I spent the whole afternoon glamouring up Secret and her tack, and most of the evening searching the columns of Horse and Hound for advertisements of shows holding Foxhunter competitions in July, August and September. And the rest of the evening in writing to their secretaries to ask for schedules. Now that Secret was on the bit again Cavaletti work was easy. She seemed perfectly willing to trot or walk as I wished, and I was able to trot over six poles without her becoming the least bit excited. My mother, who’d crept out to watch when I wasn’t looking, said that Secret was looking wonderful and that she’d never seen such a difference in behaviour in such a short time. “Claire’s a magician,” she said. “And next time you feel anything going wrong for goodness’ sake rush to her at once. To think that we might have saved ourselves all those days you spent mouldering about the house, driving your father and me mad, if only we’d made you go to Claire before.”
“Oh,” I said indignantly, “What a lie; I never said a thing.”
“It wasn’t what you said,” replied my mother. “It was the air of gloom you emitted; we practically needed smog masks.”
My second lesson with Claire was not nearly so light-hearted as the first. For one thing she cursed me madly every time I allowed Secret to come off the bit and for another, she made me ride without stirrups. Our Cavaletti work seemed to be O.K. except that I wasn’t sitting still enough, but when it came to jumping from the trot I caused about a thousand rockets.
“What do you think you’re doing?” demanded Claire, calling me to a halt. “You look as though you’re trying to jump yourself. How on earth do you expect a horse to concentrate when you’re tipping about all over the place and flapping your legs?”
I said, “Sorry,” and then deciding that I had better develop some convictions, I asked, “But how is it that so many people do jump like that? Some people say that it’s quite wrong to sit still and do nothing; that one ought to be lengthening and shortening the horse’s stride and that one ought to choose the take off.”
Claire said, “Look, you’ve been jumping for how long? About twelve weeks; I don’t honestly believe that in that short time you’ve learned enough to know more than the horse. When you can sit still and when you can tell whether the horse is coming right or wrong a long way before the fence you can begin to interfere a little. But, even then, as in your dressage, you mustn’t look as though you are doing anything; all these obvious aids are bad because they disturb the horse and take his mind off the jump.
“When you know more than your horse you can help him, but until then you must learn from him and you cannot do that unless you sit still and try to find out what he does when he is left to himself.”
“What about Martin Hastings?” I asked. “He doesn’t sit still and his aids are pretty obvious.”
“He’s an exception,” answered Claire. “He has a remarkable sense of feel and time, which outweighs all his peculiarities. But one must follow a school of thought and not an individual. You look at any horse show—for one or two successful Martin Hastingses there’ll be fifty people trying to do the same thing and landing their horses in triples and banging their legs on great heavy gates, because they’re taking them off incorrectly. Of course the horses lose their confidence and turn into refusers.”
I began to feel that perhaps Claire was right. Secret had lost confidence, I knew; not that she ever refused, but perhaps she was just exceptionally bold or obliging. I had a feeling that her rushing was due to loss of confidence; that she was saying, “Oh, for heaven’s sake let’s get this over,” as she dashed from fence to fence, and no one wants to think that they are subjecting their horse to worry every time they jump.
“O.K.,” I said, “shall I have another try?”
“Yes, jump the whole course again and don’t think about anything except keeping still.”
Though the jumps were only two feet high, I had great difficulty in keeping still. It is extraordinary how frightening it is to do nothing, once you have become used to taking your horse off. Secret didn’t always trot at the fences and sometimes she remembered to take off and sometimes she seemed to be waiting for me to tell her, which meant that she didn’t take off until the very last minute and there I sat longing to interfere. I should think I went round those six jumps at least twelve times. But in the end Secret was trotting on a loose rein and, as Claire pointed out, she was lowering her head and choosing her own take off again.
When my lesson came to an end, Claire gave me strict instructions not to jump next day, but to take Secret for a hack. The following day I could ride over Cavaletti and jump from the trot; “But if she gets excited, stop and I’ll put you right on Monday,” she said as I rode out of the yard.
11
All through May and June I schooled Secret and Claire schooled me. We were never allowed to jump higher than three-feet three, and, though it had all become much easier and jumping courses was a pleasure to me again, sometimes I wondered in despair whether I would ever be good enough to enter for a Foxhunter class. Towards the end of May I had taken off Secret’s martingale and second noseband myself, for Claire had ignored their presence. However, she remarked on their absence, she said, “I wondered how long it would take you to realise that that martingale wasn’t being the least use. Mind you,” she went on, “I’m not against martingales; often they’re extremely useful things, especially if you’re trying to do three months’ work in one, but they are, always, an admission of bad manners.”
It wasn’t until July that Claire broached the subject of Foxhunters. Then she said, at the end of a lesson when I had jumped a variety of strange objects from a water trough to a camp bed with a stuffed sack on it, “If you’re going to show jump, you’ll have to join the British Show Jumping Association and register Secret. As you’re going to jump a horse you’ll have to join as an associate and not a juvenile member, even though you’re young enough to be a juvenile. And, you’d better buck up about it because there’s a Foxhunter at the agricultural show on the twenty-first.”
“But I can’t jump high enough,” I protested, panicking now, when at last the moment was upon me.
“Oh, yes, you can. And, while you’re joining the B.S.J.A. you had better join the Pony Club too.”
“Not likely,” I said quickly. “My cousins belong and it sounds terrible. Besides, they’ve passed millions of tests and look how they ride. And there’s somebody called Colonel Darcy who makes you sit back and kick and all the boys give up because he’s so frightful. Honestly, you can’t expect me to join; and you’ll only be furious if I do learn to sit back and kick.”
Claire would only laugh, but when at last she was serious again, she said that it was quite true that the Fawley Vale branch hadn’t been very go-ahead for some years, but that now there was a new District Commissioner, a new local committee, of which she was a member and that there would be some really good instruction during the summer holidays, lots of interesting rallies at Christmas and hunter trials and dressage tests in the spring.
“What about Colonel Darcy?” I asked suspiciously.
“We’ve pensioned him off,” Claire answered.
“And what about my wonky leg?” I asked. “I don’t want strange instructors cursing me because it doesn’t look quite right.”
Claire said, “Well, if you’re such a nitwit that you can’t tell them you’ve got a peculiar leg yourself, I’ll tell the Secretary and the District Commissioner that they’re to tell all strange instructors about it before the rally begins.”
I said, “I’d better ask my parents what they think,” but I knew that all was lost and that I should have to join, for my parents had been making a fuss about my not having any local friends. They had said that I was becoming solitary and peculiar and they had threatened to ask all sorts of awful and unhorsey people to stay during the summer holidays. I told them about the Pony Club at supper and, as I had feared, they were delighted. They imagined me meeting all sorts of merry young people and refused to bel
ieve me when I quoted Jackie and told them that there was only one boy—a great big one called Felix something, who couldn’t pass “C” test—and that Colonel Darcy had caused all the others to give up.
“Jackie always exaggerates,” said my mother firmly, and my father was hastily writing cheques before I could change my mind.
When my badges arrived I felt like a real horsey character and I wore them both proudly, until my father remarked rudely that I looked as spotted as a Dalmatian dog, with badges all over me, and couldn’t I wear them one at a time? After that I wore them under my lapel like an American special agent.
Claire had been right about Secret and I being able to jump high enough for Foxhunters. During the next fortnight our courses rose gradually, until we were jumping four feet quite happily and that, as Claire pointed out, was three inches higher than the maximum height of Foxhunter fences in the first round.
“And if you do get in a jump-off they’re only raised to four-feet three,” Claire told me, “and a horse which can jump four feet can jump four-feet three, so you needn’t bother about that.”
I was looking forward to the agricultural show with great excitement and even greater misgivings; Claire made me worse, every time I saw her, by continually giving me good advice.
“Don’t forget your jumping studs, whatever you do. They’re very important, especially in speed competitions when you cut the corners. Not that you’re to cut the corners. In fact you’re not to hurry at all; not even if you do get into the jumpoff. Speed will come when you’re both more experienced; if you start to push Secret now, you’ll only fluster her and she’ll jump flat. Not that you don’t jump quite fast anyway; you’re never likely to have time faults, even under F.E.I. rules, unless you refuse.
“Now mind you exercise her properly before the class. Don’t dash straight into the ring and don’t go all weak and let her come off the bit, just because you’re at a show.
“Mind you walk the course and watch at least two people jump round it, but don’t become petrified and sit for hours in the collecting ring; keep Secret on the move.”
I knew that I should never remember all this advice, and I rather wished Claire was coming to the show, but she couldn’t; she had two horses to school and three pupils for individual tuition so she was much too busy.
My parents and I decided that Secret should box to the show, for twelve miles seemed rather a long hack before jumping, but that, for reasons of economy, I should hack her home. The show was on a Wednesday, at least, actually, it was a two-day show, but the Foxhunter was on the Wednesday, so my father would be safely imprisoned in his office. I tried to dissuade my mother from going, but she ignored my arguments and finally won by pointing out that if I was hacking home I wouldn’t want to carry buckets, rugs and a head collar and that, in fact, I should need her and the car.
For several days before the show my stable management was very energetic; I groomed Secret madly and she really did look lovely and so, on the morning of the show, I had only to wash her tail and those parts of her which had got dirty in the night, and give her a quick groom. I didn’t attempt to plait her mane, because though Claire had shown me how to, I wasn’t much good at it and, as she had pointed out, not many show jumpers are plaited.
I allowed myself hours of time to get ready. The box came early and Secret followed me up the ramp without the least objection so we arrived at the show in very good time, about half an hour before it was due to begin. However, the Foxhunter was the first class in ring 2 and I had to walk the course, so it wasn’t really too early, though the jumps were still piled in heaps about the ring. The horsebox driver helped me to unload my luggage and then he seemed in rather a hurry to depart, but fortunately my mother appeared, so she held Secret while I went to the Secretary’s tent to collect my number. The person in the tent told me that they had had so many entries for the Foxhunter, ninetytwo to be exact, that it was being divided into two sections and that I was in the second section and wouldn’t be jumping until about eleven-thirty. Two and three quarter hours, I thought glumly, for now all my excitement had turned to misgiving. I hurried back to my mother, who was being towed about by Secret, and together we cursed the two and three quarter hours. I was beginning to feel petrified, as Claire put it. My arms and legs would only work reluctantly and everything seemed far too difficult; I felt that I must wait just until my number was called and then ride into the ring and knock down all the jumps for that was probably what fate had decided I should do.
Fortunately my mother wasn’t at all petrified. She insisted on tying on my number, which was 76, and then she suggested that I should put the studs in, so that if anything went wrong we would have plenty of time and we wouldn’t be thrown into a panic.
In the next few minutes I learned why show jumpers don’t have their hoofs oiled. I had oiled Secret’s really thoroughly and they looked grand, but my jodhs didn’t by the time I had screwed the first stud in. Secret was becoming more and more excited; the first stud went in fairly easily, but she had begun to fidget by the time I got to the second. She gazed about her, trod on my mother’s toes and at intervals snatched her foot away from me. As I endeavoured to screw the hateful thing in I began to understand why my cousins were bad-tempered at shows. At last it was in, and tightened with the spanner and then, looking up, I realised that the other competitors were walking the course. I dropped everything, and leaving my mother to cope with Secret, ran for the ring.
The jumps were organised now and they looked lovely. They didn’t seem very high, but they were interesting. There was the usual brush fence with a guard rail on the landing side and it was followed by a rustic post and rails and then two rustic gates. The stile was rather odd-looking; it had a solid middle and someone said that it was called a Sussex stile. There were bales of straw under the parallel bars and there was another brush fence, with a guard rail on either side; finally there was a rustic wall and a queer-looking fence built out of railway sleepers, but these weren’t the last two jumps, because the parallel bars and the second brush fence were jumped twice.
As soon as I had a rough idea of the course, I rushed out of the ring, back to Secret, and snatching up another hoof got another coating of oil. I began to curse until I remembered the Darlsworths and then I controlled myself. I didn’t want to become the sort of person who makes a misery out of horse shows.
At last the fourth stud was in. I looked ruefully at my jodhs, but as my mother hastily pointed out, I wouldn’t look so bad once I was mounted. As I saddled Secret the class began and by the time I was up and beginning to exercise it was apparent that the collecting ring steward was in difficulties. He was calling for anyone who was ready, to go into the ring at once, because half the people who were supposed to be in the first section hadn’t turned up.
Remembering Claire’s advice about exercising, I cantered swiftly away and found myself a nice place to school in the car park.
Secret was extremely fresh and I had to be very firm with myself and quell a desire to pull on the reins. I trotted and cantered round for ages, using my legs madly to keep her on the bit.
There was a very substantial practice jump arranged near the collecting ring; it was a hog’s back and consisted of five blue and white poles, which were much more terrifying than the rustic sort which they had used in the ring. When Secret was going steadily and had stopped shying at the cars in the car park, I joined the queue of elegant horses and riders, who were practising. When our turn came, Secret didn’t attempt to rush, in fact, she steadied herself as she approached and I was able to use my legs in time with her strides; she jumped high and powerfully, arching her back and tucking up her legs-at least that was what it felt like. I patted her enthusiastically.
“Well done,” said Mummy. “It looks enormous, much worse than anything in the ring.”
I was just wondering whether to have another practice or not when the collecting steward saw me.
“Number 76,” he called. “Will y
ou go in next?”
“Me?” I asked stupidly, “but I’m not ready. I don’t know the course.”
“Oh, come along now. It’s easy enough and you’ve had since half-past nine.”
Several other competitors turned in their saddles and began to explain the course to me. The competitor in the ring fell off at the railway sleepers, which gave me an extra moment in which to collect my thoughts, but I was still muttering gates, stile, parallels, when I found myself in the ring. I cantered a circle until the judges seemed to be waving at me rather impatiently, and then I rode through the start and at the brush fence. It looked lovely and not a bit frightening; Secret was suspicious; she jumped very high and rather awkwardly, but I knew she had cleared it. The post and rails were upon us all too quickly. Secret was rather off the bit, but she made another huge leap; we turned the corner and the gates loomed, a trifle ominously. Secret was still jumping apprehensively. We made an enormous jump over the first one, landed too close to the second; she hesitated a moment, then took off and I heard it fall. A feeling of disappointment filled me, but I hastily pulled myself together and thought of the jump ahead: a sharp turn and the Sussex stile. We came at it a bit crooked and I heard a rap. Now the parallel bars and here Secret was taking no chances; she stood right back and sailed over. Suddenly she was jumping with more confidence, she flew over the brush and then as I turned for the wall and the sleepers, I could feel that she was enjoying herself. She wasn’t at all nervous of the sleepers and she cleared the parallel bars and the brush the second time with a flourish. I felt very pleased as we galloped through the finish.
In the collecting ring I dismounted and fed her on sugar. Several competitors said, “Bad luck,” and my mother rushed up looking terribly pleased. “Didn’t she jump beautifully?” she exclaimed. “What a pity about the gate. But she was marvellous; it was very nearly a clear round.”
Show Jumping Secret Page 8