Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

Bill Whitley has been the ringmaster for the Roanoke Valley show for 25 years.

The ringmaster wasn't feeling well when Linda Champion, the manager of the North Carolina State Fair Spring Premier horse show, gave Bill Whitley a telephone call.

Actually, that's not the whole story. The truth was, the ringmaster was feeling poorly because he was drunk.

"Can you be the ringmaster at tonight's show?" the show manager asked Whitley, a veteran local exhibitor of roadster ponies and road horses.

Whitley, who managed $65 billion for the benefit of the retirees among North Carolina's teachers and public employees before he retired recently, had plenty to do at the time without taking on a new job. But the show had to go on and no show can takes place until the ringmaster buttons up his frock coat and puts on his top hat.

Whitley was ready for duty albeit improperly attired.

"I wore a business suit," he said.

Next day, Champion called again.

"Can you be ringmaster once more tonight?" she wanted to know.

Whitley paused. Then he suggested that the previous ringmaster was likely to have sobered up by then. Doesn't matter, was the show manager's reply.

"We think you did a wonderful job," she said. "We want you to do it again."

The offer was impossible to decline.

"I did it again," Whitley said, "and I guess things just mushroomed from there."

That was 1972. William G. Whitley III has since acquired his own top hat, scarlet coat trimmed in gray and saffron, boots and leggings. He's presided over various show rings ever since.

When he does the honors this week at the 36th annual Roanoke Valley Horse Show, he estimates he'll be doing something like his 400th show.

That run in the ring has included being the man in the middle at the Salem Civic Center's annual extravaganza of horses since 1982.

The ringmaster's duties are by turns ceremonial and practical. The ceremony involves the traditional dress and rituals of old-time coachmen. The practical aspect has nothing to do with ceremony.

"My No. 1 duty is to ensure the safety of those who are in the ring," he said. "Whenever there is an accident, a good ringmaster runs to the trouble and not away from it."

Trouble comes more often than most horsemen like to think about. The saddle horse and roadster classes that a ringmaster presides over are populated with animals whose spirits are so high that at times, they look as if they're preparing to jump straight through the roof of the indoor arena.

Whitley recalled a frightening episode at the Kentucky State Fair's World's Championship Horse Show in Louisville a few years ago. One of the horses, spooked by all the excitement in the crowd and show ring, broke free and was running uncontrollably for the gate, leaving its handler in the dust.

Coattails flying, Whitley cut the animal off, grabbing the reins as the horse tossed its head in panic. In the confusion, Whitley was knocked to the ground, the horse stepping on the hem of his coat in the confusion, pinning him down. Show judges were next to arrive, seizing control of the horse and pulling the ringmaster clear of flying hooves.

"I didn't think about my safety," Whitley said. "I was thinking about what would happen if that horse got loose. It was already out of control."

Ringmasters have more mundane but no less important duties than running down stampeding livestock. When things are calmer in the ring, the ringmaster's responsibility is to be a liaison among competitors, judges, and the ring announcer. The ringmaster also presides as ribbons are awarded.

Even that has its perils.

"Some of these people who give the prizes don't know a thing about horses," said Scarlett Mattson, who manages the World's Championship show. "They'll bring children with them, even babies. Those horses are pretty excited after they've finished. You don't know."

Whitley is a recent retiree after 33 years in the employ of his native state. Part of the celebration of that happy event involved the purchase of a brand new motor home that might best be described as an estate on wheels. Leather sofas (all the more comfortable for Eloise, the 9-year-old giant schnauzer); full kitchen; flat-screen television; king-sized bed; 150-gallon gasoline tank; 6 ¹₂ miles per gallon.

The biggest luxury of all is being able to spend time in this rolling palace with Mary Lynn, his wife of 33 years.

"We thought about a vacation home, but we don't have time for a vacation, so this is our vacation home on wheels," she said.

The two of them met through horse shows. She showed saddlebreds. These days, she's a show steward, the official who sees that United States Equestrian Federation rules are enforced. Sometimes the Whitley's jobs overlap. Often not, though. This week, for example, she's heading back home to Cary, N.C., in advance of a weekend trip to New Hampshire for a Morgan show. He'll stay here through the end of the Salem show Saturday night.

It is helpful that the two of them can afford modestly-paid careers in the equestrian business because his investment expertise fills a lot of financial blanks.

His investment philosophy:

"Go with quality," he said. "If you do that, you might give up a percentage point or two, but you'll always know your principal is going to be there."

Whitley, who declines to reveal his age, says he'll know when to hang up his red guard's coat and top hat.

"I always say that the day I'm unable to run after a horse when somebody's in trouble is the day I quit."