Horse Crazy

by Susan Kiernan

  Horse Crazy

  Susan Kiernan-Lewis

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in any type of retrieval system or transmitted in any way or by any means: electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or recording without permission of the publisher.

  Copyright 2011 by San Marco Press. All rights reserved.

  Published by San Marco Press

  Chapter One

  Horse Crazy

  "Princess Anne's husband just broke his nose trying to throw a girl into the hotel pool."

  I put my pen down and stared at the Art Director with whom I shared my office and who had just made this statement.

  "Excuse me?"

  Hanging up the phone, he turned to me from his desk:

  "Actually, I think he was trying to take her blouse off at the time." My art director, a small and wiry New Zealander with a perverse sense of what is funny, grinned like a lunatic.

  "Charming." I said.

  "And then it seems 'is mates threw 'im in the pool."

  I simply looked at him as severely as if he were responsible for all this.

  "Whereupon he broke his beak," he added happily.

  I continued to stare at him as if to express what I had told him many times during our year of working together: you people are not like us.

  He laughed.

  "At least the commercial's shot, my darling," he said. "Might not be in the can, but it doesn't need him in front of the camera. Just as well, too, bloke said he's got a huge plaster across his honker."

  Funny, I never thought of royalty as having honkers. I turned to look at the stills we'd shot of Captain Phillips the day before. "I wonder what Princess Anne would say?"

  David Carruthers, Kiwi, art director, and seriously demented wit par excellence, scooped up his jacket and his work diary and headed for the door.

  "Why don't you ring her, pet? I'm sure she'd be keen to know." He smiled. "Meanwhile, if you discover our Mr. Todd's done himself as well, we're in for it. We'll have to grab some joker off 'is tractor to double."

  The idea of hauling in some local farmer to take the place of Mark Todd--New Zealand's first and quite-recent Equestrian gold-medal winner --in Monday's scheduled television commercial shoot was unnerving.

  I looked at David severely, demonstrating my to-be-understood-in-any-language sourest face.

  "Don't worry, darling," he laughed. "She'll be right. 'Long as the Captain's finished his last take, which he has, we've got no worries. Fact is, I'm off to see his pre-fractured nasal-ness in the editing room now. Spot ya."

  Ta-ta-ing me, he swung out of the office in a flurry of blue jeans, books and tatty briefcase. I sighed and returned my gaze to the slightly creased and tea-stained Phillips stills on my desk.

  Although certainly delighted that Captain Mark Phillips had completed the required tasks for the commercial we'd just finished shooting for a New Zealand tea company before he'd disfigured himself, I was nonetheless a little stunned at this charming man's reputed behavior in Christchurch where the melee was said to have taken place.

  We'd shot the commercial at a tidy little horse farm in Mangere, New Zealand--the country where I was living, and where the advertising agency I worked for was located.

  It was the late 1980's. Captain Phillips had come to New Zealand, after script approval from Buckingham Palace, to do the commercial at the request of our client, a dedicated royal-watcher and horse-lover.

  After doing the commercial, Phillips would spend several months in New Zealand and Australia keeping a schedule of teaching, attending various riding clinics, and three-day events, and hanging out with his riding buddies--most notably, Gold Medal Winner Mark Todd (whom we were also featuring in a tea commercial).

  For the present commercial, Captain Phillips was to be seen instructing seven mounted children of various ages and degrees of riding ability. At one point in the television lesson, there occurred an important interruption in order to take a much-needed and well-deserved tea break--featuring, of course, our client's brewed product.

  Captain Phillips would not speak of the product or refer to it nor actively endorse it in any way other than the implication of his appearance in the commercial in the first place. He would, however, be shown seeming to drink the tea. Our client thought it was a terrific deal--since most royals (or in this case, nearly-royal) have a high recognition quotient among the citizenry of Commonwealth countries. And Captain Phillips was a particularly choice association in a country as horsy as New Zealand. (As it happened, the spot got a good deal of national attention, and inevitably sold heaps of tea.)

  Our famous actor was charming, tireless and utterly pleasant. He worked hard, smiled always. The dust in the riding ring caused him continual misery with his contact lenses, the children--allowed to play catch-'n-run on horseback with his favorite cheesecutter cap, (even trying to feed it to a Welsh pony at one point)--succeeded in ripping the hat, and the nervous and awfully-impressed tea lady promptly dribbled our product in his almost-royal lap during a lunch break.

  But through it all he remained soft-spoken and delightful. He continued to teach the children even when the cameras weren't running: during morning teas, lunches, and afternoon teas--throughout the three long days of the shoot. This, to the total ecstasy of the watching parents, who nonetheless cringed every time one of their little darlings yelled out: "Maaaaaark! Come fix my stirrup!" or some other well-mannered gem to Her Majesty's then son-in-law.

  Here was a man who absolutely loved horses. He seemed to enjoy touching them, watching them, riding them; even these stumpy little things with the cherry-cheeked kiddies on top.

  During lulls in the shooting, he'd hop on the back (from behind, Cowboy Bob-style) and gallop the ring, hallooing and whapping the pony's rump with his mangled cheesecutter. The children adored him.

  Having proved himself a tolerant, even good-natured participant in a commercial shoot that was at times less than comfortable, I was disappointed to hear he could be rather less wonderful. Probably human, even.

  But, in any case, he'd re-ignited in me a memory of what it was like to be a kid and love horses. To live, breathe and revel in the wonderful creatures. And when it was all said and done, I took that memory, broken nose and all and spun it into a reality for myself.

  I don't know why little girls and horses are such a natural match up. I didn't have any little girl friends who didn't love horses. And although we never seriously considered the incredible possibility of actually owning one, we drew them, jumping and kicking, chewing and sleeping, on our first-grade notebook covers and pretended to gallop and trot like them in the warm twilight of long summer days, making clicking and nickering noises alternately as if to be the rider and the ridden both at the same time.

  Sunday evenings, right after "Lassie" came "National Velvet", the television show every horse-loving female baby boomer raced through her homework to see. Velvet Brown was this cute kid, just about our size, with adults who took her deadly serious and a wise, almost-handsome Irishman named Micah who not only treated her as an equal (this is where the t.v. series began to resemble science-fiction to a kid), but respected her riding ability even over his own. Naturally, there was some awful riding accident in his past that allowed this situation to exist but who minded the reason? (Except maybe Micah.)

  But the best part was King.

  No stodgy, furry pony named "Dumpling" for Velvet. She had a thoroughbred. And not just any sleek 17 hand chestnut with a single blaze and perfect conformation and temperament but one who, of course, was capable of winning the Grand National. It was the ultimate horse fantasy. And every Sunday night, thousands of would-be Velvets watched and dreamed and lived the fantasy.

  Then, of course, there was Mr. Ed.
<
br />   Although not exactly what a horse-starved girl dreamed of, he, at least, was a horse and therefore preferable over "The Three Stooges" or "My Mother The Car."

  Unless you live on a farm or come from a horse family (two groups neither of which were even remotely connected to my circle of schoolgirl friends), daydreams and play-galloping in your backyard were the limits of the fulfillment of your horse obsession. There would be long, somehow exciting hours of studying the anatomy of the horse from library books with your friends, flipping through old tack catalogues that somebody's uncle's son had left when they were visiting or playing with the corrals of horse figures you all inevitably had.

  Once in awhile the opportunity would come up, through a traveling carnival or the like, to be perched on a horse tied to a pole and trudged around in a circle. This did nothing to diminish the obsession, interestingly enough.

  Once or twice, there would be the odd guided trail ride; only serving to severely cement the dementia caused by the love of a little girl for these beloved, wonderful beasts.

  My parents--noting the signs of horse craziness in their eight-year old--would allow me to accompany one or some of their adult friends who occasionally had a wild hair to go for a guided hack. This was not a romp through someone's well-tended Long Island estates, mind, but a very orderly, i.e. single file, walk through narrow trails in upstate New York where we were living at the time.

  I would grip the big Western saddle horn with both hands and feel the bumps and sways of the beast beneath me, invariably named "Jet" or "Star" or "Lucky" in those days. A visit to a stable today will find ponies named "RockStar" or "Mambo" or "Wicked Boy". But in 1959, life enjoyed a sweeter time, a gentler theme.

  I would joggle along, my legs bouncing in the short stirrups, and I would smell the musky nastiness of the animal while I longed, with my whole heart, to never be parted from him, to bring him home and stake him out next to the Super BlueJay Swing Set I shared with my three brothers, so that I could always smell him and run my fingers through his tangled, dirty mane and look into this beautiful, loving eyes.

  Just why a girl falls prey to horse-love is not entirely clear. Why a little girl and not a little boy or not usually a little boy, is likewise not too clear. In most cases, the girl is pre- or early adolescent when the interest in horses becomes predominate. Boys seem to get into it later, but with a lot less emotion or intensity. Some people answer the "why" questions with the belief that there is a deep-seated psycho sexual attraction involved in this girl-loves-Flicka syndrome. Big, powerful horse...petite, more powerful girl. Girl dominates and loves the horse in ways she can't dominate and love...what? Men? Dad? Baloney.

  There is a theory that young girls will often become obsessive about horses because they're going through an unstable and eruptive stage in their lives--the dreaded pre-teens--and the horse is a friend who will not only tolerate their every mood, but give them a safe way to express themselves and sort out some of the feelings adolescence brings. No criticisms, no questions, no judgments. If you've ever looked into the dark, empathetic eyes of a pony or sloe-eyed mare, you could not have doubted that the animal understands you. (You would, of course, be wrong, but perception is everything in times like these. Especially to a kid.)

  Horses are also a great outlet for active, even aggressive, feelings. Competitiveness and rough 'n tumble play are more socially acceptable in a girl when there's a horse involved. You can live your dream of being Dale Evans--or better, Pancho Villa--raising great wafts of black dust behind you as you gallop to the aid of some threatened village or distraught stagecoach, and not even be called a tomboy.

  Heavy metal music and video games not withstanding, girls still play-act and dream. And when they do, chances are they're dreams of romance and adventure: cowgirls and Arabian warriors, Amazons and plucky Indian scouts. All you needed was your trusty pony and some heart.

  And a ten-year old girl has that in buckets.

  Being horse-crazy is naturally accompanied by much begging and nagging of parental units. I'm not sure too many of my little playmates really expected a pony to result from their constant asking but it seemed the thing to do, and felt a fairly minimal effort in the cause of horse hysteria. Again, I never really knew anyone who actually owned a horse or pony and so the reality of it seemed pretty far from me.

  Once I did spend the afternoon with a pony who belonged to some distant cousins. He was a shaggy, wild-eyed little thing, who was the star attraction at a country family reunion in Pendleton, Indiana.

  There was no tack, not even a bridle, so we children took turns clambering on him bareback, entwining sticky corn-on-the-cob fingers through his dirty white mane. We cantered him mercilessly up and down a fence line until dusk when our parents gathered us up for the ride back to Indianapolis. This first experience with a pony not chained to a moving wheel or firmly fixed to a trail guide's rump was nothing less than exhilarating. During my good-byes to the dear, exhausted thing, it stepped on my sneakered foot, blackening my big toe for weeks.

  As part of an Air Force family, I moved around a good bit (which was the perfectly sound-sounding reason my father gave me for not buying me a pony.)

  We were transferred in the early sixties to a tiny French village in the Alsace-Lorraine area where the only horses wore heavy work harnesses and looked painfully unhappy (especially to a little girl) as they went about their chores. Even so, I still loved to watch the sorry creatures.

  Later, when we moved to Germany, my hope of being around horses still didn't perish on the Army Post at Kaiserslautern but neither did it flourish much. I didn't know anyone who rode or who was involved with horses, and at twelve, my contact-making skills were a little undeveloped.

  Eventually, we moved back to the States and riding opportunities began to present themselves.

  In my late teens, I took formal riding lessons for the first time. The lessons were given at a shabby little ranch that supported itself by raising and selling chickens. I didn't care. I loved the lessons. There were three students in my class, each with varying degrees of riding skill. Sometimes my instructor would have us do running squats across the sandy ring in order to build up thigh muscles. We were taught to barrel race in the same hour we were shown how to get into a two-point jumping position.

  One afternoon, one of the other riding students claimed her horse got away from her and the two of them jumped a little coop outside the ring. I was jealous that she'd done it but didn't have the nerve to "accidentally" jump it too. As it happened, that particular experience would have to wait about sixteen more years, and when I finally did do it, with much excitement and emphasis on a clear April afternoon in a field in Alpharetta, Georgia, I would fall and break my shoulder in two neat snaps.

  Coming home from my lessons as a teenager, I would walk in the door of my parents' house, hair blown, clothes haphazard and filthy, with streaks of mud on my face. My parents would greet my bedraggled appearance with some apprehension. In fact, the first time I came home in this fashion, my father peered at my refugee attire from over his newspaper, then said to my mother as he returned to his reading: "I say, dear, it's Penelope in from her evening hack."

  But I was older now and interests in men, career and a car-to-call-my-own began to outweigh my childhood dreams of riding like the wind in the Grand National. I was always enthusiastic about the odd trail ride with friends and became a devoted Dick Francis fan, but I put away the little girl's horse fantasy with my Barbie dolls and Silly Putty and for the next fifteen years did other things.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Mounting Up Down Under

  I had been living in New Zealand about a year when we shot the Captain Phillips tea commercial. I had traveled to there for a holiday and ended up being held captive by an island enchantment.

  New Zealand has been described as "lovely, lonely, loyal". Tucked away in its remote corner of the Pacific Ocean, it is more remote than any other land mass of consequence in the world. (This is not intende
d to annoy the members of any inconsequential land masses in that area.)

  Geographically situated in the southernmost point of the island triangle that makes up Polynesia, New Zealand's nearest neighbor, Australia, is about 2,000 kilometers (__ miles) away. To the east is the South American mainland--with a few thousand miles of ocean in between.

  Called Aotearoa, or literally "land of the long, white cloud", by the native Maori, New Zealand was happened-upon in 1642--if not actually set foot-upon (the natives were a cross bunch)--by a Dutch explorer, Abel Tasman. (Later, he got around to having a sea and an island near Australia named after him. And a devil too, come to think of it.)

  It's estimated that the first horse probably showed up some time in the late seventeen hundreds, compliments of Captain James Cook. In fact, every mammal in New Zealand--except for two species of bat--has had to be introduced to the country.

  As it turned out, the place became as much horse country as Kentucky would be if it were its own nation.

  It is a country of just three million people, so engrossed in athletics and sports that they herald their Olympic medal winners as national heroes. These heroes are immediately recognizable--by housewife and pub-frequenter alike--wherever they appear.

  A reason for New Zealand's applaudable proficiency with les chevaux might be attributed to the fact that, unlike other third world countries, people there have a lot of spare time to concentrate on hobbies. In fact, the commitment to leisure activities is so intense that a visitor once wrote, after visiting Australia: "I also visited New Zealand. But it was closed."

  The country definitely tends to be a people concentrating on having a good time, of finding the perfect weekend, of elongating the perfect weekend. Whether the Kiwis (as New Zealanders call themselves) are down at the beach, building a boat in their backyards (a popular Kiwi enterprise) in order to sail around the world (a popular Kiwi accomplishment), playing rugby, riding, or drinking beer, they consider their time off as important as anything else they possess.