It is shortly after 10 a.m., and Manuel Cerros is walking the long corridor of the barn for maybe the sixth time since sunup, this time intently staring at each ankle and legalways the ankles and legs.
To explain why, he opens the gate of one stall where a black thoroughbred lies on his side. He picks up the right leg to reveal a swollen welt just above the hoof.
“He ripped a tendon,” Cerros said. “Now, he must go back home.”
I have been invited to witness the dusty, foul-smelling and decidedly unglamorous life of the barns on the backside of Arapahoe Park, a day before the start of the horse racing season.
It is grueling work back here, a place for mostly young men who begin work at 5 a.m., feeding, bathing, exercising and cleaning up after horses they may never see race.
It is a life Cerros, 24, didn’t see coming, but one he’ll keep as long as he can.
A little more than a year ago, he was a worker at a Texas cotton mill until the job disappeared. Married with two children and another on the way, he headed out looking for any job he could find.
One day, stopping in Holly, he asked a rancher if he had any work. Sure, the rancher told him. Do you know how to break horses?
He had never been on a horse in his life. But he would learn fast, he promised.
“I didn’t even like horses,” he said. “The first one I ever got on, he bucked me off three straight times. I had to learn fast.”
When that job ended, he took another driving combines on farms south of Holly, spending his weekends as a jockey at small tracks there and in Eads and Yuma.
At 5-foot-8, 125 pounds, he was just small enough for the job. And he learned it quickly too, winning more than 20 races last summer.
In late winter, he knocked on Temple Rushton’s door. Did he have any work? The owner of the Rushton Farms stables in Holly looked him over. Did he know how to gallop horses?
Manuel Cerros promised he would learn.
He arrived at Arapahoe Park along with Rushton’s 43 horses last month. He has seen his wife, Erica, and the three kids who still live in Holly once in that time.
He lives with four other groomers, whose days begin at 5 when they roll the oats cart to each stall.
After coffee, Cerros checks the gallop board. He is scheduled for five rides. He goes to the tack room and pulls five saddles, blankets and bridles. One by one, he takes his horses to the track, galloping them once around.
At 10 a.m., he and the others muck the 43 stalls, disgusting work if you have ever seen it.
“I don’t mind it,” he says. “I love horses now.”
Next there are horses to be bathed. Some need shoes. Cerros does it all. When you get used to the rhythm of it, he said, the work becomes easy.
Again he walks the barn corridor, patting and chatting with each horse. He has learned they each have distinct personalities.
The job will last until the end of the meet in August. He could then accompany Rushton and the horses to a meet in Albuquerque, but has passed on it.
“If I didn’t have a wife and kids, I would, but being away from them now is killing me,” he says.
The day will not end for him until 8 p.m. when the horses get water for the last time of the day.
“I can’t imagine doing something different,” Cerros said. “It is like taking care of a baby. They need you everyday.”
Bill Johnson writes Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at 303-954-2763 or wjohnson@denverpost.com.
