“At pole bending, 20 seconds is a good time,” Kennard said. “When the judge told me my time after that run, I’d liked to have fainted. It was 19.67.”
“I used to time the horses myself,” said Kennard’s wife, Doris. “I thought I’d messed up.”
Breaking the 20 second barrier is one of a lifetime of memories Kennard and his wife, who live in Lebanon, have taken from horse shows.
It’s such a part of their lives they were even married at a horse show in 1969 in Knoxville, Tenn.
Kennard, 91, was inducted into the National Pole Bending Hall of Fame on June 11 in Murfreesboro, Tenn., after five decades participating in the event.
Even though its name suggests some form of strong man competition, pole bending is a form of competitive show horse riding, combining speed and grace as a rider maneuvers a horse around several closely spaced poles.
“Pole bending takes skill,” Kennard said.
“I liked the challenge of it. For every poll you go through, you have to change leads or the horse will be off balance. For a barrel run, you can man handle the horse and he’ll do OK. For pole bending, he has to be trained. You need a great horse.”
Kennard estimates he traveled more than 60,000 miles a year to attend pole bending contests around the country, sometimes in terrible weather he thought he may not make it through.
Despite his success, he continued to work five days a week as a maintenance man for Kimberly Clark.
Kennard got his first taste of the saddle at age 3, while growing up as one of four children in the early 1920s in rural Morgan County, Ky.
“I hated it,” Kennard said. “So when I was 3, my dad got me a little mule, probably about 40 inches tall. I’ve been riding ever since. “
Kennard said the only time he wasn’t on horse back — at least for an extended period of time — was during his service day in World War II.
After the war, he began breaking draft horses as a job and soon began competing in riding competitions.
“The boys would just get together and play with the horses and what we could do with it,” Kennard said.
The “playing around” began a love of competition that lasted 46 years. Kennard found fancy with a lesser known form of competition — pole bending.
In the ’60s, Doris, who wasn’t really into horses, became his traveling companion and later his wife.
Kennard gave up pole bending in 1996 after breaking a bone in his neck in a fall, but continues to ride for pleasure.
“I didn’t do it for the money because I didn’t make no money,” Kennard said.
“I did it for the competition and to win. It cost me a lot of money, but if I didn’t do this, I’d have spent it on something else.”
Contact this reporter at (513) 696-4544 or jmcclelland@coxohio.com.
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