My Kingdom For A Horse

By: Ben Tiernan

The Tiernan family is an old and respected clan whose majesty and charity have benefited countless women between the ages of 18 and 25.

The family fortune, true, is the foundation upon which is erected a Byzantine edifice of relations, in-laws, and illegitimate children, but this was not always the case.

We were a poor and meager tribe until a wealthy landowner took pity on my great-great-grandfather, Butterwinkle Tiernan, and bestowed upon him a thoroughbred horse as a replacement for my forefather's blind donkey - a beast whose incontinence was beginning to take it's toll on the landowner's prize hedge of roses.

Butterwinkle was overjoyed by the gift, and decided to name the steed after his beloved girlfriend. He dubbed her "The Sure Thing".

Butterwinkle spent the next six months training and conditioning The Sure Thing for the race season. The mare showed promise and Butterwinkle believed he stood to make a great deal of money once the race season began.

A week before The Sure Thing was to race her first race, Butterwinkle found his thoroughbred on the floor of her stable. Her eyes were glazed over and she lay incapacitated. Distraught, Butterwinkle brought in a specialist who discovered that The Sure Thing had colon cancer, and had to be put to sleep.

Saddened and defeated Butterwinkle made arrangements to have The Sure Thing put down. The veterinarian returned three days later with drugs to euthanize the race horse, and found that miraculously the cancer had gone into remission.

Of course the cancer scare had disqualified The Sure Thing from the race, but with the cancer in remission, Butterwinkle reentered his thoroughbred into the derby. At post time, the odds against The Sure Thing were ten thousand to one on account of the odds-makers misinformed suspicion that The Sure Thing was dead.

Apparently, the recovery was full because The Sure Thing went on to win the race by a nose and make Butterwinkle Tiernan filthy rich in just seven furlongs.

The moral of the story: Don't look a gift horse in the ass.