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4/16/10
Note: Legendary Tennessee Walking Horse Trainer Wink Groover passed away April 11, 2010. As an homage to this great man, we at the TWHBEA thought it appropriate to post the following article, which originally appeared in the January 2005 issue of the Voice.
Wink Groover
Still Learning
Wink Groover has a great sense of humor, he is a great storyteller, and he absolutely loves the Tennessee Walking Horse. Talk to Wink for a little bit, and all three of these assertions will be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Wink spent the majority of his childhood in and around Miami, Florida with only a brief sojourn in south Georgia. He relates, "When World War II broke out my parents moved from Miami to south Georgia because I had an older sister that was 16 at the time and they didn't want her to be around all the soldiers that were going to be in the Miami area. So we moved to Ocila, Georgia. At 17 my sister married a soldier from Ocila and we moved back to Miami." The soldier that Wink's sister married was to have a tremendous impact on the course of Wink's life.
"Sometime in the mid 1940s the soldier's father came up to the middle Tennessee area to buy mules. He heard about the Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration. In 1946, my parents, my sister and her new husband, and I came to the Celebration. My parents bought two Tennessee Walking Horse colts and that's where I started. I won my first blue ribbon in 1947 on one of those colts, Groover's Top Wilson." The Groovers were one of the first families to have Tennessee Walking Horses in Florida. In 1948 they put Groover's Top Wilson in training with Carl Edwards and he placed third in the Three-Year-Old Gelding class at the Celebration that year. "That was my first horse that I ever fooled with. Of course I fell in love with them after that and I've been at it ever since," states Wink.
Wink's professional training career began when he graduated from high school in 1954. He immediately came to Shelbyville where he went to work for Vic Thompson. He recalls, "I made $16.00 a week and stayed in a boarding house in town for $14.00 a week. That included a room and three meals a day."
Impressed with Wink's abilities, Vic recommended him for a job training horses for Tyer Jones at Topper Town Farms in Canton, Georgia. Wink relates, "They hired me to work for them for $50.00 a week. A house to live in was included. I got married then because I had so much money, I didn't know what else to do with it."
Rolling with his story, he continues, "I went there in September and I stayed until June of the next year. I worked real hard showing those horses, they had some pretty nice horses, and never got a ribbon. I was replaced the last of June by Ralph Hensley. He took that same bunch of horses that I hadn't gotten a ribbon with and came to the Celebration the last of August. He won the most blue ribbons that any one farm had ever won at the Celebration at that time. So, right about then, I realized that I might not be as good a horse trainer as I thought."
Following the Topper Town job, Wink and his family which now included son Winky and later a daughter Cindy, made a number of moves. Their first stop was in Maryville, Tennessee, then it was on to Knoxville and then to Morehead, Kentucky. Finally, they settled in Etowah, Tennessee. The three moves preceding Etowah all took place over two years and Wink states, "In that time I was in the process of learning how to train horses, and fifty years later I'm still learning. Someone asked me the other day why I didn't write a book on training horses. I said because I'm not 25 years old. When I was 25 I was smart enough to write a book, now I don't know enough about it."
In 1961, Wink won his first Celebration blue ribbon aboard Golden Sundust in the Walking Geldings class. "I tell the tale that the year after I won that blue ribbon, around on the grounds you'd hear 'well we've got this new young trainer, Wink Groover.' Well, I'd shown at the Celebration every year since 1954 but no one knew it but me," says Wink. It takes that first Celebration blue to make people stand up and take notice.
Of course, numerous blues followed that 1961 edition. Between 1961 and 2004, Wink was in the irons for a total of 33 Celebration victory passes including the granddaddy of them all in 1970 when he directed Ace's Sensation to the World Grand Championship. But, more about
Ace a little later.
In 1965 Wink collected three Celebration blues aboard Bel Aire's Merry Me and Goldfinger, but it was a seventh place tie with Gunsmoke's Jose in the Junior Stake that was most memorable. He reminisces, " Buddy Hugh, at that time, had a white horse that was doing pretty well in the junior division. The horse had a real good running walk but didn't have a very good flat walk. I knew that I couldn't win the Junior Stake with Gunsmoke's Jose but that Buddy had a pretty good chance with that white horse. So, I decided to help him out. When they called flat walk I would go over and cover him up, he'd get on the rail and I'd ride beside him. Then at the running walk Buddy'd run off and leave me. I'd hunt him up when they called flat walk again. We did that the whole class. Buddy won the Junior World Championship that night. I came out with a seventh place ribbon and Winky's mother met me at the gait. She said, 'I've never seen such a spectacle in my life. You and Buddy Hugh have been personal friends all your lives and you'd get out there and cover him up.' I said, 'Hold on, hold on, we had all this planned.'"
The next year Ace's Sensation entered the picture. He was two years old and already started under saddle when his owners at the time, Roy and Bonnie Davis of Calhoun, Georgia, brought him to Wink. He relates, "Ace had a reputation of being a very mean horse. I got him along with several other of the Davis' horses." In addition to Ace, the group also included the promising three-year-old Sensational Shadow whom Wink would direct to a fifth place tie in the 1967 Junior Stake at the Celebration.
However, within a few years, Wink decided to focus on one of the young talents. He states, "I kept both of them on up until they became aged horses and then I had to make a decision. I kept Ace because I liked him. He and I just got along better. We had bonded, I guess you might say. His personality and mine fit, we got along pretty good. A lot of people didn't like either one of us."
The story of Ace's climb to the top is legendary in the walking horse industry. He placed third in the big class in 1968 and fourth in 1969. By the time 1970 rolled around he clearly looked like the horse to beat. Early season wins at the Trainers' Show, Alabama Jubilee, Hernando, Mississippi, Memphis, and the Shelbyville PTA Show cemented his position as a favorite. Then, at the Columbia Spring Jubilee, disaster struck. On the reverse in the final workout of the stake class, Ace seemingly stumbled and was fortunate to finish the class. He tied reserve but, unfortunately, he had sustained a serious injury - two bowed tendons. It looked like his season, and perhaps his career, was over.
Wink and the horse's owner, Randall Rollins, immediately began a series of consultations with a number of top veterinarians and came up with a program of recovery designed to get Ace ready for the Celebration. Part of that program involved swimming. Facilities were built at one of the lakes on the Rollins Ranch in Atlanta, Georgia and Ace began a systematic program of swimming twice a day. Ace's time in the water was gradually increased over the weeks that followed until he was swimming over thirty minutes.
The results of Ace's recovery program started showing almost immediately and after about two months, the veterinarians agreed that there was a chance that Ace could make the Celebration. However, the horse wasn't cleared for riding until the second of August, about three weeks before the start of the big show.
Shouts of surprise greeted Wink and Ace as they entered the ring for the aged stallion preliminary. They qualified for the workout and it looked like they were on track to win the class. Then, on the reverse of the workout, Ace stumbled and Wink pulled him to a stop. The crowd was silent. Wink quickly checked the horse's front leg and was relieved to see that he had merely thrown a shoe. Wink and Ace went on to claim the blue and then the World Grand Championship. Wink was also named the1970 Trainer of the Year.
Of his World Grand Championship experience Wink says, "Ace was a great horse but, I tell you, to have a World Grand Champion, in my opinion, it not only takes a great horse, but a great owner as well. You've got to have a good horse trainer, but now that owner...There are an awful lot of ups and downs and you've got to have somebody that will really believe in you and believe in the horse. It took all my other horses to make Ace because having the opportunity to have some horses that I could win with put my reputation in the position where I could be acknowledged as someone that could have a great horse."
Discussing other some of his other successful horses, Wink relates, "Golden Sundust will always be special to me because of that first Celebration blue. I made the best show I've ever made at the Celebration on Ebony's Darling Lady when she won the Three-Year-Old World Championship. I think it was the only perfect ride I've ever made. Of course, Hard Texas Cash (Tex) will always be a favorite. He had so much talent and was always so personable. Not only is he a great horse, he's your buddy too."
It's no surprise that Wink and Nancy Groover met at the Celebration. Nancy recalls, "Wink was in the box in front of me on the rail and I just wanted to go down and meet him. I did. I told him that I had bought a horse that he had been involved with. That was the pretense I used. I think he thought I was a little pushy or rude or something." According to Wink, he was just busy. The two were married in June of 1985 and as Nancy tells it, "Everybody said it wasn't going to last." In 1994, they moved to Texas where they currently have several horses that Wink works. They've also had horses in training at other barns. Nancy does most of the showing now but Wink still hits the ring on occasion like at the 2004 Celebration where he directed Bill and Sandra Johnson's Generator's Man Of Magic to the Retired Trainers 55 & Over blue.
Discussing their current horses and some of his training philosophies, Wink states, "I never train a horse in the stall. Every horse should have his own stall and that should be his domain. If I go in there and try to teach him something in the stall, I'm infringing on his privacy. When I take him out of the stall, I expect him to listen to what I have to say. Horses can understand what's expected of them in different locations. Tex comes home in December and he's a totally different horse than what he is at the breeding barn. He knows that he doesn't breed at home. He wouldn't be so manageable at home if we bred him at home.
"Horses are to be played with, that's what they're for. But, they're not to be allowed to run over you. Up until the last two years, we'd bring Tex to the Celebration even though we weren't showing him. He had his whole routine that he looked forward to each year. He liked to go to David Landrum's barn and pull up all his Monkey Grass. He liked to walk around the Celebration grounds and go over to the donut stand and smell the donuts and have a Dr. Pepper. Those are the things that you do with your horse when you're not in the situation where the horses are paying for your groceries. When you're in that situation you don't have time to treat the horses that way."
Adding to the discussion, Nancy remarks, "When (Texas) Salsa was born, we raised her, and she was about three or four days old, Wink would let her lick on his arm." Wink continues, "To this day, when I come up to her she licks my arm. Anywhere I see her, she puts her ears up when she sees me and licks on my arm."
When asked about other horses that he's admired over the years, he replies, "Old Glory's Big Man was one of my favorites. Talk Of The Town was also a favorite. A horse that never won the World Grand Championship that I always thought should have was Mr. Sensation. Practically all your modern day horses are favorites depending on what night you're talking about."
Asked about other trainers that he admired, Wink declares, "Winston Wiser and Vic Thompson were very instrumental in my career. Winston was a horse trainer and Vic was a businessman. Of course, I also watched many great ones over the years - Sam and Donald Paschal, Elmore Brock, C.A. Bobo, Jimmy Waddell..."
During his time in the industry, Wink has seen and experienced countless changes. When asked how the industry has evolved, he proclaims, "Oh the industry has upgraded so much that I have seen. It all started out pretty country. The barns were dirty, the equipment was in bad repair, and the horses were not in good condition. I guess it had to start somewhere. This industry didn't start until '39 and I started in '46, there really wasn't much to it when I started. They didn't have any rules or guidelines. You'd go out to a field and you'd get your horse and you'd go round and round in circles, stop, stand a minute, turn around and go round and round the other way. Then everybody would run over to the corner and wait for their names to be called. That's how it was. If you didn't like it then you'd beat up on the judge or beat up on each other. It was just a very rough time."
Talking about the breed itself, he says, "The breed itself has come so far. The looks of the horse first of all, they've changed tremendously from this common workhorse look to a beautiful animal. Temperament, surprisingly, has stayed with our breed while we've changed most everything else. We've changed the conformation, we've changed the colors, and we've changed the size. All of it's gotten finer, with more finesse. But we've kept the calm, laid back attitude of the horse."
When the topic of trainers is raised, Wink responds, "When I started the horses were smarter than the trainers. Now the trainers are as smart as the horses, most anyway. Ace is a good example. They said he was a mean horse. There's no such thing as a mean horse. He was made to be mean by human beings that were not as smart as he was. He was so much smarter than the people around him that he became mean to protect himself. You don't see that happen very much anymore."
Wink also has some specific ideas regarding the needs of the industry, he declares, "Our industry needs a leader. We need someone that could bring all the factions together. Someone we all could believe in to be our leader. But, looking at the times, the way they are right now, we can't even agree on a leader for the United States. How can we expect to agree on a leader for our industry? That's the only thing, in my opinion, that's keeping the business from getting bigger and bigger."
Looking back on his years as a trainer, Wink has few regrets, he states, "This horse fascinates me and the industry fascinates me. It's the only thing I've ever found that I really wanted to do. You hear of a lot of people that say they're in the horse business because they didn't have the opportunity to do anything else. Well, I had an opportunity to do anything I wanted to do and this is what I chose. And I've never regretted it. I regret that we can't get the selfishness out of the industry and let it grow and be what it could be. I also feel like when you're in an industry where you're competing against each other then that competitive spirit doesn't always allow you to get along. Anyway, if I won the lottery tomorrow, I'd still want to go to the barn and have some horses to fool with."
–Sarah Gee
For further details or information, please contact (931) 359-1574.
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