by Roxanne Bok
Loud neighing roused me from my reverie. In addition to Chase, we had recently welcomed two new horses who were playing in their paddocks: OneZi, a four-year-old gelding training under saddle and his sire, Royaal Z, a sleek, twenty-two-year-old black stallion. They both belonged to Sabrina, a keen equestrienne from distant Greenwich, who sacrificed proximity for full day turn-out and a large paddock over which her “boys” could hold dominion. Three more boarders were due. In the early days, Scott, Bobbi and I concluded “if we build it they will come,” and they have: lovely people and horses. With Weatogue Stables off to a fine start, I rode the land deeply moved by this rare, storybook experience. It is worth the fear, the falls, the hassle, the time management, the child worry, the spousal friction.
We rounded the bend and slow-poked home. Without warning and in an instant Angel leaped right and Bandi, in unison as if they were of one mind and body, did the same only higher and farther. A beady-eyed turkey head had popped up out of the tall grass inches from Angel’s feet and skittered noisily into the woods stage left. Bobbi and I both held on, and the horses quickly settled upon reassurance of hysterical fowl rather than that dreaded equinevour. Bobbi had mentioned earlier that Meghan sometimes encouraged Bandi to chase the wild turkeys from his paddock.
“Oh great, Meghan,” I teased. “Just what I need—a horse that races after turkeys.”
But Bandi didn’t pursue the panicked bird, and I quietly noted that each time Bandi spooked I settled just a bit sooner. During my first Bandi trail ride last summer, I awaited the worst, panic my only mode. Over time I still worried, but also inched toward acceptance of inevitable “challenges” out in the big bad world of unforeseen circumstances; and, as in life off the trail, sometimes you stay on, and sometimes you fall off. I counted my blessings that I stuck this time, and Bobbi and I congratulated one another. It goes against my nature to look on the bright side, but I did, and the psychology worked . . . some.
That night, drifting into sleep, I jumped awake in my bed, as we sometimes do when dreaming of falling. But this was a leap, exactly the sensation of Bandi spooking, and it happened three times before I finally trusted slumber. I shook off my inclination to label it a bad omen.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Our First Show
WEATOGUE’S INAUGURAL BIANNUAL DRESSAGE EVENT would take place the Sunday of the June weekend that the kids and I migrated to Salisbury for eleven weeks of summer vacation. Weekdays at the farm and no commuting on Friday and Sunday nights—what bliss. At least for three of us: Scott’s work held him to the city, but he aimed for a few weeks off in July and August. It had been increasingly hard to leave on Sunday nights: the farm had morphed into our own Emerald Isle, its viridescence softening any memory of mud, machinery and workmen. It was time to revel in its glory.
Arriving late Friday night, we had little time to prepare for the event. Elliot and I had been practicing our tests the last few weekends, and enough riders had signed on that Bobbi split the Intro categories into adults and juniors. Elliot regretted that he and I wouldn’t compete head on, but not me—I didn’t want to win, and I didn’t want to lose, either. I work hard to improve my kids’ skills only to feel geriatric when they eventually best me at everything one by one—chess, throwing and hitting a baseball, swimming, running, skiing, math, riding, life.
Salisbury had already weathered ten days of rain and flooding. Sunday’s forecast predicted a washout, but horse events take place rain (barring lightning) or shine. Saturday, practice day, dawned overcast. Since Bobbi was frantic setting out flowers, aligning the dressage rings and gussying up the barn for company, I soloed on Bandi. While last year I took my maiden fall the day before my first show, this time I rode my test with relative ease. A hard-earned accomplishment: I could tack up, take a ride and untack sans babysitter. I knew that Bobbi, Meghan and Brandy kept one eyeball on me most of the time, but they hid it well. Elliot seemed ready too, and though showing wasn’t a priority, he is a born grade-grubber keen to obtain a score on which to improve, measuring himself against himself. Generally competitive with his peers, against type he inclined to keep this aspect of his life strictly personal pleasure.
We were rider-ready and the farm was show-perfect—nearly. Despite assurances, Mike let us down: our raw fences stood unpainted though May boasted perfectly dry days. But so much had changed, transformation enough to satisfy even Scott. This time last year the grounds were patched with small lakes and islands of muck, and though Scott and I glared at the dirt piles excavator Kenny shifted around for months on end, we now believed. Our farm drained like the Mohave. We completed the barn by topping the rooftop cupola with a bespoke weathervane of a dressage horse, in full stride with gold-gilded tail and mane above the banner “Weatogue Stables,” gleaming in not-yet weathered bronze. Operatic birds repatriated the renewed gazebo, and were relieving themselves with impunity on the flagstones and my new benches, tables and chairs. It does resemble an aviary, and no doubt they pegged us the intruders.
At our house a robin couple nested in the topiary outside the front door. Established before our summer pattern had us banging in and out all day every day, these surprised birds nevertheless stuck it out, keeping their four blue eggs warm. The children and I kept watch to see three of the eggs reveal the sparsely fuzzed, loose-limbed hatchlings. The indolent fourth took two more days to break out. We marveled at their metamorphoses. Over ten days, their naked cowering slid into feathery battles for space and food until, unable to stand their siblings and the close quarters any longer, they departed the nest, one by one. Our housekeeper Lourdes was especially excited. In the Filipino culture, hosting baby birds brings great fortune.
“It’s good luck, Mum. Lots of money coming,” she said, smiling and rubbing her fingers together.
She said the same thing about the ant swarm that engulfed our patio one day, and then, just as mysteriously, disappeared.
“Look kids: ant world,” I said.
“Cool,” said Elliot.
“Wow,” said Jane.
“More money, Mum,” said Lourdes, palms rubbing.
I designated these events signs of a prosperous farm, my definition being a break even on operating costs. We lost track of the renovation expenses, not really wanting to know the grand total and having never aspired to recoup these or the purchase price. Some figures are best kept hazy. Almost to confirm my new found stock in Filipino mysticism, another robin, or maybe the same one, reused the nest and reproduced the identical family unit of four eggs, again with three hatching together and the last two days later. Scott rescued one fallen baby successfully, and Lourdes shook her amazed head at the numerous portents predicting our coming windfall.
But deep down I knew that few can coax the economics of a horse business out of the red, no matter how much work, hope and love you expend, or how you fudge the numbers. With the onslaught of bills for everything from horseshoes to light bulbs, I fully understood how Mrs. Johnson’s “successful ” Arabian breeding farm eluded her in the end. Horses beat up everything. We had already replaced fence boards rubbed, pushed and snapped by horses with itchy butts, gates that crafty horse lips unhinged, metal stall guards that robust chests bent and cracked, countless metal latches and chains demolished by muscular bodies and dexterous teeth, and though I vociferously explained to the offenders that they cannot, absolutely can not chew on the carpentry of their stall windows and doors, they would lift their handsome heads from their labors, look at me with soulful eyes, whinny apologies as I backed away with my pointer wagging, then immediately resume—gnaw, gnaw, gnaw. Fact: a barn is only a heartbeat away from dirty, broken and bankrupt; it takes deep pockets by the owners and constant vigilance by the manager and stable hands to keep it together.
I still hadn’t met Weatogue’s former owner. Mrs. Johnson had undergone surgery for a brain tumor, and I had hoped her recuperation would allow her to attend our show. I wanted to tell her how much we liked the farm and how well it worked, how right t
he bones were set and how thoughtfully she had laid the blueprint, how excited we were, how her legacy of horses on this land would continue. I wanted to right my earlier, rash judgment of her now that I personally experienced the challenges of horsekeeping. Yet, I awaited a serendipitous introduction and shied from knocking on this private woman’s door, or even writing her a letter. Would she see our renovations as crudely excessive, a recrimination? Was El-Arabia’s transformation painful to her or a relief?
“I think she’s happy and sad,” Bobbi said. “It’s hard to let go sometimes.”
I suspect Bobbi was shielding me from Janet’s verdict on our interpretation of her farm, sensing correctly that the guilt would eat at me: now that I so valued Weatogue Stables’ reincarnation, I cared what this horsewoman thought. But this farm was traveling a course that, by necessity, relegated El-Arabia’s history to deeper layers of the land under its footprint.
I would regret my hesitation: Mrs. Johnson died ten days before our event. A small service with no calling hours marked her passing. She willed her house to MIT, grateful to the educators who had empowered her to finance her passion for breeding Arabians. In the tack rooms we hung two pictured plaques, mementoes she had presented to Bobbi about the heyday of El-Arabia and her best stallion, Gwasz. I thought of her often when out on the trail gazing at the barns and her house beyond.
A nurse shared Janet Johnson’s last moments: with eyes closed she laid on her bed with a full view of the farm. As she could no longer see, the nurse described the farm activity: Meghan, Brandi and Bobbi leading the horses, hips swaying, tails twitching and heads bobbing from the fields into the barn for their dinner in the soft glimmer of a lowering sun. A lone whinny; the rhythm of hooves; a human admonishing a horse to mind his manners; feed and water buckets banging; spring renewing. A tear trailed Janet’s cheek. Perhaps she was revisiting her own beloved Arabians, her singular favorites, shushing their hungry neighs and impatient kicks. Maybe she was looking into their crinkle-lidded eyes, kissing their velvet muzzles, one hand smoothing a polished neck and the other reaching deep into her crumb-lined pocket for a last biscuit. I imagined she grieved at the possibility of a horseless future, but perhaps the spirits of her husband and horses of old escorted her comfortably on. I hoped she found some satisfaction in another’s equine dream that would live on in the beauty of well-kept horses experiencing optimal lives in fields and woods on a rescued New England farm reliably fecund with impending summer.
The morning of our show, the predicted stormy weather scattered and the novices rode in a white-grey mist. By afternoon we endured a steady downpour, but only three of the scheduled sixty riders had cancelled. Bobbi’s horsey friends shouldered in against the work required to stage a show, much of which cannot be undertaken in advance. The day preceding and the day of, many hands are needed. There are entry forms to organize, entrant numbers to disperse, score sheets to label, alphabetize and eventually tally, signs to make and post, the prize table to display, food vendors to direct, cars and trailers to park, horses to wash, brush and comb, manes to pull, riding rings to groom, a big barn to clean, port-a-pottys to situate, organizers to instruct, riders and horses to calm, and, and, and. Plus we still had our boarded horses to care for. At 10:00 p.m. Saturday night, I reluctantly left the girls atop footstools at their assigned horses’ necks, braiding manes in a quiet calm. Snipped black yarn littered the floor. Mesmerized, I procrastinated leaving their night-check tasks and idle horse chatter, the low hum and soft smell of late evening in a barn.
Near dawn eight hours later the barn pulsed with activity and nervous energy. The first ride was 8:30 a.m., the last around 5:00 p.m. Bobbi perpetually stood ringside to read the test to riders who hadn’t memorized their courses (most). I knew mine cold and declined Bobbi telling me where to go and when, aiming for some extra credit. Or so I thought: confused during my second test, I lost points with a wrong turn. Elliot knew that having a reader call the course out loud during the ride is benign score-wise at the lower levels and laughed at my vain attempt to get a jump on the competition.
So before my first ride, Bobbi, who needed to be in ten places at once, was not in the barn helping me prepare. Nor was anyone else. The umpteen last minute glitches kept everyone hopping, and Meghan and Brandy, in addition to calming the boarding horses who didn’t thrill to the invasion of their territory, also had to sort out Toby, Angel and Q for their own rides. Orphaned, I decided to buck up and get on with it, nerves aside. Elliot and I had to dress, tack and emerge ready to warm up twenty minutes before our test times. Elliot groomed unruffled and steady, but the uncompromising deadline threw off my timing, and I stop/started several times, first running late, then too early, then a mad rush at the end.
Elliot and I rode twenty-five minutes apart. Bandi and Cleo took good care of us, taking the warm-up and the test as seasoned pros. We did well, earning four ribbons; one first (blue) and one third (yellow) apiece, a compatible tie. I also won the intro level high score overall with a 67.1% averaged over tests A and B. Friendly and encouraging to all riders, the judge, Katie Rocco, took time at each ride’s conclusion to compliment and offer pointers. Worthy of her attention, we felt like real horse people. Elliot and I huddled over our test sheets to compare our marks.
“Look, Ellie,” I raved, “you got lots of 7s. Your halt was ‘very straight and square’ and your left circle had ‘nice energy.’”
“Wow, Mom. You got an 8 on your working trot, but too bad about that 5 on your free walk—‘needs to cover more ground.’ And that had a coefficient of 2.”
At 11:00, Scott delivered Jane to the barn for her lead line walk trot class, their delayed arrival my idea to forestall their inevitable boredom. We readied the ponies. Jane’s friend Keira would ride Cleo, and we wove elegant pink spray roses I somehow remembered to clip from my garden at 7:00 a.m., into her elegantly braided mane. Jane would ride Hawk who, we found by experiment, accepted her under saddle without ire. Into Hawk’s wild black forelock we stuck heartier yellow daisies, better suited to his red plaid pad and western saddle. Poor manly Hawk: bad enough to have been emasculated from stallion to gelding, but to suffer a flowered coif as well? Jane couldn’t care less that he still owned a Y chromosome. Indignant, Hawk shook the daisies out, but we persevered and enough held to wow the soggy crowd as they paraded the ring. The kids walked, trotted and reversed direction, playing to collective “ooh”s and “ahh”s. Keira’s talented posting earned a first, Jane’s attentive posture and serious demeanor won her a second, and a tiny boy perched on a big grey took third. It passed all too quickly for Jane, who pouted “That’s it?” and wanted desperately to go again. Keira’s parents and Scott and I photographed away with full hearts anticipating the memories this scene would long inspire.
DESPITE THE RAIN, IT PROVED A BELLWETHER DAY. No dangerous rides or falls, and the relaxed flow of incoming, outgoing, exercising horses and trailers signaled that our farm made sense physically and could operate smoothly. Emotionally our connection to animals was deepening, and we were gaining strength, agility and confidence, all within a context of hard-earned, gratifying fun. I hung around all day, helping Bobbi, running errands from ringside to the barn, watching the riders and, come evening, lingering in the fellowship of the barn. As darkness fell, we storied the day in low voices while seam ripping the yarns from braided manes and praising our horses and ourselves for tests well-ridden and a show well-executed. I silently thanked the spirit of Mrs. Johnson and fantasized that she watched from afar. Exhausted and deeply satisfied, we already looked forward to our next show in September.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Apotheosis
WHILE WONDERFUL IN EVERY ASPECT, the show was only a preview of the delights that a summer hanging around horses and the farm would avail. The heavy construction work behind us, we tackled the domestic finishing touches—hanging curtains in the bathroom, hammering handsome saddle holders and bridle hooks to tack room walls and grooming stalls, hanging Bil
l Binzen’s photographs (which I had commissioned to document the process of renovation), establishing routines, allocating all bits and pieces to their nooks and crannies, and, last but not least, indulging my new favorite pastime of catalog-shopping both necessary and not-so-necessary equine-related accessories. I wallowed in horse- and barn-keeping. That I was still queasy about the riding didn’t diminish the myriad pleasures of barn life.
We grew to about twenty horses including the one or two who periodically boarded for a training tune-up or a rest. Hawk, Bandi and Cleo belong to the Bok family, Toby and Angel to Bobbi, and Q to Meghan with Bobbi and me sharing our “lesson horse in-waiting for Scott to ride,” Willy. Theo aged 31, Katie, 29, and Glimmer, 27 are out-to-pasture retirees, and Glimmer’s owner Big Jane rounded out our stable of full-time workers by early September. That left ten active boarders including our earliest, Chase; the Hanoverian black stallion Royaal Z and his colt OneZi; Symphony, a large, sweet Holsteiner Thoroughbred cross mare; the white dressage master Dutch warmblood Aram; the Danish chestnut warmblood Colombo; and Quarter Horse Eddie who has Cushing’s disease and can’t eat hay. He wears a muzzle basket to keep him safe from grass-induced tummy upsets when out in the paddocks, along with Hawk who blimps out if left to graze the salad bar all day. We affectionately call them the “basket heads.”