Hardboot Award

He was 12 when he finally convinced his father that he was ready to work with the horses. Previously he had been baling, mowing, weed-hooking, stripping bluegrass. His father agreed, albeit at a cost to his pay from $7 a day to $5. But the company of horses has always been beyond price to Alfred H. Nuckols Jr. Nor, to be fair, was that literal grounding--in the soil and pasture of the historic Hurstland Farm--lost on the youngster. To this day, in his stewardship of the portion that devolved to...