PrintIn February of 1956, Harry de Leyer went to the New Holland (Pa.) auction to try to find some horses for his lesson program. For $80 he came home with a big gray gelding named Snowman that he had pulled off the truck bound for the slaughterhouse.
That horse went on to become a U.S. show jumping legend—winning The National Horse Show in 1958, and becoming the American Horse Show Association’s Horse of the Year in 1958 and 1959.
Author Elizabeth Letts has written a book about Snowman’s life. The Eighty Dollar Champion: A Horse, A Man, And The Dream That Inspired A Nation will be published by Ballantine Books later this year.
To promote the book, both Letts and De Leyer will host a roundtable discussion on Friday, Aug. 27 at 2 p.m. at the National Sporting Library & Museum in Middleburg, Va. For more information about attending this event, go to http://www.nsl.org/eletts.html
