by Gigi Amateau
Mrs. Maiden shook her head. “No different at all. Here’s the thing: if you lose confidence, your horse will, too. Some days are easier than others. Every day you wake up, you have to practice believing in yourself and in Dante.”
“I do believe in Dante.” Ashley patted my neck. “Just not myself. Not when I see how beautiful and fancy and polished these other riders are compared to me.” That girl in the custom attire had really gotten into her head.
“What are you talking about? You’re beautiful! Dante is, too. Come on, he needs you to be calm and sure and firm in the knowledge that you can lead him. The only way you will ever disappoint me is if you give up.”
“I don’t give up.”
“Remember when I pulled you two from jumping? You were quitting the jumps when you got there and letting Dante make the hard choices. He needs you to show him that we never quit.”
“It’s hard, though.”
Like me, Ashley was resisting her own God-given and self-developed talent. I whickered and lifted my front leg up and out toward Ashley, trying to draw her near.
“Look at Dante. He wasn’t bred for dressage or jumping. He was bred to go fast, trained for the track, and set on a course to race and retire. Now, here he is starting over. Do you think that’s easy for him?”
“I never thought about Dante that way. That makes me love him even more. I just get so nervous, Mrs. Maiden. My stomach has butterflies, and my brain totally freaks, and I don’t know what to do.”
“You do the only thing you can do. Be strong. Be yourself.”
“And then everything will be okay?”
“You know what? Even when everything’s not okay, everything is okay. And no matter what happens, tomorrow will be a great day. You deserve to be here. Dante does, too. Who cares about boots or braids or even blue ribbons? You don’t get today back, you know.”
Ashley wiped her eyes and looked into those round and wise saucers of Mrs. Maiden’s. “What do you mean?”
“Have I ever told you about my son?”
“Trotter?” Ashley asked.
“Yes, he was my youngest. You remind me of him. Not the way you look. He was strawberry blond, like me. Fair. Freckled. What I mean is, like you, he worried all the time. About everything.”
“Really?”
“Mmm-hmm. You’ve heard the phrase ‘he was born tired’? Trotter was born worried. I should have named him Fretter.”
Ashley laughed. Mrs. Maiden looked startled, at first, then her eyes softened, and the faintest smile crested over her face and faded away. She shook her head, like she was thinking to herself. “He was a good rider. He could do anything: hunter, jumper, dressage, vaulting. More than anything, he loved the trail. He and Daisy and her dam, Fancy, and I would go off exploring our side of Saddle Mountain for hours on end. Trotter never worried on the trail. His natural habitat, I guess.”
“I love trail riding, too.”
Mrs. Maiden picked up a soft brush and began to groom my coat. “Anyway, after Trotter’s accident, I thought about selling the farm. Every animal, every acre, the house, the barn, all of it. Thankfully, the people around me, my friends and neighbors, let me grieve. That’s what I needed. They took care of the animals, bush-hogged the fields. Made me eat. Sat with me. Read to me. Until the sun came out, and I started to thaw.”
“What did you do?”
“I kept the animals. How could I part with them, too? I did sell about fifty acres to Mrs. Pickett. With the money and after Daisy’s mother passed away, I bought Napoleon, then Gwen, and then I built a new barn and fixed up the ring.”
“How come you did all that?”
“I realized that when Trotter was riding, he was confident and happy and at peace. I knew the best thing I could do for myself and for Trotter’s memory was to take good care of my horses and to teach children to ride.
I wasn’t complaining at all, but Mrs. Maiden was so transfixed that she was brushing me in the same spot over and over.
Mrs. Maiden finally put the brush back in the box. “What about you, Ashley? Why do you ride?”
“Dad brought me to your barn when Mom was deployed to the Gulf the first time. I missed her so much; all I did was sleep and cry. He knew that I had always wanted a pony, even though I didn’t even know how to ride yet. I guess I loved horses so I wouldn’t feel sad all the time.”
Afternoon was quickly turning to evening. The Horse Center barn had settled into a calm, easy quiet. All the runaways were caught, the horses bedded down for the night. Music from radios and muffled conversations drifted up from the camping area that had filled up with horse trailers. Here, now there, the call and response of whinnies and whickers crossed the aisles. Listening to Ashley and Mrs. Maiden testify as to the depth of their love and appreciation for horses made me eager to show up. I knew I was setting on my best performance yet, and I intended to bring it all to the Junior Horse Trials.
“Just remember, you are not alone. You have a whole team to support you and be with you every step of the way. At the Maury River Stables we all help out,” Mrs. Maiden said.
Ashley embraced Mrs. Maiden for a good long time. Then she draped her arms around my neck. “Tomorrow will be a great day,” she said to me. “I know Dad won’t be here, but I hope Mom comes to watch us so she can see how happy I am when I’m with you, Dante.”
They gave me an extra flake of hay to hold me through the night, then Ashley and Mrs. Maiden walked back to the trailer. I dozed on and off, eager for sunrise, I myself as curious as anybody as to whether I had it in my blood to conquer the three challenges of tomorrow’s event: dressage, stadium jumping, and cross-country.
Our first ride was hours away, but before the night had fully finished, Ashley and Mrs. Maiden were in my stall with grain, water, my morning hay, and instruments of beautification. For as strikingly handsome as everyone liked to say I was, show shine was something else altogether. In all the hullabaloo of the previous day’s runaway horses and Ashley’s anxiety, we hadn’t done much to get ready.
The Horse Center had come alive with the smells of coffee, sweet feed, and sugarcoated donuts and the sound of horse hooves nervously clip-clopping along the paved aisles between the barns. In the distance, I could already hear riders warming up.
“Heads up, outside line!”
“Passing right!”
It was only September, but the rising sun lit up an unseasonably early lick of frost along the grassy ridge in view of my stall.
There was no lingering tenderness from the night before; Mrs. Maiden got down to business. “There are forty teams in your division. Get ready for a long day,” she said.
Ashley ran her fingers through my mane, pulling loose stray bits of hay. Surely, she didn’t plan to attempt a braiding.
“I think we’re ready. And if it’s okay with you, Mrs. Maiden, can we not braid Dante? The rules say braiding is optional. Plus, you know he’ll just rub them out. Or try.”
Mrs. Maiden fluffed my mane up. “He looks a bit scruffy, though.”
Mrs. Maiden grabbed a hunk of my mane.
I pawed at the ground to make her stop.
“Okay,” she agreed. “But we at least need to even him up and thin him out a bit.”
Don’t know how, but I did manage to give Ashley a relatively painless five minutes to spruce my mane and bang my tail.
Ashley tucked her hair into a net. A few loose tendrils hung out, but that went unnoticed by Mrs. Maiden. Then she ran a brush through my mane and tail once more. We got tacked up in our usual way: black saddle, black reins, white saddle pad. All in appropriate order: peppermint, saddle pad, saddle. Peppermint, girth, peppermint, peppermint. Slowly with the tightening of the girth.
Out in an empty field near the river of trucks and trailers, Ashley longed me in both directions before heading up the lane to the warm-up dressage arena, already full of horses and trainers. Every horse there was braided up and every rider impeccably turned out. We weren’t at all unkempt by compa
rison — just maybe a touch on the wild side.
A crowd of people had already gathered at the dressage ring. As Mrs. Maiden had promised, our Maury River Stables family was there to support us. So was my friend John the Farrier and his corgi, Katie, scouring the ground for scraps of breakfast on a long leash.
But I got the distinct sensation of Ashley’s heart constricting. She was searching for her mother. Everybody was talking about how in the new year, Dana would go back to fighting, and Ashley would go back to being sad. I knew Ashley wanted to make her mother proud before she had to leave again.
Ashley sat in the saddle, gripping my reins. Just before our test, I saw Dana running toward us, beaming.
“You’re here!”
“You bet, my girl.”
“Oh, Mom.” She reached toward Dana.
“Hey, what’s wrong? You’ve worked hard to get here. I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
“I know. I’m so glad you’re here, but I can’t help thinking that you’re leaving again soon.”
“Shhh. Today’s a happy day.”
Right about then, I heard a familiar voice behind me. “I thought I’d quell the rumor that my show days are dead.”
Napoleon!
I whinnied and turned to see Stu and Claire and the Shetland, all dressed up for dressage. There was not a horse on the property, myself included, I confess, that cut a finer figure than the pony did that day. Mane to tail, he was braided to perfection. His body was clipped, save for a thick lingering clump left on his rump in the shape of a heart — the only competitor sporting quarter marks.
He wiggled his wag at me, ever the show-off. “I can see you’re quite startled, Mister Dante. You’ve nothing to fear, as Claire and I aren’t competing against you. I’ve brought the little sprout so she can get some experience at a bigger show. We’re only riding Intro A. Today’s your day to shine, my friend. And a lovely day it is.”
But there was no time for socializing.
“Number ninety-three on deck.”
Our ticktock for the day was all set and about to start. First, dressage: communication, rhythm, and control. Next, stadium jumping: twelve fences for balance, speed, and athleticism. Finally, the cross-country course: a bit more than a mile of natural obstacles, all about pure speed and full joy.
Let the trials begin.
With our dressage test completed to tasteful applause, and our stadium round clean and sure, Ashley and I prepared to face the cross-country course. We hustled back on down to the barn to make a quick change for Ashley and for me.
Ashley ducked into the corner to change out of her jacket and into a Maury River Stables navy-blue polo shirt. She added a padded vest, to protect her trunk in case of a fall, and, on top of that, our team pinny, bearing the number 93. She wrapped boots around my front legs to protect me from sticks and rocks and such on the course.
For cross-country, we could be a little more expressive in our turnout attire. We traded my white saddle pad for a camouflage one. As a tribute to Dana, the soldier soon on her way back to a place with gunfire and no mountains, Ashley and I both would be sporting camo for cross-country — hers on her helmet cover, and mine on my saddle pad. A small, private gesture of support.
Dana gave Ashley a leg up, and we were headed up the hill to the course. On our way to the starting box, Mrs. Maiden began doling out the advice.
“Don’t worry too much about speed. You two will go fast enough without even trying. Ride a clean course. Give yourselves time to think.”
“Okay,” Ashley said from the saddle.
“Ash, I know you’ve memorized the course, but if you blank out, look at the flags on either side.”
“Yep. Red flag right; white flag left.”
“Good girl. Now, the entire course is just over a mile long. Remember from walking it earlier, you’ll cross that creek at the bottom of the hill.”
“Uh-huh.”
“He’ll want to play in the water, but give him some leg to get him through it. Then you’ll come back through the water after the stone wall. On the second pass, you know him, he’s likely to ask to splash around and play again.”
Ashley flashed her crop. “Tap, tap, tap.”
“Exactly,” said Mrs. Maiden. “Y’all are ready.”
I started prancing around. Enough of the jibber-jabber. We had been training and working for months. Honestly, I felt like my whole topsy-turvy life had led me right here to this hilltop. I knew I had exactly what I needed to win: speed, power, confidence, and a rider who believed in me. I hoped she believed in herself, too.
“Well, get on out there,” said Mrs. Maiden. “All of us are pulling for you.”
“Yay, Ashley and Dante! You’re going to win the whole thing. I saw your dressage score. You’re holding first place.” Claire, who had ridden Napoleon to the start to see us off, waved our dressage test in the air. The child would not be pried from the pony, but neither could she keep herself from reading the judge’s scores and remarks.
“All sevens and eights and even one nine. Listen to this. The judge wrote, ‘Exuberant and joyful. Very athletic. Lovely horse; keep him forever,’ ” Claire read. “You’re going to win!”
Napoleon let out the loudest whinny I’d ever heard.
I returned the favor.
John clapped his hands together three times fast. “The ponies are talking to each other. You tell him, Napoleon. Go fast, Dante!” I saw Mrs. Maiden glare at him. “But not too fast.”
Ashley gave me leg, and as we were about to enter the starting box, Dana shrieked, “Wait!”
She came running up to us, waving something in her hand.
“You forgot this. Here.”
Without Ashley’s medical armband, we may not have been allowed on course. The protective vest and the band were easy to ignore, but they served as important reminders that riding cross-country could be dangerous. One slip, one fall, one crash, was all it would take for one or the other of us to get badly hurt. An ambulance and medics were parked right off course, within eyesight, a reminder to me to take every care to bring the girl right back around to home.
With her medical information affixed to her arm, Ashley said, “Thanks, Mom. Love you.”
“Me too, you. Hey, have fun.”
Ashley nodded. She started back toward the course, but then veered off again. “Whoa.”
Her heartbeat and breathing felt normal. I couldn’t figure out what might be wrong. Ashley took a big swallow of air and sighed it out long. “Dante, I just want to say thanks.”
I sensed some hesitation in her voice.
“See home, way off in the distance?” Something had changed in her. There on the hilltop, it was Ashley who had the look of eagles.
From where we stood, the whole world reflected nothing but mountains in a perfect circle around us. Ashley was right. Due west of where we were standing was the unmistakable double-peaked top of Saddle Mountain, looking every bit like nature’s tree-lined expression of a dressage saddle. Just knowing that our hodgepodge of a herd was on the other side, grazing and, I hoped, thinking of us, well, that surely helped to build my confidence.
“Almost every day of my whole life I have seen Saddle Mountain,” Ashley said. “I don’t know what I’d do without it. Whenever Mom’s gone, I miss her so bad. Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night and look out my window and ask the mountain to keep her safe. That doesn’t make any sense, does it?”
Made perfect sense to me. I myself had taken to doing much the same thing. Wasn’t hard to find inspiration and take a lift from all the life in and around the mountain on days when I was feeling too tired and too sore to do much but eat, drink, and rest.
“Anyway, I’m riding for home today, Dante. For all of us. Who are you going for, Monkey?”
She hadn’t called me Monkey since the day we met. The affection in her voice circled me up and the moment suspended, as time had on the icy February night of my birth. No fog rolled in and no starry path ma
terialized on the horizon.
But in my knowing eye I saw Marey, Grandfather Dante, Melody, and Filipia. All of them loving me and believing in me. At last, my grandfather’s words made sense to me. All of this learning and unlearning and relearning had led me right to three great tests after all: dressage, stadium jumping, and cross-country.
“Sixty seconds,” the timekeeper at the starting box said, giving Ashley a warning.
She picked up the reins, and we turned toward the start. Her heart was racing now and mine was following. The cross-country course looked so much bigger than our measly-weasly one at home. The jumps not only looked taller but the terrain was steep and the distance farther than I had gone in a long little while. I danced around and came up off my front feet just a touch. For a jiffy, I panicked. Ashley would be the one who could see the whole course, not me. I’d have to trust her more than I had even trusted Filipia.
“Thirty seconds!” the timekeeper shouted.
Ashley bent forward and whispered to me, “There’s a little creek down there for us. Let’s go play in the water, Dante.”
One mile. Fourteen jumps. Two splashes through water and the entire course unfolding alongside the Maury River, surrounded by our blue mountains.
“Ten, nine, eight!”
It was our time to show up, and our time to win, but I froze.
Now, the Belgian would have thundered down the first hill like a charger into battle. Gwen would’ve bided her time, set herself up for each obstacle in its right time. Daisy? For sure, she would’ve paused first to recall an ancient tale about a Celtic pony who flew like an angel over the rough and dangerous landscape. And Napoleon. The little guy would have powered through the course like his life depended on it.
“Seven, six, five, four!”
What would a racehorse do? I asked myself. Will this OTTB traverse over wide-open land at full throttle just to get through it, come the devil or high water? Or will I give myself over to a full partnership with Ashley?
“Three, two, one, zero!”