by Lisa Wysocky
Cat’s Horse Tip #2
“Horses raised in the wild can cover up to thirty miles a day grazing, so horses confined to stalls at shows need to get out for regular walks.”
8
THE HEAT OF THE DAY was already making it uncomfortable, but Jon had all of the stall fans going and the big fan in the middle of the aisle had a huge chunk of ice in front of it. It was amazing how much that block of ice helped cool things off. I thought, not for the first time, that whoever decided to hold this event in Tennessee the first week in August had never been here during our very warm and humid summers. So far, daily highs had hovered in the upper eighties, a nice respite from the upper nineties we’d experienced the previous week.
Ambrose stood at parade rest at the end of our aisle, his watchful eyes following anyone who walked by. I hoped his evening replacement would be just as sharp.
Darcy had Petey tied in the aisle to the front of his stall. He was still wet from a bath and she was spraying ShowSheen across his body. ShowSheen added a special gloss to a horse’s hair coat and also helped the hair repel dust and dirt. Darcy and Petey were competing in the older youth trail class that afternoon. It was one of their weaker events, as Darcy typically tried to rush Petey through the many obstacles they had to navigate in the class: a bridge, gate, jump, backing through poles, etcetera. All of the obstacles simulated items one might encounter on a trail ride, and horse and rider were scored on how smoothly they navigated each object. I needed to remind Darcy to breathe and to take her time.
“Oh, there’s my Reddi. And Sally. There’s my loves,” Agnes cooed as Lars and Ambrose introduced themselves.
Most horses want to interact with kind humans who are familiar to them, and usually Sally seemed glad to see Agnes. But today she stood frozen in place, legs squared underneath her, head up, ears pricked forward in typical halter competition pose.
“Look, Cat darling. Sally is telling us that she is going to win her halter class. Isn’t that right, sweetie?” Agnes added to Sally.
Darcy gave me a look and I knew I needed to redirect Agnes or Darcy would say something she wouldn’t regret, and I would. Just then Sally spread her back legs, lifted her tail, and let loose a gushing flow of urine that splashed against the far stall wall. So much for the halter pose. Sally just had to pee.
I looked at my watch and suggested that Agnes and Lars get settled into their hotel rooms. Lars stuck out his fist with his knuckles pointed toward me and without thinking I reciprocated. After the bump fest he wrapped his arm around Agnes and piloted her off toward the parking lot. I hoped it would take them hours to check in and unpack. I loved Agnes, but found her most appealing in small doses.
Just after they left Jon came back with Gigi, who for once was calm and quiet. “She was so wound up that I took her over to the spa services area in the farthest barn to see if they had any ideas. They let me stand her on this huge vibrating metal plate and now she is ready for a nap,” Jon said. “This plate thing is about four feet by ten and vibrates to beat the band. I stood on it with her and, man, my feet and back feel great! Normally they charge thirty dollars for a ten-minute session but they let us try it this first time for free.”
I looked at the filly, who was as relaxed as I had ever seen her. “When you have time, go back over and set up an account with them. I’ll add it to Mason’s bill.” I knew even if we took Gigi to the spa every day, that Mason would not quibble––if it helped Gigi stay in shape physically and mentally.
As Jon busied himself putting Gigi into her stall I checked the rest of our horses. Reddi and Bob were napping, but Wheeler, a chunky palomino gelding who sported a big white blanket filled with lots of spots, was nosing around his stall for any forgotten wisps of hay. That horse was always hungry.
Wheeler was owned by the Prentiss family––Sean and Tiffany, their eleven-year-old daughter Amanda, and identical twin seven-year-old sons whose names I could never remember. That might be because I didn’t want to remember. The less I saw of those boys the better. In fact, I had banned the little hellions from my barn––from even getting out of their car on my property––after an unfortunate incident that involved a saddle, super glue, and one of the Carson girls from next door. Actually, the less said about that incident the better. The girl’s father, the hunky country music star Keith Carson, had only decided not to sue after I promised to give said child weekly riding lessons until she was thirty-five.
Amanda was the rider in the Prentiss family and Tiffany was due to drop her off any minute. The young girl had only been riding with us for a few months, having switched from another trainer earlier in the year. Amanda had suffered a prenatal stroke and had weakness on her left side as a result. She was a good little rider, though, in western events where only one hand was used to steer the horse. We’d been working on several trail obstacles but she fumbled anything she had to do with her left hand––such as open a mailbox and take something out––often enough that her confidence was not where it should be. Today she was coming to support Darcy––and maybe learn a little something along the way.
Darcy finished grooming Petey, gathered her show outfit and walked up a few aisles to the large air-conditioned bathroom in the center of the barn. That’s one thing about showing horses. No matter what class you entered you were doomed to wear long sleeves. In western classes, ladies usually wore a glittery Spandex top called a slinky. Pair it with long pants, suede or leather chaps, and a western hat and there was no getting around it, you were hot. No pun intended. The getup was difficult enough to get into in cooler weather and virtually impossible when your body was sweaty. Air-conditioned bathrooms were a godsend.
Amanda arrived, her strawberry blonde hair braided into two pigtails, just like Pippi Longstocking. I put her to work rubbing Petey’s saddle, which Jon had just placed on Petey’s back, with a soft cloth. When Darcy returned, she looked stunning in a black and silver slinky, gray western hat, and black chaps and boots. Her hair was done up “old-school” in a bun at the nape of her neck and held in place with a ton of bobby pins and a hair net or two.
We left Ambrose and Hank with the horses, and Jon, Amanda, and I walked with Darcy and Petey to the warm-up arena, which was across a small drive from the holding pen and the coliseum. Typically, riders practiced and loosened up their horses in the warm-up arena, then ten to fifteen minutes before the class was scheduled to enter the coliseum they moved to the holding pen, which was behind and attached to the coliseum. In a class where one rider at a time performed––such as reining, trail, Dressage, or jumping––the horse and rider moved to the holding pen when the fourth or fifth competitor ahead of them began their performance.
A few practice obstacles had been placed in the warm-up arena, but most of the competitors were either walking their horses along the rail, or getting buffed up by a trainer, parent, or groom. Trail class was not so physically taxing to a horse that he or she needed a lot of warm-up, and I think I mentioned that it already was pretty hot.
My cell phone rang and I dug it out of my pocket to look at the caller ID. It was my new boyfriend, a.k.a. Brent Giles. Brent was a small animal veterinarian that I had begun dating the previous spring. We were taking it slow, but our relationship had progressed to the endearment stage. I called him Honeycakes and he called me Bumpkins. I knew that my name for him was far superior to his for me. Goes without saying, even though I just did.
“Hey Bumpkins, any word on Starmaker?”
Last night I had filled Brent in on the happenings of the previous day, but hadn’t had time today to tell him about Temptation, Mike Lansing’s fall, or Cam’s assertion that the fall wasn’t an accident. Actually, with Honeycakes, the less said about Cam the better. There was a little jealousy thing going on, even though there really was nothing to be jealous about. Cam was no better than pig doodie to me but Brent didn’t seem to get that. And there was no point in bringing up Noah to Brent. At all.
“Star is holding his own,” I said, mak
ing the decision not to tell Brent the rest right then. No need for him to worry. He and I had met during a little kidnapping and murder investigation I had been involved in. Ever since then Brent had been somewhat overprotective. My perspective anyway. Besides, Honeycakes was coming to the show in a few days to hang out. With any luck all of this would be cleared up by then.
I disconnected the call and nodded to Dr. Carruthers, who hurried past the warm-up arena with her vet bag in hand. No rest for the weary here. With four hundred horses on the grounds there would always be a “next” on her list.
Eventually Darcy and Petey moved to the holding pen and not too long after that her number was called as being “in the hole,” meaning she would be the second rider to compete after the horse and rider combo that were currently entering the course. When they moved to the “on-deck” position I reminded Darcy to take her time and let Petey think about each obstacle, and Amanda and I left her next to the in-gate with Jon, who gave Petey’s nose a last swipe with a little baby oil to make it glossier. Jon was better at the in-gate than I was. I tended to give my riders too many last minute reminders when the reality was, they were either ready or they weren’t.
There were more than thirty competitors in the class and Darcy had one of the best rounds that she had ever had. She bobbled a little backing through the zigzag and Petey took a half step forward with one leg, but he didn’t touch any of the poles. Petey also hesitated a fraction of a second before entering the water hazard and Darcy didn’t ask for the stop quite soon enough after the lope to the mailbox, but all in all, a great ride. The judges thought so too, and when all was said and done an hour or so later, Darcy was placed fourth. I was stoked. For Darcy and Petey, that was amazing!
Jon had already gone back to our stalls to greet Richard Valdez for Hillbilly Bob’s massage, and to do touch up clippings on Sally and Bob, who both had classes the next day. Jon was a whiz with a set of clippers––I had even admitted on occasion that he was better than I, but hopefully no one remembers that.
Presentation counts for a lot at shows like this, so each horse had to be turned out in the latest, most flattering style. If that meant long flowing manes, or manes pulled to a rigid three inches and laid over to one side of the neck with hair gel, each horse had better be clipped and styled according to the breed standard. From hair on top of the hooves, inside and around the edges of the ears, behind the ears, along the jawline, the eye and muzzle whiskers, to the fetlocks and more, not one stray hair (short or long) could be out of place.
Darcy, Petey, Amanda, and I started back to the barns–– and our stalls––just as a swarm of jumpers crossed the drive between the holding pen and the first barn. They were headed to the warm-up arena for elimination rounds ahead of this evening’s performance. I have to say, most of those horses were mammoth in size. We had entered the first barn when I remembered that Jon asked me to see if one of the vendors had some clear hoof polish. Someone had not put the cap on our last bottle tightly, and the polish had dried up. I am betting that the someone was yours truly.
I waved the others back to our stalls, while I dashed back inside and went up the stairs to the seating and vendor level of the coliseum, the mezzanine level. I found a vendor halfway along the long side of the arena that had the polish we needed and made my purchase. I had just turned to leave when a tall, elegant Dressage trainer walked by and I got caught up in a sneezing fit due to her perfume. What was it? Eau du Heavy Cleaning Fluid? Yuk. Not wanting to either wipe snot on my sleeve or walk the length of the arena to the ladies bathroom, I headed out a side door, to a stand of port-a-potties.
While I was hesitant to actually use a portable toilet, I knew I could grab a Kleenex and a spritz of hand sanitizer. That was one thing about Noah. Any show he ran had plenty of bathrooms, and if he had to set up the outdoor, portable kind they were always the best “plop johns” available, with sinks, mirrors, and room to move around.
It turned out that these were the trailer kind of port-apotties: four potties to a trailer the size of a small construction office. Each potty had a set of metal steps with a handrail that led to a door. Well ventilated, every potty had its own light switch and didn’t smell like the usual outdoor loo. If push came to shove, I might even be able to make traditional use of one of these … eventually.
I was not pleased, however, to see that the potty trailer was placed parallel to the road. A 45-degree angle was so much better. Noah and I had that conversation a number of years ago after an incident with a door blowing open when I was changing that allowed Mike Lansing’s barn crew a full frontal view of … ah … well just about everything. The land here sloped, though, so there probably wasn’t room to angle the line of potties. Besides, few people came this way so if a repeat incident happened, anyone seeing it was unlikely.
I went to the last potty (everyone knows the first potties in line are the most used and therefore the dirtiest) and trotted up the steps. I opened the door and had just moved my hand to turn on the light switch when I saw I wasn’t alone. I saw the vet bag on the floor, then noticed Dr. Carruthers sitting on the potty, pants down around her ankles. Or, I saw what was left of Dr. Carruthers as she seemed to be missing a good portion of her head.
9
THE REST OF FRIDAY’S COMPETITION was postponed. Campus police searched the entire 154-acre facility, along with every vehicle, trailer, and tack room. From how the officers went through our things I think they were thorough, but if they found anything suspicious they didn’t tell anyone about it.
The organizers of the show took a huge financial hit with the thousands of tickets for the evening performance that they had to refund, but they knew that solving Dr. Carruthers’s murder came first. Now I sat by myself early the next morning, Saturday, near the top of Section 206. This morning’s competition had also been postponed, pending the outcome of an owner and exhibitor meeting that Noah had called.
As I waited for the other trainers and some of the owners to arrive, I thought about yesterday’s events. Dr. Carruthers was just the second dead body that I had ever seen, and as with the first, my initial reaction was to upchuck my breakfast. I sat on the pavement near the port-a-potties with my head between my knees trying to figure out what to do next. Call Noah? Call 911? My thoughts were swirling around so fast in my head that I couldn’t get a handle on any of them.
“Cat? Are you okay?”
I had looked up to find Jon’s brown eyes peering into mine. He thought I might have gotten waylaid after getting the hoof polish and went to find me. Once on the main level, he took the ramp that led to the VIP room and from that higher vantage point saw me go out the side door.
“Have you eaten today, Cat? Did the heat get to you?”
When we were at horse shows I often “forgot” to eat because we were so busy. But that morning I’d had iced hot chocolate and doughnuts, my typical show grounds “breakfast of champions.” Later, I’d downed my favorite summer cooler, a mixture of orange juice and Sprite.
Jon must have noticed the remains of my breakfast on the ground and the open door to the port-a-potty because the next words I heard from him were “Uh-oh.”
Before I knew it, campus police had secured the area with crime scene tape and a campus EMT had slapped a blood pressure cuff around my upper arm. Jon later told me that these were the people who showed up minutes after he called 911. We were, after all, on the grounds of a university.
When homicide cops from the Rutherford County Sheriff ’s Office arrived not too much later they did again what the campus guys had already done, and after an interminable number of questions and an all clear from the EMT, I was allowed to go back to our stalls.
It wasn’t often that I chose not to spend time with my horses, but this was one time I made that choice. Horses pick up so easily on human emotion; for them it is a matter of survival. An angry human could turn his or her anger toward a horse. Or, a human who was unfocused could lead a horse into danger. I certainly didn’t want to
bring my shaky emotional state to horses who were then expected to compete with other high-level horses, so I turned everything over to Jon, gathered up Hank and his latest stick, a twig about a foot in length, and went back to the comfort of my hotel room.
Jon really was a rock and I didn’t give him enough credit. He had been part of my team for almost four years, just showed up on my doorstep one day and quickly moved into the apartment I’d just had built over the barn. He was my backup and I trusted his judgment implicitly.
In my hotel room I curled up in bed with Hank, then called Brent. Honeycakes was on call through the weekend but I was able to give him the gist of what had happened. When he asked if I still had the pepper spray he had given me I told him I did. I had an aversion to guns and refused to have one in my house or barn, but felt comfortable with the spray. He knew better than to ask if I was going to pack up the horses and go home.
“I’ll see what I can do to rearrange my schedule. I might be able to switch shifts with one of the other vets and come out on Sunday,” Brent said.
“Thanks.”
“You know, you could always go home, even for the night. You’re less than ninety minutes away.”
I supposed that I could, but then I would feel that I was abandoning my team even more than I was by hiding out here in my hotel room.
“Maybe another night,” I said. “I miss you.”
“Miss you, too.”
I sighed, thinking of my Honeycakes. But, before I could recap Friday night further in my mind, Tony and Annie Zinner plopped down in the coliseum’s seats on either side of me, followed by Jon, Agnes, and Lars, who sat in the row above me, and to my left.
“Where’s Darcy?” I asked, panic rising into my throat. Everything that had happened over the past few days had made me unusually jumpy. And, finding Dr. Carruthers made me realize how much I loved my friends.