Champion Horse

by Jane Smiley

  When I was brushing Blue’s face with the soft brush, I said, ‘You don’t have a haughty spirit, do you? No. You are a sweetheart.’

  Obviously, Sophia had lots of pride. That was the reason she pretended not to notice any of the other kids, and that was the reason she did things her way, like the plaits. And probably that was the reason she rode the way she did – her position was always correct and she never forgot what she was doing. If she was supposed to make a fifteen-foot circle and then go down over the two jumps with three strides in between, that’s what she did. And if she was scared of anything (how high the jump was, how big the water was, or how tight the turn was), her pride meant that she wouldn’t ever let on.

  I put the English saddle on Blue – the nice brown one that his owner had bought for him – and then his English bridle, and I led him to the mounting block. I still didn’t know what we were going to do, but once I was sitting in the saddle, I decided to try riding him on a loose rein, the way Mr Littauer recommended in the book Jane had lent me. It seemed like an experiment, but as I was doing it, I realised that not much was different from my normal way of riding him – of course I let him go on a loose rein when we were finished with an exercise or at the end of a ride. What was different was how I felt about it. At the end of a ride, I would be relaxing and thinking about what we had been doing or about what was coming. But now, at the beginning of the ride, I was not relaxing. Mr Littauer said that a horse on a loose rein with his head down is a relaxed and happy horse, more like a horse on his own in the pasture. We made bigger and bigger circles, and pretty soon we began to trot. What I noticed was that Blue did act like a horse in the pasture – he glanced here and there, and his ears flicked around. He went where I told him to go, but his attention wasn’t completely on me. Was this good or bad? We kept going.

  I was surprised at how uncomfortable my experiment made me feel. I really wanted to pick up the reins, at least a little. Mr Littauer said that picking up the reins raises the horse’s energy level, and you want the horse’s energy level to stay low. It was also hard to lean forward the way that the lady in the pictures was doing – not physically hard, of course, but mentally hard, because what if he stumbled? What if he put his head down? These were things I never normally thought about. But Mr Littauer said that if you were balanced over the horse’s centre of gravity and going along with him, he would be less likely to stumble. He would just carry himself and you in the easiest possible way. I made myself find that spot, that moving spot, where he and I were exactly together.

  Then we cantered. I put my heels way down, like the lady in the picture, and made my back very straight, so my shoulders did look sort of soldiery. I made my elbows and hands as loose as I could, and though the reins weren’t flapping, they were loose. I did not feel Blue’s mouth. Blue seemed to stretch a little bit, and lift his front end. As far as I could tell from the saddle, his head was up and his nose was out, just like the horse in the picture. And if I’d thought his canter was delightful before, well, doing it this way was amazing. It really was like flying along. Blue seemed to enjoy himself, too. We went around the arena three or four times in each direction. When we were finished, Blue was hardly sweating. Afterwards, I didn’t know what I thought about it, except that it surprised me that being relaxed could be so scary. But it was fun, too. There is something pretty irresistible about an activity that is both scary and enjoyable. I patted Blue on the neck and asked him to walk. I picked up the reins enough to hold them, but not enough to make contact. We wandered towards the arena. Nobby whinnied to us, and Blue looked at her but kept walking.

  So if your horse was prideful, like Pie in the Sky, maybe that was why he was willing to jump those big jumps – not for fun, like Onyx, but for showing off. I knew from riding Pie in the Sky, though, that when his pride was offended, you had to persuade him to co-operate by convincing him that you knew what you were doing. That meant that you had to get him to jump the course your way by keeping your leg on, flicking the whip, and knowing where you were going. If you did that, then the next time around the course, he did it your way, but even better – he showed off doing it your way.

  Really, though, I didn’t want to think any more about Pie in the Sky – not my horse, never to be my horse. I wanted to try that loose-reins thing again. I made myself not pick up the reins, and tried to guide Blue with my weight and my legs. He understood. We made some big loops in both directions at the walk. I patted him, then urged him up to the trot. He was lively about it. He seemed to understand what we were doing better than he had the first time, so he moved more willingly and supplely. I made tighter loops and circles, using only my weight and legs. With each turn, he got better at it. I forced myself not to think what if, or to remember those big spooks I had seen him do when we first got him. We just went around, and if I wasn’t quite relaxed, well, he seemed to be.

  Finally, I did pick up a rein – the right one, but very lightly – I just used it to ask him to bend his body a little bit as he went through the turn, then I dropped it.

  I wondered about Peter Finneran. Maybe he had seen how much pride Sophia had, and decided to do something about it, and maybe he had succeeded. Maybe Sophia had stopped riding her horses because she wasn’t proud of her riding any more after the way he talked to her and about her in front of us. And then I thought, What business was it of his? But it did seem to fit what the proverb said – Sophia’s pride had gone before her destruction, and her haughty spirit had led to a fall (even if it wasn’t an actual fall from her horse).

  I got Blue to turn to the left, using just a little rein again, and then dropping it. Now the interesting part – stopping. But of course Blue stopped. He came to an easy halt as soon as I settled my weight into the saddle. And then we just stood there, reins hanging, while I petted him in long strokes on his smooth, dappled, beautiful haunches. I said, in a low voice, ‘Blue, Blue, how are you?’ and his ears flicked back and forth. I turned to the left, and, reins still loose though not dangling, asked him to canter. He lifted into an easy canter and swept down the long side of the arena. By the time I got Blue back to the barn and was taking his tack off, I had sort of forgotten about everything else. For one thing, he made me feel so much like I was out with a friend when I was on him – and when I was off him, too, since he would walk along behind me without me holding his reins. And for another, his canter put me into a dream, it was so light and smooth.

  *

  Dad came home from wherever he had been, and we rode the other horses. Lady was getting to be a pretty good reining horse. I watched Dad rope the saw-horse as I was riding Oh My, and I said, ‘You need to get invited to work some cattle with her.’

  Dad nodded, then said, ‘Can’t say I thought she had it in her, but sometimes they surprise you. Sometimes the ones who look lazy are just bored.’

  *

  At supper, Dad asked me how the lessons had gone. I said, ‘They were good. As long as Melinda and Ellen get to see one another for a few minutes between lessons, then they both have to show me who’s the best.’

  Mom laughed, and said, ‘Who’s the best?’

  ‘Well, Melinda in one way – she knows what she’s doing more and is more considerate of Gallant Man. But Ellen wants to try new things and her attention never wanders. Sometimes I wish it did!’

  ‘What about the pony?’

  ‘Melinda is getting too big for the pony. If her stirrups are the right length, her feet hang down a little far below his chest. I haven’t said anything, though, because if her dad sells the pony, then I don’t know who Ellen will ride.’

  Dad said, ‘Icelandic horses are about the same size as ponies, and adults ride them. There’s a German breed, too. Blond, kind of stocky.’

  ‘I saw one of those at that show – the first one we took Gallant Man to.’

  Dad nodded. ‘I guess adults ride them, too.’

  ‘I suppose Jane will think of something.’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Dad.


  Mom said, ‘You didn’t ride Pie in the Sky today.’

  I shook my head.

  There was a silence.

  Dad said, ‘Her father did call me.’

  ‘About what?’ said Mom.

  ‘About Abby riding that horse in shows next year. Lots of shows.’

  I put my fork down.

  Dad said, ‘He offered to pay her.’

  ‘How much?’ said Mom.

  ‘Thirty dollars a day.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ said Mom.

  ‘It’s not me being ridiculous,’ said Dad. Now they both looked at me.

  I said, ‘Sophia should ride her own horse.’

  Dad said, ‘Mr Rosebury says that the two of them don’t get along.’

  ‘Then they can call Jem Jarrow. He’s a lot cheaper than thirty dollars a day.’

  ‘I did suggest that,’ said Dad.

  ‘He doesn’t really buck, not like Rally did, bound and determined to get you off. He just likes the rider to get organised and be organised.’

  ‘Well,’ said Dad, ‘if you understand that, then why don’t you want to ride him?’

  ‘Shows always go on Sunday.’

  ‘I—’ But he stopped. Of course that presented a problem, but was it a thirty-dollars-a-day sort of problem?

  I decided to change the subject. I said, ‘What would you do if a horse was prideful?’

  ‘Prideful?’ said Dad. ‘I don’t know what you mean. A good horse does what he’s told to do.’

  I picked up my fork and ran it around on my plate. ‘But do you think a horse jumps a really high course of jumps because he’s told to do it?’

  ‘Well, I guess so.’

  ‘Does Happy make those cows follow her orders because she is told to do it?’

  Mom laughed.

  Dad said, ‘Obviously, Happy has a lot of cow in her—’

  ‘But that means she wants to do it.’

  Dad gave me a look, then a half-smile. The look said, ‘You got me,’ but I wasn’t meaning to get him, I was just meaning to understand. He said, ‘Yes, she wants to do it. I think it’s a bossiness thing. My dad had a mare back in Oklahoma, and she was the lowest mare in the band until Uncle Luke taught her to cut cows, and then she worked her way to the top of the group by staring at the other mares and making them move, just the way she would do a cow.’

  ‘Oh, I remember her,’ said Mom. ‘She was the sweetest thing.’

  ‘Not to the other mares,’ said Dad.

  I said, ‘So, she was prideful?’

  ‘You could say she got prideful,’ said Dad. ‘She got to be a good cow horse and the boss of the mares.’

  Mom said, ‘What are you getting at, sweetie?’

  I said, ‘Well, I wish I knew.’

  Dad said, ‘Maybe you’re saying that showing a really good horse would be a way to learn something that otherwise you might not have a chance to learn, and you realise that when opportunity knocks, you should answer the door.’

  I shrugged. I was sure that Mr Rosebury had talked rings around Dad, who was pretty quiet with strangers. But I also didn’t know what I was saying.

  *

  Sophia was back to school on Wednesday. I saw in ancient history that she had a bag with her, of some sort of food that she was willing to eat. We had been in school for a month. Kyle gave an extra credit book report on a book called The King Must Die, in which the people in one of the Greek city-states killed the king every year so that the queen could marry another one, and the main character, who was named Theseus, went to Crete and was there when the earthquake destroyed the labyrinth. We then had to write a short essay on the myth we read in the myth book about Ariadne and her thread, and how this was similar or different from what Kyle talked about in his report. I wrote for a page and stopped.

  What I thought was amazing was that there were so many people in the world of the Israelites that we never talked about in church. Miss Cumberland told us that she had been to Crete and walked around the palace of Knossos one summer, and that the tiled mosaic floors were still there. However, she said that she liked the Greeks better, and that we would spend a month on them. I kept looking over at Sophia, wondering what I was going to say to her. When the bell rang, Sophia slipped out of her seat and left the room.

  Our table at lunch was not one of the really big ones or good ones, but it was our table, and we all had regular places – Leslie sat at one end, with her back to the windows and her face to the door. Stella sat at the other end, because ‘the light was better.’ Mary and Luisa sat on one side, and Gloria and I sat on the other side. Sometimes I sat closer to Leslie and sometimes I sat closer to Stella. That day, I was sitting closer to Leslie, and we both saw Sophia come into the lunchroom, carrying her bag. She did not look around, she just put down her books, sat by herself, and opened her bag. Leslie said, ‘Where’s Alana?’

  She seemed to be talking to me. I said, ‘I don’t know.’

  It looked like Sophia had some crackers and a carton of milk and some grapes, and she did start to eat them. Leslie said, so only I could hear her, ‘She needs a cupcake.’ Then she grinned at me. Leslie never ate cupcakes at all any more, or candy or soda or ice cream. Stella, Gloria, and Luisa were talking about Joan Baez, and whether she was the most beautiful woman in the world. ‘Well,’ said Stella, ‘she’s got the best hair. I saw her.’

  Luisa said, ‘People see her all the time.’

  Leslie moved her chair back and pulled another one over from the next table, then she waved to Sophia to come over. Sophia looked around, and, something I did not expect, she came over. She sat down on the other side of Leslie and said to me, ‘My dad talked to your dad. Your dad said yes.’

  Leslie said, ‘You’re Sophia, right?’ Sophia reached into her bag and took out a cracker. They were Ritz crackers, round and sort of gold-coloured. She said, ‘Right.’

  ‘I’m Leslie. You know Abby, and this is Stella, Gloria, Luisa, and Mary.’ And Leslie held out her hand. Sophia stared at it for a moment, then wiped her fingers on her skirt and shook it. Leslie said, ‘Pleased to meet you. I love your plaits. We were just talking about Joan Baez. You should wear your hair down, like she does. I bet it would be longer than hers. You don’t often see blonde hair that long. My mom says that you are either lucky or not. Your hair grows to a certain length, and just stops growing, that’s that.’

  Luisa said, ‘I’m sure mine’s stopped. I measure it every month, and nothing. You’re lucky, Sophia.’

  Sophia said, ‘You can call me Sophy.’

  She and I exchanged a glance.

  Stella said, ‘You are very mysterious.’

  ‘Am I?’

  Stella said, ‘Oh, yes. It’s a good thing. I would love to be mysterious.’

  And then Leslie said, ‘Well, that’s news to us,’ and we all laughed. Even Sophia smiled.

  Then Stella went on, ‘You have some real advantages. I mean, your clothes are basically nice quality, and you have great eyes –’ Gloria kicked her under the table, but that never stopped Stella – ‘but a padded bra would really help.’

  Leslie said, ‘Oh, God,’ and Mary and Luisa rolled their eyes, but the amazing thing was that Sophia actually laughed. I had never heard her laugh, ever.

  Gloria said, ‘Aren’t you in my geometry class?’

  Sophia nodded.

  Gloria said, ‘How did you do on that test we got back?’

  ‘I got an A minus. I missed one.’

  ‘Well, I got a C. I think you should sit with us. Stella got a D.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t an F,’ said Stella. ‘It was an improvement.’

  ‘So,’ said Leslie, ‘Stella’s brain is basically nice quality, but she might have to take geometry again in the summer, which will be very bad for her swimming pool time.’

  ‘Summer is a long way away,’ said Stella. Then she said to Sophia, ‘That’s a nice skirt. Two and a half inches shorter, and it would be perfect.’

  Soph
ia ate all her crackers and all her grapes. The bell rang, and she went out with Gloria and Stella to go to geometry. The next day she sat with us again, and this time Leslie did offer her something – not a cupcake, but a chocolate chip cookie. She didn’t eat any of it herself, and Stella and I each ate a little piece. After lunch, I caught up with Leslie before she disappeared into the girls’ bathroom, and I said, ‘You are being really nice to Sophia.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Well, you are.’

  ‘I mean, “nice” makes it sound like I don’t want to. I do want to.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why not? Stella is right. She’s mysterious.’

  She went into the bathroom. Stella, Gloria, and I had never gossiped about the new Leslie. I mean, you would think that if a chubby girl whom everyone thought they knew perfectly well, and who always looks half sad sitting off to the side, goes away for the summer and comes back tall, smart, and good-looking enough that the junior boys watch her walk down the hall, that you would discuss it somehow, but maybe it was like Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty – some sort of magic happened, but you don’t know what it is, so why not just accept it? I had known her since kindergarten, and I didn’t even know she had a sense of humour. So it wasn’t just Sophia who was mysterious.

  *

  It was that night that I found out what Mom had been worried about. I found out in the usual way, by eavesdropping, and I was pretty sorry. It was about Danny. I had been out feeding the horses, and I was on the back porch with Rusty, taking off my boots. The weather was still warm, so one of the windows was open, and I heard Mom say, ‘It’s making me crazy.’ Whenever you hear your mom say something like that, then you get really quiet and don’t move, partly so that she won’t know you’re out there, and partly so that you can hear whatever she has to say.