by Gigi Amateau
“Never mind,” Ashley muttered. “Let’s get up there.”
Our warm-up was quick. We trotted a loop around a small sandy area once in each direction, then rushed into a canter.
We galloped to the vertical and took off long, soaring over the fence. With an equally strong approach to the oxer, we launched nearly a stride before the jump, and my hind leg knocked the back rail. She took me over a couple more fences, and then we felt ready.
Ashley nudged me over to the ring so we could watch the pair riding before us. The hay I had left back at the trailer was calling to my stomach. I was ready to ride and eager to finish my lunch.
A small buckskin horse, almost a pony, really, was being piloted around by a young boy of maybe ten, a bit older than little Claire, a good bit younger than Ashley.
No threat from those two, I thought. I could tell Ashley felt that way, too, by the way her breathing stayed even. This was all about going fast, and they weren’t even galloping.
Suddenly, it was our turn.
“Number three-two-six in for their speed round. Dante’s Inferno is owned by Maury River Stables. Ashley Brooks has the ride.”
I snorted as we entered the ring, just for effect. I was jigging and prancing, and I knew Ashley felt me coiled under her, poised to attack the jumps. Skipping a trot, we moved right into a canter, or maybe it was a gallop, as we waited for the signal to go.
The buzzer sounded. We flew toward number one, a simple square oxer. Ashley closed her leg and asked for the spot, but it was too long.
A half stride later, we were so out of sync that I had to throw myself over the jump. I heard a couple people in the grandstand gasp.
Ashley fell forward, unbalanced and tipping to the left. She quickly sat up and pulled me right, aiming us at the next jump. The skinny red jump had scared most of the day’s horses, but I sailed over it, of course. None of those jumps scared us.
The third jump was a combination. Vertical–two strides–oxer. I was pretty sure I could hear that timer ticking, so I ran faster. The dust shot out from behind my legs, and I imagined other colts behind me, ducking and shaking their heads as my clumps of sand and mud peppered their legs and faces.
I felt Ashley’s body shift, and I tuned back in. No colts. No jockeys. Just the girl, me, and the clock. I went long to the next jump, eager to prove myself to everyone.
Ashley knew she needed to pull me up in the two stride, but we were flying high, and I took off after one. I knew straightaway that I had jumped Ashley out of the tack. My feet knocked the fence, but somehow cleared it. I hadn’t lost her, so I kept going.
We galloped and twisted and turned to the next few jumps, and I heard more gasps from the crowd.
“Just four more,” Ashley said as we approached the number eight combination: oxer–one stride–vertical. I soared over the oxer, but got in too deep, coming nearly to a stop. Bounce. I had to bounce. That one was reminiscent of the old lift-and-hurl episode over the electric fence, probably even a little uglier.
Ashley muttered a curse and apologized for landing so hard on my back. We both hated combinations.
From outside the ring, Mrs. Maiden called out, “Ashley!” as we galloped up to the next fence.
She must know we’re going to win! I thought, so sure that we would.
A couple more close calls, and we finished the course without even pulling a rail. A couple of chippers, sure, but we went clean and fast. I felt Ashley grinning proudly as the announcer read our time.
Now that I had gotten a smidgen of jumpers, I understood everything. I wasn’t meant to race. I was meant to jump. Jump and go fast. I never wanted to stop. Not ever.
But something was wrong. Mrs. Maiden came storming toward us, and I’ll be honest, there was nothing lovey-dovey about the look on her face.
After that ride, I had figured Mrs. Maiden to greet us with praise and a soft pat on my neck. I expected some warm words for Ashley. I had convinced myself that after the speed and power that she had just witnessed, Mrs. Maiden would be talking about the Horse Center, Culpeper, and Middleburg.
As Ashley and I left the ring we were met by Mrs. Maiden, demanding that Ashley dismount immediately and walk me to the trailer. I bucked little happy kicks to show her that I wanted to keep riding. Forget the hay; let’s keep jumping.
“Wow,” Mrs. Maiden finally said. “I didn’t expect that.”
“I know, right? We’re awesome together!”
“Oh, you’re something, all right, Ashley Marie Brooks.”
Uh-oh, I thought. Fun time is over now. In a big way.
I kept one ear on Ashley and one on Mrs. Maiden. Ashley tensed up. Naturally I did, too.
Mrs. Maiden really gave Ashley what for. “You’re lucky that neither you nor Dante was hurt. That was as reckless a trip as I’ve ever seen. In all my years of teaching or riding, I never.” She shook her head and looked off toward home as if she wished we had never come.
“Did you longe him before your warm-up?”
A tear welled up in Ashley’s eye and hung there. She had her chin tucked tight into her chest, so I couldn’t see her face for myself, as she was hiding pretty well under all those curls. But I could tell a teardrop was trembling there, same as how I could tell that lump in her throat was growing bigger by the second. Same as how a big old rain cloud hovers, giving fair warning before it really lets loose.
“No, we didn’t have time because they said we were almost on course. But I . . . I don’t understand. We were the fastest. We had a clean round.”
“I trusted you today, and you let me down. You can’t cowboy your way around the course. Jumping is not all about speed. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Now, if you ask me, that’s no way to talk to a dream team of a pair who have just jumped fast and clean. But that’s Isbell Maiden for you. No holding back, no lies, no excuses. Toughen up and do it right, or don’t ride.
Once we got home, across the mountains and back into the barnyard of our own Saddle Mountain, Ashley was as angry as a snapping turtle. Without a word and with a mile of tension on the lead, she marched me into the wash stall. She smeared liniment on my legs and back, and good thing, because my muscles were already beginning to tighten and ache.
My achy body was the least of my concerns. Ashley and I had really messed up. Mrs. Maiden was not inclined to let up on us. Not in the least. She said that our ride was dangerous and embarrassing. We didn’t win, to boot. How did we only get third? How? And how in tarnation was the buckskin with the kid a whole three seconds faster than us?
I couldn’t begin to imagine the answers and, by the tension sizzling down my lead rope, neither could Ashley.
Ashley and I would still have been crashing our way through bounces and oxers had Mrs. Maiden not uttered these words to Ashley at the top of our lesson the next day: “No more jumping.”
“What?” Ashley screeched. “But, Mrs. Maiden! We finished third. That was only the first show of the fall season. If we keep jumping, I know I could have a chance at Junior High-Point Rider. Dante could win the Novice Horse Division. I’m sure. Please. I’ll slow down. I promise.”
Mrs. Maiden crossed her arms. “Ashley, I don’t know what to do with you. I told you, this is not about riding slower. You’ve got to ride smarter.”
“I will. Please.”
Mrs. Maiden looked sorrowful when she shook her head. “I don’t think you have a clue what I’m even talking about.”
Ashley’s tears didn’t hold up this time. Drops the size of crickets started bouncing all around my feet. One of them struck my neck and liked to burn me up. Angry tears.
“Please, Mrs. Maiden. Don’t make me stop riding. I love Dante.”
Mrs. Maiden stepped up to my left side and clipped the longe line to my cheek. “Oh, believe me, I know you love him. And he loves you. You two could be a remarkable team. Could be.”
“But what?” said Ashley, bawling like a lost calf in a hailstorm by
this point.
“But. You both need discipline, focus, and knowledge. No more jumping is not the same thing as no more riding. On the contrary, I want you to ride Dante even more. I’d like for you to keep showing him.”
“You mean, hunters? We already tried that. He’s too excitable.”
Mrs. Maiden rolled her eyes, then let out a belly laugh. “Trust me, neither of you is cut out for hunters.”
Then Isbell Maiden uttered the absolute worst word I ever heard: “Dressage.”
Mrs. Maiden forbade us to jump until we learned whatever lesson it was she wanted us to learn. We were seething. For the first time in a long time, I dreaded getting back to work — and with good reason.
Dressage.
The next day Ashley walked up to me, sulking even more than the day before. She rubbed around my eyes. “Sorry, boy,” she said.
My least favorite words.
“Let’s get through this and make Mrs. Maiden happy, so we can jump again soon,” she said.
She tacked me up as usual. Before she put my bridle on and started with the whole peppermint-longe-peppermint-peppermint routine that I had come to rely on, she sat down to zip her tall boots, but this time I watched her fasten spurs around them.
This wasn’t going to be a fun lesson at all. Those spurs looked suspiciously hypodermic to me.
Needless to say, I was on my toes the whole way up to the ring. Ashley longed me for a few minutes before mounting, coming in carefully for the final girth tightening.
At the top of the lesson, Mrs. Maiden entered the ring accompanied by a woman. A stranger. Already, I didn’t care for this lady. She clicked and clucked about Ashley giving me peppermints, and she kept staring directly at me. Staring hard, too.
“I want you two to get some good experience together, so I’ve brought in Vera Straff to help us today. She’s a good friend and a dressage trainer from Albemarle. I expect excellent attitudes and hard work from both of you,” Mrs. Maiden explained.
“Go ahead and trot a twenty-meter circle in front of me,” Mrs. Straff instructed.
Wanting to impress her, we trotted the circle, and Ashley’s hands seesawed on the bit. I knew what to do from watching Gwen, so I tucked my head into my chest. I could feel Ashley’s pride and mine, both of us smug and fairly sure of how impressive we looked.
“Stop,” Mrs. Straff barked. “Stop, stop, stop. All you’re doing is pulling his head down.” That new trainer really got after Ashley. She came right up beside me, grabbed Ashley’s leg, and pressed it into my side. “His movement needs to come from your leg and his hind end. Never seesaw. I want you to try that circle again, and this time use your leg to push him forward and into your outside hand. I don’t want to see you turning with the inside hand.”
I picked up a very intense sensation of heat from Ashley’s face and, sure enough, that first tear to hit my neck liked to singe my coat. By then, teardrops for Ashley were becoming as routine as peppermints for me. We were a pair of highly talented, high-maintenance athletes, all topsy-turvy and out of sync. But we didn’t quit.
Again moving me into a trot, I felt Ashley press her leg against me, asking me to move differently. Ignoring this because I didn’t care for it a lick, I trotted the circle with my head up and moved my legs faster.
Mrs. Straff shouted, “Ashley, you have spurs. Use them. He’s just running out from under you.”
She pressed her spur into me, and I tossed my head. What on earth was Ashley doing to me? She didn’t back off, and after tossing my head and kicking out a couple times, I launched into a series of teeny-tiny bucks. Tit for tat, because that really hurt, Ashley needed to stop, and this was not part of our bargain. When she didn’t stop, I came up with more force. Not quite a lift and hurl, but close.
“Dante!” Ashley screamed.
“I can see he has never been in front of or responsive to your leg. Make him keep going forward.”
The spurs returned, and, trust me, I was done with that. I stopped and did something I hadn’t done in quite some time.
I reared.
And I reared, and I reared.
I came back to the ground snorting and all fired up and foaming at the jowls. Pretty quickly, though, I felt ashamed, for I could feel Ashley up there in the saddle shaking like December’s last lone sycamore leaf shivering and quivering over the Maury River.
I knew she was going to get those spurs off of me sooner or later. Sooner, I hoped. I figured we’d make up when we were eye to eye, after she apologized. I really didn’t, and still don’t, like pointy things.
Suddenly, Ashley smacked my rump with her crop, an accessory she had often carried but never utilized. And with an attitude I’d never heard from her before, she said, “Get on, Dante.”
Her tone smarted about as much as the whip. There was no getting through to her. All around the circle, she pushed me with her leg and voice and one more tap with the crop. Her hands held the bit on the outside, and she pressed her legs to turn me.
Here’s the big surprise. Mares-in-heaven, the bit had never felt so good in all my life.
I chewed and moved my mouth around on the bit, and as Ashley relaxed little by little, so did I. My back was swinging loosely with every step, and I pushed myself forward on every stride. Ashley’s back straightened, and her leg encouraged and aided me.
I can truly say that for half a circle, we floated. Just like swimming in the river. And then her leg came off, and her hand stayed on. Feeling the support leave, I immediately walked, then stopped.
Everybody stood there in stunned silence. Ashley and I most of all. We were shocked by what we had felt, and our teachers were surprised by what they had seen.
“Well, Isbell. You didn’t tell me he could move like that,” said our dressage sergeant, Mrs. Straff. To Ashley and me, she said, “You passed the first test. Let’s keep working.”
I’ll admit I was surprised the next morning when Ashley actually showed up for our second dressage lesson, this one with Mrs. Maiden.
Of course, I liked Ashley a lot. She was a good rider. Willing, eager, and obedient.
That’s right, obedient. Up until our meeting with Mrs. Vera Straff, Ashley always did what I asked and what I wanted. She let me decide and never gave me an ounce of trouble at all. Sure, every now and again she’d swat me on the rump or the shoulder. Once, I mistakenly stomped her foot. She apologized.
“Oops, sorry, Dante. Move, please.”
No complaining from her at all. For the most part, she also was a balanced rider. I never had to worry much about her coming off me. Her legs stayed steady and even. Looking back, I can say that the problem wasn’t only Ashley, but it wasn’t all me, either. It was us together.
After weeks and weeks of practice on the flat, Ashley and I still struggled. Mrs. Maiden framed the trouble exactly.
“Ashley, do you have any idea why I put a stop to you and Dante in jumpers for now?”
All too fast, Ashley checked out. “No, ma’am.”
Even I had learned around Mrs. Maiden that you had to at least pretend to try. If a student complained too much about the heat or the cold or being tired or sore, Mrs. Maiden would say, “Take my advice: fake it till you make it.”
Ashley should have heeded those words.
Now, Mrs. Maiden didn’t get too riled up. She didn’t raise her voice or flap her arms, but the tone in her voice turned as chilly as dawn in December. A sure-enough reminder that winter had arrived.
Mrs. Maiden asked the question again. Pretty clearly giving Ashley a second chance. Mrs. Maiden liked to give everybody a second chance. “Think about it. Why would I ask you to stop jumping?”
Ashley shrugged.
Uh-oh, Ashley, I thought. There’s nothing Mrs. Maiden hates worse than not even trying.
Ashley stood to my left, her posture drooping and her eyes avoiding. I snapped her with my tail to wake her up a little bit.
She looked at me and smiled. “Stop, Dante.”
I stompe
d my foot, and she laughed.
“Here’s exactly why. Who’s in charge of this situation?”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean is, who is making the decisions out there?”
Nothing from Ashley. Not an eyebrow lift, not a chin tilt, not half an answer lodged in her throat nor a cough to bring it up and out and into the open.
“Dante, your horse, is in charge,” Mrs. Maiden said, and did she ever sound frustrated. “You’re letting him make the decisions. He’s happy to do it, most of the time, but I’ll tell you right now, there’s nothing more dangerous.”
Ashley sure raised her eyebrows then.
“You need to be the leader. You’re a good little rider, but you need to get smarter. You give up too much. Your horse tries to help you out. He’ll jump, all right. Long, short, he’ll find some kind of spot, somehow or another. But that’s not fair. You have to help him.”
Ashley’s bottom lip started a-quivering, and Mrs. Maiden softened her eyes.
“Why in heaven’s name are you crying? This is nothing to cry over. You just have some work ahead of you.”
So, we got to working. Ashley came back, and we practiced until the ride was second nature to both of us.
Twice a month, Mrs. Straff drove across the mountains to get after us for a good solid hour. Most days, Ashley and I walked around so sore that we both needed lotions and ointments to ease the deep pain in our muscles.
Finally, after much consultation and after hundreds of circles and transitions, changes of rein, and straight center lines, Mrs. Maiden and Mrs. Straff agreed it was time to ride our first official test: Introductory Level Test A.
Back to walk-trot, but this time with focus and rhythm and roundness. We hoped.
By then, a new year had opened up and, with it, the hope of knowing beyond certainty that even though I was not a champion racehorse, I would have a forever home at the Maury River Stables. I had just turned eight and was embarking on a second career.