Long Shot: My Bipolar Life and the Horses Who Saved Me
An inspiring and searingly honest memoir of how one woman had the strength and courage to change her life. Sylvia Harris was homeless, her children had been taken from her, and she was using crack cocaine. She is also a manic depressive. Now she’s a prize-winning jockey with the world at her feet.Sylvia’s life was dominated by the fear of a faceless madness that could take hold without warning, causing terrifying hallucinations, delusions and bizarre behaviour. These could at any moment fluctuate back to ruthless clarity or all-consuming depression.She had been labelled a ‘neglectful mother’, was beaten by her boyfriend, snubbed by family and neighbours and in trouble with the law. There seemed no way out.Until she discovered that her childhood love of horses could offer a means of escape, a sanctuary from her isolation.Sylvia felt the exhilaration and danger of riding, the joy of connection to these strong and graceful creatures, the redemptive focus and intuition of the race, the pure ecstasy of finishing, of winning, of beating her demons and all the people who never believed she would succeed, and never looked back.As unforgettable as Seabiscuit and as touching as Horse Boy, Long Shot is for anyone who has been at life’s lowest ebb – and survived.
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Long Shot
My Bipolar Life and the Horses Who Saved Me
Sylvia Harris
with Eunetta T. Boone and Bill Boulware
Dedication
This book is dedicated in fond farewell, and loving memory,
to my mother, Evaliene Fontenette Harris,
U.S. Army veteran.
(16.12.1943–08.10.2010)
ONE DAY
All the flowers that I’ve picked …
all the shells from the sea …
can never ever equal the love you gave to me.
Now as I stand upon this empty shore …
I’m wishing for your arms …
they can’t hold me anymore.
All the scrapes and bruises …
the long teary nights …
you comforted and guided me …
taught me … made me …
stand up and fight …
Now you can rest your tired and weary soul.
Your spirit soars with the sky …
you have stars to hold …
When the wind whispers, and the moon guides my way …
I’ll fall to my knees asking your Angel wings …
to lift me up … be with you … and pray …
Together again … ONE DAY.
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Preface
The Race Hawthorne Race Course
The Start Santa Rosa, California
Furlong One Santa Rosa, California
Furlong Two Los Angeles, California
Furlong Three Virginia
Furlong Four Orlando, Florida
Furlong Five Ocala, Florida
Furlong Six The OBS
Furlong Seven Quail Roost II
Furlong Eight Mr. H
Furlong Nine Breezing
Furlong Ten Arlington Park and Hawthorne Race Course
The Finish
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Preface
I am small in stature, barely an inch above five feet. But I can put up a good fight, something I’ve been doing all my life, often with family, friends, and strangers but mostly with myself. I am bipolar and have struggled with it since it surfaced shortly after high school. I ascend to heights of frenetic energy and confidence only to plummet to hellish depths of madness, guided by unseen voices and terrifying hallucinations. Imagine you’re watching a DVD or a video, and you pick up the remote and punch fast-forward. Suddenly, those images flash by in milliseconds. The “screen” of my mind operates in the same fashion. It is in manic phase when I sketch voluminous drawings of people, places, horses. And I’ll sketch them on anything: paper, napkins, walls, wherever I can create. If I’m not sketching, I’m writing volumes and volumes of poetry or prose with unchained thoughts in my journal, until finally I crash into days of sleep. It is exhilarating while in it, but exhausting coming out of it. More than once I’ve found myself within the confines of mental institutions, and many more times I’ve gone off the deep end after tottering on the edge of reality and fantasy, unable to maintain my balance against a whirlwind of raging emotions.
I’m forty-three years old, but my life feels twice that. People say I am an angry woman. I am. When you’ve had to fight through so many things, it’s hard not to be. I have been hungry, cold, abused physically, tormented emotionally, homeless, and frequently out of control. But I’ve also, at times, lived a seemingly quite normal life with my three children and their father. And against all odds, at forty years old, I became the first African American woman in Chicago racing history to win a race and only the second in U.S. history.
I continue to struggle with being bipolar and always will. But psychotropic medicines, which have not always been available to me, spiritualism, which in my case happens to be Buddhism, and—most important—my love of horses keep me from looking at life as one continuous battle. My life has been a race to outrun the disease that attempts to consume me. To that point, I tell my story in parallel to my biggest race, that cold day in December 2007.
I haven’t always been able to live life on my terms, but I’m optimistic I’ll get there—even if it is a long shot.
Sylvia Harris
July 2010
The Race
Hawthorne Race Course
Cicero, Illinois
December 1, 2007
In an empty stall, at a makeshift altar, I close my eyes and begin my Buddhist chant, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo: “Devotion to the teaching of the mystic law of the universe,” or even more loosely translated, “Devotion to cause and effect.” I chant to quiet my mind in a way that lithium or Haldol cannot. Then I get dressed and head to the paddock.
December in Chicago is brutal. On this snowy Thursday evening, a cold front from Canada is blowing snow and ice into the city, creating dangerous conditions. As I pass through the backstretch, also known as the backside, an area of stables and living quarters for the people who call the track home, little ice pellets stab me in the face, but I don’t really feel it. My mind is on Peg. We have a lot in common, Peg and me: a broken horse and his broken rider. He was sired by Fusaichi Pegasus, who won the Kentucky Derby in 2000, a promising mount that never materialized, and I was the all-American girl from Santa Rosa who had long ago lost her way.
Wildwood Pegasus is a four-year-old gelding who has lost his spirit, but I understand him. When you spend time in and out of mental institutions, questioning your reality and making a mess out of your life, your spirit takes a beating that no anti-depressant or mood stabilizer can fix. Pegasus is arthritic, with a bum right leg shattered during a practice run when he was a promising two-year-old. Together, we are a bad bet. Entertaining, maybe, but a bad bet nonetheless.
