Harry did do better with less equipment, but it had nothing to do with how he felt about longelines, saddles and stuff. It had to do with freedom. Harry did not submit easily to human demands. He hated them. Forcing him was impossible; his body was too strong and his mind was even stronger. Training Harry was an exercise in communication and trust. I had to get him on my team, otherwise our agendas clashed and we got nowhere. The reason Harry worked so well for Erica was because she allowed him some freedom. She allowed him a choice. She got him on her side, and once he was there, he would do anything for her.
I felt dizzy and almost whiplashed from the sudden realization. It’s like the less equipment you weigh him down with, the better he does. “That gives me an idea,” I said hurriedly. “Wait here,” I added before I took off for the house.
Harry needed freedom. Being caught between a longeline and a whip, a saddle and a bridle, or a rider’s hand and leg made him claustrophobic. Of course he acted out then. I burst into the house. What am I here for? Oh, right. The helmet. I began tearing through various piles. What I was about to do was insane enough. I didn’t feel the need to leave my skull uncovered and crushable. Besides, I knew it would make Erica happy.
Amber wandered over, her eyebrows forming a serpentine. “What are you doing?”
“I just had an epitome,” I said self-righteously.
“You mean an epiphany?”
My face flushed. “Um, yeah. That.”
“What was your epiphany? Do I even want to know?” Amber had a this-oughta-be-good look on her face.
I didn’t answer for a minute as I hunted for the right box. Finally I found it. I pulled the helmet from its depths and shoved it onto my head. Conveniently, I also found a pair of reins I had been meaning to clean. “I’m going to ride Harry bareback in a halter. He needs freedom.” I turned and headed out the door.
Amber burst out the door right behind me. “Are you completely NUTS?”
“You don’t have to watch, Amber.”
“Oh, I’m gonna watch, alright,” she shot back. “I want a front row seat when you fall on your pretty-boy head.” There was a subtle edge of concern to her voice I could only detect through years of practice.
“I’m wearing a helmet, Amber,” I said in an attempt to quell her fears.
“Yeah, like that’ll save you when you break your neck.”
Frankly, I had wondered about that myself. Oh, well. I climbed the paddock fence and leaped down. Harry stared at me, goggle-eyed as ever. I didn’t allow myself any contemplation of the considerable potential for bad shit going down. I fastened the reins to his halter and played it cool. I knew he was less than reassured by my coolness, but I pressed on.
I stepped onto a low fence board and took a few more upward steps until I found myself at an appropriate height. Then without thinking, I jumped, reaching out until my hands touched down on Harry’s neck, bearing part of my weight as I settled onto Harry’s back. He’d stood rooted through all of this, which pleased me but also made me suspicious. His back was broad and flat for a polo pony, and his spine well padded, but the surrounding muscles were bone-hard with tension. I rubbed his neck. Thanks for not killing me. Yet.
I breathed my leg inward on his sides, and Harry stepped forward. Almost immediately, he started skittering around. I could sense his mind shutting down. I shut my mind down as well. Thoughts could only sabotage me at this point. I followed his erratic movement, staying aggressively calm, and he began to come back to me. I started to ask things of him, just little, easy things, but something to occupy his mind and keep his focus. An idle mind, especially Harry’s, was a dangerous thing in a horse. I could feel him getting bored with the walk, so I gave him a touch of leg and a cluck. His gait shifted immediately. I could feel the smile on my face.
Then Harry realized his mistake. He dug in his heels, whipped his head around and shot me a nasty look. I was wondering when the real Harry would come out, I thought grimly. I tightened my leg on his side, mentally bracing for a fight.
It took him only a second to gather himself. I felt that bad, destructive energy churning away under my seat, and I sank into it, welcoming it. I couldn’t fight it. If I braced against it, I was gone. I was maybe gone anyway.
Harry’s rage propelled him off the ground. His leap was smooth and deadly. The powerful kick from behind and the sharp dive of his head were incredibly athletic and somewhat calculated. I felt the whip-lashing, bone-cracking force, but I was a part of it, and I followed it, rode it out, and took control of it. Harry’s surprise registered as I picked his nose out of the dirt and shoved his hind feet back into it. I had no mechanical advantage this time, no leverage to shape him into what I wanted. Yet I was still in control. Which, obviously, had blown Harry’s mind to bits. He trotted steadily underneath me, ears flicking back at me, listening. I had his trust, his attention, submission. I had him. I had gotten him only by shocking him senseless, true, but it was something. Something we could maybe build on.
I tried things with him. His responsiveness was sick. His athleticism was sicker. He carried himself beautifully, never leaning on my hand for support. He adjusted his stride to account for minute changes in my seat and how I followed him. He threw down deft, clean flying changes and stayed on the brink of a gallop, never pushing for more speed, never losing his head. He was brilliant. I knew what I had in that moment. I knew why Gerard Montague and the others who’d passed him around at the IPC had held onto him and fought with him and tried to get through to him for so many years, when they had the best ponies in the world to work on. Being around Harry was agony much of the time, but he was worth the pain.
I had to stop. When you got a breakthrough like this, the best way to completely fuck it up was to keep going. If I kept asking for more, Harry would rebel, and we would lose the fragile ground we had gained. I was trying to change his firmly held opinion that people suck. I had to reward him when he was good. Like now. It took every bit of restraint I had, and more. I had no idea when I would get to feel this again. STOP, I ordered myself. Harry sank even more weight onto his haunches and went immobile, reading my thoughts. I took my weight off his back, grinning compulsively as I walked him out.
I glanced at my audience, both for potential ego-boosting and confirmation that what I’d just experienced actually happened. Amber’s mouth hung open, I noted with satisfaction. As I passed by her, I sensed her disbelief, relief and slight disappointment. No surprise there.
My eyes then shifted to Erica. There was no surprise in her face. Her look was one of quiet triumph. Satisfaction. Hope. There was a lot of hope in her clear, ice-blue eyes. And something became equally clear to me. My motivation to ride Harry like this had been, at least partly, to one-up Erica. In some small way, I resented her successes, her breakthroughs, her brilliant ideas. I was used to working on my own, succeeding on my own, and Harry had shut that down. Erica had better luck with Harry than I did. But it wasn’t luck, it was because she was a training genius. I freely admitted that.
I hadn’t ridden Harry bareback in a halter just to try to compete with Erica. It was impossible to compete with her. I had done it because I really, deeply wanted to impress her.
Erica
My alarm jolted me awake with a rather rude screech. I smacked it with my hand, and it tumbled off my dresser, either landing on the Off button or breaking on impact. Either way, it shut up. Good. You deserved that. I lay still in my bed, relatively awake but unwilling to leave such a warm, comfortable place just yet. Then my body stiffened and my mind blared. Show morning! D.M.’s big debut! I jumped out of bed, my reluctance forgotten entirely. I had a lot to do before I could haul out to the show grounds.
Six hours later, D.M. followed me down the driveway, shipping boots swishing as he walked. I smiled gratefully as my gelding stepped right into the trailer as he always did, giving me no fight even though he dwarfed me in size. As I closed the door, he buried his nose in his hay bag. I climbed into the cab of my truck, still m
entally checking and double-checking items off my list. Boots, helmet, gloves, saddle…wait a minute. My mind was blank as I tried to recall placing D.M.’s saddle in the trailer. I left the driver’s seat and jerked open the trailer door. D.M. stared at me quizzically. Wow, that was a really short trip. I smiled wryly as I wrenched my handmade, engraved tack trunk open. No saddle. I sprinted back to the tack room and pulled it off its rack, rolling my eyes at myself as I deposited it in the tack trunk. I can’t believe I almost forgot D.M.’s freaking saddle. Awesome. I started up my truck and cranked up the radio to drown out my self-abusing inner thoughts.
The show grounds weren't very far from my parents' farm, and as I pulled in the drive, the parking area (a large, flat, field) was nearly filled to capacity with horse trailers. I managed to find a decent parking space, and D.M.'s gentle nicker greeted me as I opened the trailer door and lowered the ramp. D.M. stood patiently as I removed all the protective layers from his body. His eyes grew wide as he took in all the comings and goings, ears flicking at the screams of horses or the sharp thud of a trailer’s interior being kicked, but soon he realized it was just another show and settled down to nibble at some hay.
I listened carefully to the loudspeaker as it crackled to life. With a quick glance at the class schedule, even though I knew it by heart, I realized that classes had gone by faster than I’d anticipated. I was running out of time, and I still had to tack up D.M., change into my show clothes, warm up and walk the course. I pulled my tack trunk out of the trailer and it hit the ground with a heavy thud. I decided to leave it where it had landed rather than risking a strain by moving it closer to my horse, and I rushed back and forth with tack in hand. All around me, my competitors’ horses were being tacked up and watched over by grooms. Their riders relaxed in the shade while they waited for the previous class’s course to be torn down and made higher and more difficult.
D.M. was still eating hay, unaffected by the overwhelming feeling of stress that seemed to hang over the show grounds. I wished I were more like my horse. Occasionally someone I knew would walk by and say hello, but I could barely manage a smile and a nod. My face felt tight and my hands fumbled with the process that was second nature to me. Finally the job was done. D.M. was dressed, minus his bridle, which would go on just before the warm-up. I leaned against the trailer, trying to breathe deeply. C’mon, Erica. You’ve been showing for years. Get yourself together! I knew, deep down, that this was just another show. But the stakes were way higher than usual for me. It was a new year, a new show season, and for D.M. and me, a chance to redeem ourselves from our past mistakes.
The year before this had been the first year I had aggressively shown D.M. At his size, the gelding had needed time to grow into himself. I waited until he was nearly four to begin his under saddle work, and proceeded slowly, only hauling to an occasional show for the exposure. I had concentrated on his training, spending most of my show budget on clinics and lessons. Our long-awaited “year of showing” had been a disappointment. Though most onlookers agreed that his scope was impressive, D.M. had struggled with the tight, twisty courses. In order to succeed in show jumping, he had to do better. I had worked tirelessly for a year to help him learn to adjust his huge stride and whip his massive body around when the course warranted it. At the age of nine, he was mature, well-traveled, and his training had really come along in the last year. But have I done enough to prepare him? I wondered, stroking his satiny neck. I guess we’ll find out today.
I left him tied to the trailer and ventured out to the expansive arena where my class would take place. I didn’t like leaving D.M. unsupervised, but I didn’t have a choice. It wasn’t as if he could walk the course with me. That could easily be construed as cheating, I thought to myself, amused.
My short-lived smile melted off my face as soon as I saw the course. It was a nightmare. It was as if the course designer had a major grudge against D.M., and an intimate knowledge of his weaknesses. I had been hoping for an easy, encouraging trip for D.M. so he could start out the season with a positive experience. With that hope thoroughly dashed, I began to walk the course, a critically important part of any show day. During the few minutes I spent walking from jump to jump I would memorize the order of the fences, and figure out what kind of ride the course would require. Where to speed up, where to slow down and collect my horse. Where I could cut a corner and perhaps save a valuable second. And of course, I always made a mental note of any trouble spots. Basically, this whole course is a trouble spot, I thought as I frowned at the tightly spaced fences.
I returned to my horse, feeling deflated. He greeted me by dribbling green slime onto my shirt. I pushed his nose away and rubbed his neck, thankful I hadn’t yet changed into my show clothes. Then I hurried into the trailer to do just that. After putting on my helmet, I led D.M. to the warm-up ring which was already seething with activity.
After climbing to the top step of the mounting block, I still had to stretch to climb onto the 17.3 hand gelding's back. Once in the saddle, I took comfort from my horse's calm vibes and began warming him up, working through transitions and circles and letting myself relax into his movement, while on the lookout for loose horses and unskilled riders. As the opening presented itself, I rode him through the short course of practice fences. He responded with a relaxed but powerful jumping effort every time, and I decided to walk him around the grounds to get him further accustomed to the environment in the last minutes before my class. "Every second counts," my dad used to tell me. That was my motto now that I was showing on my own. Every second counts, and the seconds before my class were ticking away. D.M. took me by surprise by skittering sideways as a row of fluttering ribbons hanging on a trailer came into his field of vision. I quickly directed him to leg yield left and right, and the distraction was soon forgotten. I hoped nothing like that would happen when we were in the ring.
Jennifer rode by me on a keen-eyed chestnut mare I didn’t recognize. “Hey, Erica! He looks great,” she said, nodding at D.M.
“Thanks.” I smiled down at my gelding’s broad shoulders. “I didn’t expect to see you here today.”
“I’m catch-riding for my dad and a few other people. I’m kind of bored with equitation, you know? Sometimes I just want to race against the clock and not worry about being perfect every stride.”
I nodded. “Sure. Winning every single class must get so boring,” I teased.
She rolled her eyes, grinning slightly. “You know what I meant.”
A squeal of feedback from the announcer’s microphone halted our conversation. “Class number 12, 4’ Open Jumping is starting in the second ring. Our first entrant is number 67. Number 24 is on deck.”
The sun went behind a cloud just then, underscoring the drama of the moment. My stomach tightened. Jennifer looked giddy, and not at all nervous. Of course she’s not nervous. She can always go back to eq. But I have to do well. I realized I was holding my breath, and gulped down some air. If I stayed on this downward spiral of tension, D.M. would start to pick up on it. Instead, I tried to follow his lead.
I forgot to watch the first rider. Watching other riders’ mistakes (and triumphs) was a good learning opportunity, as well as a way to solidify the course in my mind. As Jennifer rode into the ring, I mouthed “Good luck” at her. I didn’t have enough air in my lungs to actually speak.
As she rode the course, I found myself seriously impressed by her mount. The mare was clearly a little green for this level of competition, but she was very good on her feet. Being somewhat inexperienced in the jumper ring herself, Jennifer wasn’t able to give her a perfect ride. But the mare just kept powering over each jump she was pointed at. The look in her eye clearly stated that nothing would stop her from completing the course. Not a single rail fell to the sand. As the mare sprinted over the finish line, I saw her hone in on the arena fence and prepare to jump it as well. Jennifer had to pull back hard on the outside rein and turn the mare in a tight circle to convince her they were done with jump
ing. She was laughing as they headed out of the arena. The mare was still looking for more jumps.
I caught a glimpse of their time on the clock just before it went blank and the next competitor rode in. Wow. That is going to be hard to beat. That mare is one crazy good jumper. I rode D.M. over to Jennifer, who was already being congratulated by her many admirers. “Hey, Jenn!” I called. “Who’re you riding her for?”
“That would be me.” I turned to see Ben Miller step from the crowd that surrounded Jennifer. He took hold of the mare’s reins, and Jennifer dismounted. He smiled at me almost contemptuously.
“She’s a real talent,” I said in a carefully measured voice.
“Is she for sale?” Someone else asked, allowing me to retain my dignity.
Ben shook his head. “I did have her up for sale a while back,” he said, glancing subtly in my direction. “But no one snapped her up. She’s really come on strong in the last month or so. I want to see how far she can go before I put a price on her.” He smiled at me again, and led her away.
I sat uneasily on D.M.’s back. Why did he keep looking at me like that? What am I missing? Then my mind rewound, taking me back to a spring day when Ben Miller witnessed what had been a tough schooling session for D.M. and I.
I’ve got a mare you might like. Jumper prospect, schooling four feet. Scopey, athletic. Tall enough for you, but nimble….
Oh my God. That’s not her, is it? Is it her?
“Last call for Number 33, Erica Rimwork on Don’t Cha Doubt Me, in 4’ Open Jumping. This is your last call.”
I gasped. I thumped D.M., who’d fallen half asleep, with my heels. He woke up only slightly grumpily. I wheeled him around and rode into the ring, making a circle near the in gate. I let him take a look at the jumps, and felt him building momentum. Then we galloped over the starting line, and the seconds played out on the once-pristine clock.
Training Harry Page 17