The Story of The Horse Racing Buffalo: Harvey Wallbanger

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It'll be a match, I promise. This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories. Today we're going to start with a story about a man who placed his bet on what may be the most unique competitor to ever hit a horse racing scene. Here's Francie Berg with the story of racetrack legend Harvey Wallbanger. My name is Francie Berg and I have a website that's only on Buffalo. So we have lots of stories and one of them is Harvey Wallbanger, the racing Buffalo. His second race was in Miles City, Montana, which is my hometown. And when I was growing up, we had many entertaining things at a rodeo.

Nowadays it's just, you know, all these guys want to compete for their money. But in those days we had, I remember having girls that rode in standing up with two horses, each sisters. And all that kind of entertaining things. And so one of the entertainments was Harvey Wallbanger. His owner and trainer and jockey was Colin Thorstenson or T.C. So Thorstenson said he was raised on a Sioux Indian Reservation in the hills of North Dakota and he was always fond of animals and he trained small pets.

He worked on the Milwaukee Railroad, which goes through Miles City and some Wyoming area, and he drove coal trucks in Wyoming and became a jockey and a trainer. Harvey's story began in 1980 when his mother was shot by a poacher. So T.C. rescued the orphan bushel and the little guy was 35 pounds only.

But T.C. fed him with a bottle until he was a year and a half old. And he carried him in the back of his car until he got to be 250 pounds. And then he put him in a barn.

But the young bushel did not like staying in the barn. And he kept slamming his body at the dividing wall in the barn. And that's why he named him Harvey Wallbanger. He was always banging the wall. And as he grew to full size, T.C.

rigged a kind of a saddle to fit and climbed on. And Harvey took well to being ridden. And they began performing at rodeos. The audiences loved him because he loved to race. And he just ran wide open. Harvey grew well to full size.

And by 1985, he started racing. Now, Harvey Wallbanger is going to the front. Two-eyed bird is second.

It's going to come down to these two. Harvey Wallbanger holding on over two-eyed bird. Harvey Wallbanger wins it. Two-eyed bird finished second. Cisco was third. The Appaloosa smoke signal finished fourth.

Harvey Wallbanger, another flawless performance. He was first invited to race in Joette, Wyoming. That was his home state. He won the race by two and a half lengths. And his best race was 110 yards against a quarter horse on a real track. But he also raced all kinds of racehorses. Quarter horse, thoroughbreds, and a whole field of harness horses.

But T.C. never let him be in a bedding situation. So it was just his honest run. He raced with horses that were half his weight. And because of his size, and also he had a unique smell, most completed horses were afraid to get close to him. So he had an advantage running alone there by the rail. Harvey was very large, much larger than a horse, so he kind of had to hold his breath going in. He was led into the starting gate on a 40-foot row.

It's tight, Ornstein said, but he'll fit in if he inhales on the way in and exhales on the way out. His best year was in 1990, so he had raced for five years when he raced his best year. He ran 20 races, and he earned $108,000 that year. But in his whole career, he raced 93 times, and he won 79 of them. Harvey Wallbanger.

My congrats has been pretty good in four career starts. Harvey Wallbanger, a sprint sensation. I was on track when Harvey Wallbanger campaigned in Chicago, first at Maywood Park against some saddled horses, but that was a harness track and a great crowd, and then at Arlington Park as well. I saw him run at Wyoming Downs.

This was a tremendous circus sideshow. Unfortunately, when he was 13, he died abruptly from eating contaminated hay in Tucson, Arizona. Ornstein suddenly was devastated, and he sued the people that furnished the feed for the rodeo, Kenny and Jimmy Murdock. And he went to court to sue them, and they conceded that oleander, which was a poisonous bush, probably got mixed in with the hay. And TC won his case, and it was ordered almost half a million dollars in damages. He started over by training a young buffalo that he called Harvey Wallbanger Jr., but Jr. was not interested in winning.

He refused to grab the rail or run hard to see ahead of the racehorses. So he did more acting and movies and commercials and promoting rodeos and sporting events around the nation for a time. So TC changed to just a buffalo who did tricks. Unfortunately, TC never found a buffalo again with a genuine desire to win his race, who could take the place of his beloved Harvey Wallbanger.

My buffalo aren't just buffalo, he said, they're family members. And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Reagan Habib and Madison Derricott. I'm a horse-facing fan, always have been, and the story of Harvey Wallbanger is one of horse racing's finest.

A classic Americana story, the story of Harvey Wallbanger here on Our American Stories. Lee Habib here, the host of Our American Stories. Every day on this show, we're bringing inspiring stories from across this great country.

Stories from our big cities and small towns. But we truly can't do this show without you. Our stories are free to listen to, but they're not free to make. If you love what you hear, go to OurAmericanStories.com and click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot.

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