Albert the Horse Swiper

Albert Puller taught Woodrow Wilson’s daughter to ride a horse, rode a seventeen hand gelding over a 1920 sedan to inaugurate the horse coliseum at the NY State Fair grounds, worked the harness tracks in Saratoga Springs and Rutland Vermont,and worked with the horse who challenged the great John Braden in a match raceHe trained Thoroughbred hunters and jumpers, three gaited and five gaited America Saddle bred show horses; and at one point in his career, totting horses at race tracks in New England. This is a story about Albert Pouler. The horse trainer, it was said, who could train anything with hair on it. He was black as a chunk of wet coal; with a smile so large it made me wonder if he had extra teeth. At five feet eight or so, he was not tall, but when he spoke he seemed to be taller. Exuberance in his voice gave it authority, and made him seem taller than anyone in the room. He had the same effect on horses; when he spoke they sensed his authority and responded as he wished. There is a movie, or maybe a book, about the Horse Whisperer; Albert didn’t have to whisper. He spoke and they responded. The story describes his experiences as a gaited horse trainer for a wealthy businessman in New York, talks about him training a three gaited horse colt belonging to a family in central New York, and ultimately follows him to Aroostook County Maine to prepare a trotting horse for a match race against a famous pacer known as the Cock of the North. The reader will come to recognize Albert as a man with the ability to train horses of any breed, gaited show horses, pleasure horses, or the trotters and pacers known as harness horses.