The Story of The Horse Racing Buffalo: Harvey Wallbanger

On this episode of Our American Stories, have you ever seen a buffalo race horses and win? Harvey Wallbanger did—and on real race tracks against real race horses. Francie Berg tells this remarkable story.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories. Today.
We're going to start with a story about a man
who placed his bet on what may be the most
unique competitor to ever hit a horse racing scene. Here's
Franci Berg with a story of racetrack legend, Harvey Wallbanger.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
My name is Trancy Bird and I have a website
that's Bone on Bushlow. So we have lots of stories
and one of them is Harvey Wallbanger, the racing Bushlow.
His second embrace was in Miles City, Montana, which is

(01:03):
my hometown. And when I was growing up, we had
many entertaining things at a rodeo. Nowadays it's just, you know,
all these guys want to compete for their money. But
in those days we had I remember having girls that
rode in, standing up with the two horses each sisters

(01:25):
and all kind of entertaining things. And so one of
the entertainments was Harvey Wallbanger. His owner and trainer and
jockey was Colin Horstensen or TC. Got by TC so
Thorstensen said he was raised down a seoul Indian reservation

(01:48):
in the hills in North Dakota, and he was always
fond of animals and he trained small pets. He worked
on the Milwaukee Railroad, which goes through Mile City and
some Wyoming area, and he drove cool trucks in Wyoming
and became a jockey and a trainer. Harvey's story began

(02:08):
in nineteen eighty when his mother was shot by a poacher.
So TC rescued the orchard bushlo and the little guy
was thirty five pounds only. But Tingc feding with a
bottle until it was a year and a half old,
and he carried him in the back of his car

(02:29):
until he got to be two hundred and fifty pounds,
and then he put him in a barn. But lean
Bushalo did not like staying in the barn, and he
kept slamming his body at the dividing wall in the barn,
and that's why he named him Harvey Wallbanger, so he

(02:49):
was always banging the wall. And as he grew to
full size, ting C rigged a kind of a saddle
to fit and climbed on and Harvey took well to
being ridden and then began performing at rodeos. The audiences
loved him because he loved to race and he just

(03:13):
ran wide open Harvey grew well to full size and
by nineteen eighty five he started racing.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
Now, Harvey Wallbanger is going to the front, two eye
Bird his second. It's going to come down to these two.
Harvey Wallbanger holding on over to Eyebird. Harvey Wallbanger wins
it two Eyeburt for his second. Cisco was third. The
Apples a smoked signal finished fourth. Harvey Wallbanger another flawless
for for months.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
He was first invited to race in Joette, Wyoming, that
was his home state. He won the race by two
and a half lengths and his best race was one
hundred and ten yards against the quarterbars on a real track.
But he also raced all kinds of race horses, couarterors, thoroughbreds,

(04:13):
and a whole field of carness horses. But Tis never
let him be in a vending situation, so it's just
his honest run. He raced with horses that were half
his weight, and because of his size and also he

(04:34):
had a unique smell, most compeated horses were afraid to
get close to him, so he had an advantage running
alone there by the rail. Harvey was very large, much
larger than their horse, so he kind of had to
hold his breath going in. He was led into the
starting gate on a forty foot row. It's tight or instance,

(04:54):
and said, but he'll fit in if he inhales on
the way in and exhales on the way out. His
best year was in nineteen ninety, so he had raced
for five years when he raced. His best year he
ran twenty races and he earned one hundred and eight

(05:15):
thousand dollars that year. But in his whole career he
raced ninety three times and he won seventy nine of them.
Harvey Wallbanger, My congrats has been pretty good in four
career starts, Harvey Wallbanger, Prince Sensation.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
I was on track when Harvey Wallbanger campaigned in Chicago, at.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
First at Maywood Park against some Saddle's horses, but that
was the hardest track in a great crowd, and then
at Arlington Park as well.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
I saw him run at Wyoming Downs.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
This was a tremendous circus side show. Unfortunately, when he
was thirteen, he died abruptly from eating contaminated hay in Tucson, Arizona.
Pornstons and Louis Nevis stated, and he sued the people
that furnished the feed for the rodeo, Genny and Jimmy Murdoch,

(06:06):
and he went to court to sue them, and they
conceded that oleander, which was a poisonous bush, probably got
mixed in with the hay, and TC won his case
and which was ordered almost half a million dollars in damages.
He started over by training the young buffalo that he's

(06:26):
called Harvey Wallbanger Junior. But Junior was not interested in winning.
He refused to grab the rail or run hard to
see ahead of the race horse. So he did more around,
acting in movies and commercials and promoting rodeos and sporting
events around the nation for a time, so TC changed

(06:49):
to just a buffalo who did tricks. Unfortunately, TC never
found a buffalo again with a genuine desire to win
his race who could take the pilice. We love with
Harvey Wallbanger, my buffalo aren't just ruffalo, we said, they're
family members.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Reagan Habib and Madison Derricott. I'm a
horse facing fan, always have been, and the story of
Harvey Wallbanger is one of horse racing's finest. A classic
Americana story. The story of Harvey Wallbanger. Here on Our
American Stories. Lee Hibib here the host of Our American Stories.

(07:35):
Every day on this show, we're bringing inspiring stories from
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(07:57):
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