Dan's Papers - September 26, 2008 - The Hampton Subway Newsletter

Chevy Chase and Pia Lindstrom got into a discussion on the Westhampton platform about whether it was okay for Pia to take her bicycle onto the subway to visit her friends further east. It was explained to Chevy by the token booth operator that Commissioner Aspinall has always made a special exception in Pia's case. Also, that it was good for the environment.

A 10-year-old boy named Bobby Minardi of Noyac has found Hickstead, the Olympic gold medal-winning horse that had been lost in the subway tunnels for the past four weeks. Both boy and horse are safe. Hickstead, back at the Green Grass Farm in Louisville, Kentucky, is looking fit and frisky, and appears happy and well fed - although the trainer there, "Happy" Ferguson, says he hates to think of what Hickstead might have been eating these last few weeks.

Hickstead, who with rider Eric Lamaze won the gold medal in Beijing in August, was being transported to the Hampton Classic Horse Show from Westhampton Beach to Bridgehampton in a special subway car, and he apparently got loose onto the platform as he was being unloaded for the show. He leaped onto the tracks, galloped down the tunnel there and was just plain gone. Lamaze competed without his beloved Hickstead and finished in the middle of the pack.

Olympic officials, veterinarians and local dog catchers sometimes caught glimpses of Hickstead, but they never could catch him.

Hickstead was assumed dead last week, but then Bobby Minardi's father stepped forward. Bobby, he explained, had a special way of communicating with horses by barking at them. He predicted that Bobby could find Hickstead, and when officials said there was nothing to lose, he was taken down to the platform in Bridgehampton at 3 a.m. (when the subway is done for the day), and allowed to go where he pleased along the tracks with a little toy whip he carries.

One hour and a lot of barking later, Bobby emerged in the Noyac Station bareback aboard Hickstead, the two of them just having the jolliest time. There was a lot of crying. It seemed to be a miracle.

I am up here at Foxwoods this week, meeting with the chiefs of this amazing resort to discuss what to do about the fact that construction of the subway tunnel, to run between Sag Harbor and that gambling casino, is now stalled because of the oil that is seeping into the construction.

We are determined not to let this stop us. We've discussed trying to build a new tunnel from our Montauk station in Fort Pond Bay to Foxwoods to see if we can get around what appears to be a considerable seam of petroleum. How to get rid of this stuff is another problem. Who knew there was this much oil in Long Island Sound?

I shall be up here a week, but back in order to fire the starting cannon for the Hampton Subway Firecracker 200, which will take place on October 3.