Champion Horse

by Jane Smiley

  Chapter 13

  Sophia sat with us riders for lunch. She didn’t say much, but in addition to her crackers and grapes, she ate some French fries. Really, none of us but Daphne said much. Daphne told the story of Curly and how his stall was right outside Mr Pinckney’s kitchen window. She said, ‘He looks in the window all the time, and even sticks his head in the window when he gets the chance. Mrs Pinckney taught him to pull the cord to turn the light on and off. One time they overslept, and he got the window open and turned the light on and off to wake them up.’

  ‘I don’t believe that,’ said the girl who was riding Dalliance.

  Daphne shrugged and said, ‘Well, that’s what they told me.’

  Two girls sort of shook their heads and rolled their eyes, but Daphne didn’t pay attention. Sophia stared at her. I asked Nancy how Parisienne was doing. She said, ‘Not great. That’s why she’s here. My mom said we have to find another horse if Parisienne doesn’t work out.’

  I said, ‘She’s so pretty.’

  ‘I love her. But maybe she’s too much for me. My trainer wanted me to get a different horse, but I couldn’t resist her.’

  ‘How long have you had her?’

  ‘Oh, a year now.’ She sighed. ‘I was headstrong.’

  Sophia said, ‘You have to be.’

  Nancy smiled.

  Rodney had Pie in the Sky cleaned up for the afternoon session as though he had never been out of his stall, and as soon as Rodney gave me a leg-up, Pie in the Sky tossed his head and started walking. Rodney said, ‘Ya givin’ this boy a Guinness? He’s lookin’ forward to somethin’.’

  ‘What’s a Guinness?’

  ‘Food of the gods,’ said Rodney.

  ‘Beer,’ said Sophia, coming up behind us.

  ‘Yes, and you ask anyone, a nice draught is the holiest of nutrients,’ said Rodney.

  As we walked along, Sophia kept her hand on Pie in the Sky’s shoulder. She said, ‘What do you think you’re going to do?’

  ‘No telling.’

  ‘Was it fun this morning?’

  ‘Well, it should have been a little scary, but it wasn’t. Pie in the Sky was just having a good time. Ralph likes him.’

  She sniffed.

  We were the last to arrive.

  Over the lunch break, they had built a chute of five jumps that ran along the entire side of the arena and around the end, much longer than the chute we had built at the Marble Ranch. We didn’t get to the jumping right away, though. First we had to warm the horses up, and Ralph let us do this on our own, watching us and then coming over to each of us and suggesting something or other. I was doing what I normally did with Pie in the Sky, bending, figure of eights, getting him to step under. Ralph stood there, then said, ‘That horse know how to sidestep?’

  I had Pie in the Sky step under.

  ‘That’s good, but I mean move to the side, crossing front and back.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Well, here.’

  He stood next to my leg and used his hand and his flag to get Pie in the Sky to move sideways to the right. Then he said, ‘Horses don’t want to move sideways. It isn’t very natural or easy. But if you train him to do it and then have him do it, when he does it, he’s saying, “Okay, boss. I believe you.” This horse, there’s just a little part of him that holds back, and that’s the part that disorganises him. He needs practice saying, “Okay, boss. I believe you.”’

  I nodded. Ralph went around to the other side and got Pie in the Sky to sidestep to the left. Ralph said, ‘Tomorrow we’ll take ten minutes and work on that, okay?’

  I nodded again. He patted Pie in the Sky on the rump and walked over to Norseman.

  *

  Curly, of course, was the first one through. In fact, as Daphne stood not far from the beginning of the chute taking Curly’s bridle off, he was tossing his head and leaning towards the chute, and as soon as he was free, the little horse spun around and headed over the jumps. Every stride was perfect, and so was every arc. And even though Ralph had put a few scary things in there – a brush and a couple of chairs lying on their sides underneath parallel poles – Curly couldn’t wait to get to them. At the other end, he turned around and came back, going straight to Ralph, who had shouted ‘Yup!’ as Curly was coming over the last fence. Ralph gave him a lump of sugar. Then he said, ‘Now, this horse doesn’t jump for the sugar – he just enjoys himself jumping. But he comes to me for the sugar when he’s finished. Don’t want him to gallop around and around with all these other horses waiting for their turns.’

  Next he threw Daphne into the saddle, and Daphne and Curly went over the jumps without a bridle. There were plenty of oohs and aahs from the crowd at this, and Sophia said, ‘Are you all going to do that?’

  ‘Maybe. I hope . . .’ I paused and thought, then said, ‘not.’

  Ralph looked around and gestured me over. I led Pie in the Sky to him. He took Pie in the Sky, handed me a lump of sugar, and said, ‘You go down there and wait, and when he comes to you, you say ‘Yup!’ and give him that. Might take him a minute to come to you, but just wait. He knows you. He’ll come to you, because everything about the chute is new and you are familiar.’

  I nodded and walked to the end of the chute. Now Andy and Ralph picked up their flags, and Ralph stood Pie in the Sky at the beginning of the chute. Ralph let the horse go, and then the two of them waved him down the chute. He trotted to the first jump, hesitated, then jumped it. After that he got the idea – he trotted to the second jump much more smoothly, then cantered nicely over the last three. He came out of the chute cantering, saw me, trotted past, then came back. I held out my hand. When he came over to me, I said, ‘Yup!’ and gave him the sugar. Andy was right nearby, and as I was petting Pie in the Sky, he put the lasso over his head and led him away, not forgetting to give me another lump of sugar.

  The second time, Pie in the Sky was much smoother. He had the chute figured out and the sugar figured out. When Andy put the rope over his head, he said, ‘Okay. Now with you on him.’

  I followed them back to where Ralph was standing, smiling. He patted Pie in the Sky and said, ‘I told you this was a good one.’ I nodded.

  I looked down the chute. Probably, I thought, it was easier than it looked. Probably—

  Andy came over and laced his fingers to give me a leg-up. Just then I heard Sophia say, ‘I want to do it.’

  You know the expression ‘music to my ears’? Well, the sound of her saying that was music to my ears. I turned around and looked at her. She was grinning. I said, ‘You sure?’

  ‘It looks like so much fun.’

  I took off my hard hat and handed it to her.

  Well, it was fun. It was fun to watch. She was only wearing slacks and rubber boots, but I had forgotten what a good rider Sophia was, just as secure on a horse and perfect in her position as anyone I had ever seen. Had she really not ridden since August? You couldn’t tell. As soon as Andy legged her up, she was right back where she had always been.

  Except that she was not frowning.

  Pie in the Sky turned and went down the chute, this time perfectly, and when they got to the end, I saw her lean forward and give him a lump of sugar. Then he trotted back, no halter or bridle, to Andy. Ralph went down the chute and raised the jumps, and then Pie in the Sky and Sophia went down it again, faster, bouncier, and happier. I laughed. We all laughed. It was only then that my heart sank just a bit, and I wondered if I’d made a mistake. Probably I would never ride Pie in the Sky again, and so never again would I know that exact feeling I’d got from jumping a horse that was so bright and proud and full of spirit. But he wasn’t mine – that was evident just in the way Sophia’s body moved with his. They were a pleasure to watch.

  The lesson was interesting and exciting all the way through, so I didn’t realise that Dad and Mr Rosebury were nowhere to be found. It was only when the four horses had cooled out (with their bridles on, of course), and were coming out the gate that I saw Mr
s Rosebury. Sophia didn’t see her at first, either – she came over to me and gave me back my hard hat. But then she saw her mom and took Pie in the Sky over to her. Mrs Rosebury patted Pie in the Sky’s neck and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Yes, Sophia looked happy as could be, but Mrs Rosebury looked relieved. I heard Sophia say, ‘Where is he?’ and Mrs Rosebury say, ‘Those buyers, the ones who wanted that property beside the golf course, made up their minds at the last minute, and he had to close the deal.’

  ‘Oh, good,’ said Sophia. I figured she meant it.

  I didn’t know where Dad had gone until about ten minutes later, when Parisienne and the others were getting ready for the second class, and Dad drove by with the trailer. I ran after him. He stopped in the loading area, and I saw that the hind end of the horse inside was grey. Or, you might say, Blue. I ran to the door at the front of the trailer and opened it. Blue nickered, then stuck his head out of the door and looked around. I said, ‘We are going to have some fun!’

  I untied the rope, and Dad put down the ramp and unhooked the chain. Blue reached out with his back foot, then made his way carefully down the ramp. When he was out, he lifted his head, pricked his ears, and whinnied. A horse in one of the barns whinnied back. Dad took the lead rope from me and tied Blue to the trailer, then said, ‘We can get him ready right here.’

  He was already clean and damp – I guess Dad had hosed him off at home – so all we did was brush him and smooth him over with the chamois. I put on my hard hat so I wouldn’t have to carry it, and led him to the arena; Dad would come along in a bit with the saddle and bridle. The whole time we walked over there, I petted Blue. He looked very beautiful, even compared to the expensive horses, and he minded his manners, too. He walked along beside me, never pulling or holding back. He knew this place very well. Time to show off a little.

  This was the beginners’ group – Pinkie, Barry Boy, Parisienne, Riley, and Dalliance. Ralph had worked with the other four at least once, but never with Blue, so he came over and walked around him. I told him that Blue was seven, that he hadn’t had much experience, and that he was nervous about jumping. Ralph just nodded. At one point, he held out his hand, and Blue arched his neck to sniff it. Yes, everything he did was elegant.

  They had lowered the jumps in the chute and removed the third one, so there were two, then a galloping break of four or five strides, then two more. They were maybe two feet high. They had also set up two more on the other side of the arena in a circle, also quite low. The first thing Ralph did was put the lasso around each horse’s neck and send him around the circle, at the trot or the canter – however the horse felt comfortable. If the horse wanted to keep going, the way Barry Boy did, he allowed that. If the horse didn’t want to keep going, then Ralph used his flag to make him go until he went willingly. Blue went fourth. It took six times around until Blue went willingly. Ralph let him stop after seven.

  The next thing was the chute, but they didn’t go down it alone, like the more advanced horses had done. Barry Boy went first, with Pinkie, then Pinkie went with Riley, then Riley went with Dalliance, then Dalliance went with Parisienne, then Parisienne went with Blue, then Blue went with Parisienne again.

  Of course, to me, these last two were the most interesting because they were almost the same size and rather similar looking, though Parisienne was a bright bay and Blue was a dappled grey. But they had a similar stride and a similar jumping style, and Parisienne led the way by two strides, so their rhythm and their style over the jumps made it look like a circus trick – when she was going over the second fence, he was going over the first one, and so on, down the line. Dad said, ‘I’ll bet he likes that, having a girlfriend to do this with.’

  When Nancy and I had caught them and were walking them back to the others, we kept saying, ‘Oh, wasn’t that great?’ and ‘I just couldn’t stop watching that!’

  We did not have to jump them without bridles, but Ralph operated the same way as he had before – what the horses had done without us, they now did with us. We were to hold the reins but put our hands on their manes, take the jumping position, and go in pairs down through the chute. We went through three times each – my first two were with Parisienne, and my last was with Barry Boy. The jumps were still low. Blue was entirely comfortable with Parisienne by the time Nancy and I went through on them. He still let her be in front (which Dad said was completely natural, since mares are in charge most of the time), and as we galloped down the chute, I felt as free as I ever had. Just as I had seen with the other horses, Blue handled all of the jumping – he adjusted the length of his strides, he decided where to take off, he positioned himself in relation to Parisienne. My job was to maintain my balance and go with him. It was easy, much easier than what I usually did with Blue, which was worry about all of it.

  When we galloped through with Barry Boy, Blue was a little more forward. Blue did not really want Barry Boy to lead him by two strides, and I would have thought that would be scary, too, but it wasn’t. By that time, he had been through the chute four times already. He was comfortable enough to play a little bit.

  Ralph put the jumps up six inches.

  This time we went through alone, and it was evident that height didn’t matter, even to Pinkie. Jumping was an aspect of galloping. If they were galloping in a balanced, energetic, and attentive way, then jumping was easy. After we each went through twice, Ralph waved us over to where he was standing, and as we walked around him, he said, ‘Now, believe it or not, just about any horse can jump up to four feet or more, even Pinkie here. Curly can jump a course that is four or more inches taller than he is, and I’ve had a couple of puissance horses go over a foot taller than they were. The world record is eight feet and about an inch and a half. The horse who jumped that was sixteen hands, one inch. That means the jump was thirty-two and a half inches taller than the horse. But he has to be loose and he has to see that the jumping is his job. You can’t be making all the decisions for him. You got to be quiet, and you got to be right with him. That’s your job. Oh, and steering, but you can do that with your head.’

  We all laughed.

  Then Ralph made us do the circle exercise. The first time around, we watched where we were going, and we all got around fine. The second time around, we were to look away from the track, and one by one, each of the horses galloped around the next jump and off to where we had been looking – I made myself look at the gate, and sure enough, we almost went through the gate. Ralph gathered us in the middle and said, ‘See, it doesn’t matter why it happens. It only matters that now you know that it happens.’

  He didn’t want to end on a bad note, though, so he had us get back on and jump a small looping course of four jumps, easy turns, first one direction, then the other. It was as natural as could be, just cantering and having fun. Then we untacked the horses and left them with Ralph. We took some apples that he produced from a bag, and walked to the far end of the arena, past where we had been before, maybe thirty feet beyond the end of the chute. When we were all gathered there and quiet, he sent the horses through the chute. They came with their ears pricked, their nostrils flared, and their manes flying. They looked graceful and free and happy. Barry Boy was in the lead, and Parisienne and Blue were right behind him, and they all came down to the trot and found us as soon as they were out of the chute. And all of us – Nancy, Andy, Elizabeth, Riley’s owner, Mary, and Dalliance’s owner, Linda, and I – we all petted them, gave them their apples, told them how wonderful they were, and promised them not only more apples but feed tubs full of carrots.

  When we walked them around, cooling them out, everyone was smiling and talking, and telling everyone else what nice horses they had. It was not like a show at all.

  By the time Blue was cool and untacked and we had all his stuff cleaned up and put away, it was getting dark, and by the time Dad and I had loaded him up to take him home, it was really dark, and we were ploughing through the forest with only our headlights showing the way. I always thought that was
a spooky thing about the stables, that in spite of the golf course and all the houses around, you felt lost in the woods even driving down the road. I was pretty tired, and I just sat there most of the time, and even Dad didn’t say much, except ‘Ralph Carmichael is something of a horseman,’ but I could tell that he was happy and excited.

  Finally, he heaved a sigh and said, ‘Well, now. What time are we supposed to be here tomorrow?’

  I said, ‘Tomorrow is Sunday.’

  ‘Well, this . . . well . . .’

  I looked at him. I said, ‘One lesson is enough, Dad. We can skip tomorrow. I just wanted to try it.’ Then, after a long pause in the dark, I said, ‘I guess Sophia is going to be riding her own horse now.’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘Well, there you go.’ I didn’t mean to say, ‘There you go,’ which sort of means ‘I told you so,’ but he didn’t get mad at me for being sassy.

  He just said, ‘Yup. There you go.’

  ‘Maybe, since Ralph and Andy and Daphne come here pretty often, we can do it again some time.’

  ‘Maybe. I’d like to see whatever he does.’

  ‘I would, too.’

  But the fact was, I didn’t mind missing the next day. For one thing, how could it be better than today? I needed some time to think about today, and everything else. To understand it, maybe, or maybe just to let it replay over and over in my mind. Another day, at this point, seemed like a whole bag of Halloween candy when you really just wanted to eat a few small sweets and enjoy them. Church would be a rest, listening to the brothers talk and the sisters gossip and eating something good – tomorrow was the Hollingsworths’ turn, and they often brought a dish I liked, chicken fricassee with dumplings. I dozed off and half dreamed, half remembered what those five horses looked like coming down the chute on their own, just because they liked it, just because they were with each other, just because they were horses and horses were born to move.

  Chapter 14