Sam I Am was a massive proponent of green eggs and ham in the Dr Seuss book, and ‘‘Sam'' the horse is equally as passionate about Oddfellows mints.
The latter Sam, a 19yr-old thoroughbred who raced as Sundial, is in his last week of clerk of the course duties after his owner, Graeme Mee, who is the clerk of the course at Otago Racing Club meetings and at Forbury Park, decided to retire him.
After performing his role at Wingatui today, Sam will head to Forbury Park tomorrow night for his duties, where Mee makes sure the runners are out on the track in time, and gets called into action if there are any loose horses on the track.
‘‘I want to do one last one before it gets too cold with him,'' Mee said.
Mee said Sam, who retired with two wins from 38 starts in the North and South Islands, had been performing his duties for more than a decade - ‘‘it's between 10 and 12 years''.
Sam came to Mee out of necessity after he was handed the clerk of the course duties one afternoon.
‘‘I got the coat thrown at me one day at a barbecue and they said ‘here, you'd like to be clerk of the course' and me being me, I said ‘yeah, that won't be a problem' but I didn't have a horse.''
Sam was offered to Mee on a loan basis that he could use him as long as he wanted him.
‘‘But I ended up buying him after the first month. We had to do a bit because he was very hot-headed. He'd be in a muck lather before the first race and then he started to level out.
''Now, Mee knows all he needs to keep Sam in line is a bag of Oddfellows mints. Mee can lead Sam around his Wingatui stables simply with a mint or two in his hand, and even some of the drivers have got in on the act.
‘‘Dexter Dunn's the worst - he teases him,'' Mee said, chuckling.
‘‘He gives him a lolly and then have another one in his hand and he'll run and Sam will jog away behind him.''
‘‘Dexter gets a right thrill out of it,'' Mee's wife, Ann, said.
Mee said a good clerk of the course horse needed a ‘‘brain and temperament''.
‘‘You've got to have that perfect horse who won't kick at another horse.''
‘‘They've got to have speed, too, because if you have to catch something, they've got to be educated enough for that.''
Sam has proved his worth during race crashes at Forbury, most notably when driver Paul Court was tipped out of the sulky behind Moon Boyz in February 2011.
‘‘This thing headed the whole field up and I had to try and get it away from the field - it was going along in front with no driver - then I had to try and catch it.
‘‘Every driver in that race came up to me and thanked me afterwards because I kept them out of trouble, too.''
Sam has become so used to his job at Forbury, he follows the action all by himself with no prompting from Mee.
‘‘When we stand out in the middle, he watches [the race] and turns himself - he turns in a circle following them all the time. You just sit there and he follows the field.
‘‘And if you ask [Forbury Park starter] Wayne Ferguson, he's probably the best behind a mobile. He'll go around behind the mobile right up to the gate then he watches the brake lights - when they go on, he starts stopping.''
