do it. Or I haven't been able to.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: I, I can do somewhat, do it somewhat, but not--

SMITH: Hmm.

CAUTHEN: --and I, I would a thought I could. And I'm not talking about somebody that's trying, not trying to do it. I'm talking about--

SMITH: Yeah.

CAUTHEN: --somebody that's trying to do exactly what you try to tell 'em.

SMITH: Yeah.

CAUTHEN: And you can't.

SMITH: Yeah. Hmm, hmm.

CAUTHEN: So, it's, uh, so the industry, the racing industry, which is the only part that I've got--could offer anything, opinion on at all, uh, needs gambling. Uh, and it's gotten to where to even kind of support it, apparently we need slot machines that--

SMITH: Apparently.

CAUTHEN: --casino gambling. And my own personal opinion on that, you, you get it and it lasts ten years. And I'm good, I'm not, I'm just guesstimating, in ten years if the money's coming from the slot machines, the horses are not gonna be getting it. It's gonna stay with the slot machines and it'll go on to the--

SMITH: To the government.

CAUTHEN: --and, and, and you, you know, when I went to work and I worked for somebody, if they paid me a buck, that's what it cost 'em. Now if you pay somebody a buck, it probably costs you about a buck and a half--

SMITH: Right.

CAUTHEN: --because you got workman's comp, social security, uh, unemployment compensation, somebody to keep the books.

SMITH: Um-hm.

CAUTHEN: It might even cost you more than that. I don't know. But--

SMITH: Very different.

CAUTHEN: Yeah, it's a different world.

SMITH: Um-hm, hmm, hmm. Well, kind of a, a final, another big question is, uh, you look back over your life and, um, you've had many things that, uh, happened in your life, uh, particularly with Steve's celebrity and, uh, but when you look back over your life, what are the things that you are most proud of that you've accomplished?

CAUTHEN: (pause) That's a very hard one. Uh, I guess the thing that I'm 02:35:00most proud of, we raised three good kids.

SMITH: Yeah. Yeah. I think you did. And, uh, um, well, why don't we just end it at that for today. And maybe, maybe if this project ever gets back off the ground we'll, uh, I'll come back and talk to you some more. (Cauthen laughs) Because I, I can, I can always, I'll go back and listen to this and come up with a whole lot of other questions. But, uh, and you'll probably listen to it and do it as well. But, uh, thank you--

CAUTHEN: Oh, thank you for--

SMITH: --for letting me do this.

CAUTHEN: --coming.

[End of interview.]