Show Barn Blues

by Natalie Keller Reinert

  “Because you love riding,” a chipper voice called.

  I blinked and looked around. Kennedy was slipping into Sailor’s worn old saddle with effortless grace, as if her joints didn’t ache with every move, as if the years in the saddle hadn’t worn her body to the breaking point. Must be nice. “I didn’t realize I’d said that so loud,” I admitted. “Bad habit of talking to myself. I guess this life can make you crazy.”

  Kennedy shrugged. “Depends on how you live it. Maybe you’re working too hard. When’s the last time you got on a horse for fun?”

  “I was probably twelve,” I said, and Kennedy laughed, but I wasn’t joking.

  My idea of fun time wasn’t horse-time, not anymore. Fun time was laying on my couch with a romance novel, glass of wine on the coffee table, something soothing on the radio. Horses were work. Maybe nothing was as much fun now as it had been when I was a teenager, but it seemed like all work and no play was just part of adulthood.

  Maybe I just needed a daily nap to put everything into perspective. Kennedy seemed like a person who wouldn’t say no to a good nap once in a while.

  She let Sailor stroll around the covered arena while I picked up the reins and asked Hope to collect himself again. Soon we were pacing around opposite sides of the arena, a study in opposites — Sailor’s reins loose on his neck, his ears flopping at half-mast; Hope stepping carefully in an expressive medium walk, foam dripping from his mouth as he held the bit lightly, his ears tilted back on me, weighing my every movement as he waited for the next command.

  This was the proper way to walk a horse, I thought, feeling his hindquarters engaged and under his body, feeling the potential pent-up propulsion with every step. I immersed myself in his movements, forgetting all that foolishness about riding being for suckers, because I really did enjoy the hard work and discipline of it all. Unfortunately, merely dropping the subject wasn’t enough for Kennedy, because after a few minutes she turned Sailor with a lazy flip of the wrist and brought him over to walk next to us.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  I grunted an assent, too busy with Hope to look her way.

  “Why do you ride?”

  “What?” Her question startled me, and I inadvertently tighter the reins. Hope sucked back from the pressure and pranced a little, in imitation of the piaffe we had been playing around with a few days before (before he forgot how to do lead changes). I settled him with loose fingers and a little leg, pushing him back into the bridle. “What kind of question is that?”

  “Well, you don’t ride for fun,” Kennedy reasoned. “And I only ride for fun. So what’s your reason, if it isn’t fun?”

  “I love horses,” I replied automatically, and turned my attention to Hope’s motion once more. Of course I loved riding — I did! Even if I had set barn hours and a mandatory closing day every week in an effort to get away from it. You couldn’t live anything twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, no matter how much you loved it, without getting worn out. I had put mechanisms in place to give me a break from horses so that I could keep loving them. That didn’t mean I had lost my passion. Had Kennedy even suggested that? Was I being paranoid for a reason?

  I settled myself deep into the saddle and concentrated on the measured rhythm of Hope’s footfalls, the gentle swing of his hindquarters, the peace of a balanced horse. Yes, yes, that was the good stuff. Oh, I still loved riding. That synergy, that oneness with a horse, was still there, and I still loved finding it and holding onto it for as long as possible, just as I had when I was a kid. So I had to stop and remind myself of that from time to time, so what? Maybe that happened a little more often, these days, running up to the show season, running out of money, running out of time…

  Maybe I needed a vacation, in addition to a daily nap.

  Well, it was too late for time off now. The show season was here. Tomorrow was just the beginning of a long, busy winter. Maybe in six months I could go on a cheap three-night cruise or something. I ought to be able to get away for three nights, right? Just because a vacation had never happened before didn’t make the whole concept impossible.

  “I know you love horses,” Kennedy went on reasonably, dropping her reins and stretching her arms over her head with an odd artistic motion. I was reminded of some barn gossip — someone had said she’d once performed as the princess at the old horse-themed dinner show down in Orlando. I hadn’t believed it before, but something in the way she moved… “But it looks like you could have a better relationship with horses, all the same.” She reached way, way up, stretching her back so that she seemed to grow six inches in the saddle, then picked up her stirrups and nudged Sailor into a trot. She left the reins on his neck, and her hands high in the air. For the first time in years, I watched another rider and felt awe.

  Unimpressive Sailor became a new horse, his hooves skimming the earth gently as he jogged in long, low frame, guided only by the rail and some sense of inner peace none of my horses possessed. In the saddle, Kennedy posted carelessly, her arms above her head, her fingers pointed towards the roof, her face uplifted and her eyes closed in apparent bliss.

  She had impressive balance, I had to give her that much. I let Hope slip the reins and stroll quietly while I watched Kennedy. They made a looping serpentine through the arena, Kennedy turning Sailor in changes of rein with just a twist of her body. Although I had to wonder if you could call it a change of rein if the rider wasn’t in fact using reins.

  After a few circuits of the arena she stopped posting and stilled her body in the saddle. Sailor immediately dropped to a walk, and Kennedy laughed with pure delight. “I love doing that,” she called, turning the horse back towards Hope and me. “We feel so in sync. I try to do it at least once a week, just to remind me of what riding should feel like. Free. Balanced. A little risky.”

  “I’ve never done anything like that off of a lunge line,” I admitted. “You’re very accomplished.”

  “Oh you must try it!” Kennedy ignored the compliment deftly. For a moment, I thought she’d offer to let me try it on Sailor, who had obviously been trained for such a stunt. If I dropped Hope’s reins and asked him to trot around without contact, he’d probably jump out of the arena and take me down the road, even if he was schooling upper-level dressage movements. “You just have to work on your bond with your horse,” she went on. “If you can’t trust him, you won’t maintain your balance for long — you’ll be second-guessing him and he’ll feel that, and second-guess you, and you’ll both lose your rhythm.”

  She kept carrying on about bonds and relationships, but after a while, I stopped listening and went back to work on Hope, picking him up in the bridle and asking for a canter. She was very cute and very earnest, but I wasn’t trying to build a sacred life-long bond with my horse. I was trying to sell a solid show jumper for a lot of money. Emotional connections were nice, but they paid no bills.

  Anyway, I had Ivor. How many horses could one woman love? True wisdom meant protecting your heart. That was a lesson you learned the hard way, but once learned, it was hard to forget.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Horse show mornings were always too early and always too hurried, no matter how much planning was done the night before. By the time the sun was peeking through the pines, we had the trailer packed, the horses bandaged and loaded, and, with a final check of the trailer hitch and lights, we were off to the local dressage club for the day. If you could consider an hour’s drive “local,” and these days, I certainly did.

  I drove north on the county highway with both hands on the wheel, avoiding minivans and SUVs turning out of the subdivisions, their backseats full of kids on their way to soccer practice or whatever it was kids did these days instead of begging to muck stalls in exchange for extra riding time. The decals of smiling stick figure families never failed to depress me on a horse show morning — all those soccer balls and karate belts and tennis rackets. I hated thinking about all of those girls who weren’t riding. Why weren’t they gro
wing up with horses anymore?

  What if that was my fault?

  I’d let Rodney handle the kids in the neighborhood for all these years, concentrating on the adult amateur market. Kids were a hassle and I didn’t really understand them — that was my excuse, anyway. Still, there were probably plenty of moms who were turned off by Rodney’s muddy riding ring and ramshackle barn. Maybe their daughters (and the occasional son) would have gotten into riding if I’d welcomed them and their families to my bigger, cleaner, more impressive barn?

  It wouldn’t have been fair to Rodney at the time, but he was selling — and he’d asked me to take his trail horses, his lesson horses and his students. I hadn’t been seriously considering it, but… money was tight…

  “What are you worrying about?” Anna asked from the passenger seat. As working student, she got to ride shotgun.

  “What makes you think I was worrying?” I grinned at her and slid my eyes back to the road just as quickly as they’d left it. We went past the local prep school. The playing fields were packed with children and the parking lot was packed with expensive cars. I had to admit, I would love to have those cars in my parking lot on a weekend morning. I slowed to avoid turning cars ahead of me; the highway was always gridlocked here any time anybody did one single thing at that school. These neighborhood kids were active, there was no doubt about that.

  “You’re chewing on your lip,” Anna said. “You kind of stick out your jaw to the right a little and then run your lower teeth over your top lip. It’s like a horse with a tic.”

  “I’m like a weaver, maybe? Or a cribber?”

  “You crib on your own lip,” Anna chortled. “I’m putting a collar on you when we get home.”

  “I’m a little worried about business,” I admitted, lowering my voice so the gossiping ladies in the backseat couldn’t overhear. They were cackling over something silly Colleen’s husband had done. “We have a few extra empty stalls. Just looking for a good strategy to fill them.”

  “Less of that?” Anna tilted her head slightly towards the backseat. She’d always been fascinated that I had built a business solely out of adult amateurs. She didn’t know it was non-sustainable, but then again, neither had I.

  “I guess there aren’t enough of that anymore.”

  “You’re thinking kids then? Ponies?”

  “Maybe. And maybe…” I paused, considered whether I should tell anyone. It was possible the boarders would riot. It sounded so common. “Trails?”

  “Like, rentals?” Anna’s eyes were big. Exactly the reaction I was concerned about. This might not work.

  “Guided,” I clarified. “Not rentals.”

  Anna nodded slowly, thinking about it. “How often?”

  “Charters, I was thinking. From hotels. Not an open barn, just privately organized groups. To keep the integrity of the barn, so there aren’t strangers coming in and out. Rodney suggested it…”

  “What are you ladies talking about up there?” Colleen asked sharply, and I realized I’d been a bit too explicit with my wording. “Group what? Group tours?”

  “Oh, just thinking aloud about hotel groups,” I said lightly. “You know, a few people here, a few people there, from conferences, that kind of thing.”

  “Oh, to do riding lessons,” Colleen said comfortably, and I didn’t bother to disabuse her. “That’s not a bad idea at all. People could do riding lessons while they’re on business trips. I would do that. If I had time.”

  Anna gazed at me steadily, but I kept my eyes on the road. The highway passed under a new expressway overpass and then narrowed to two lanes. We passed a mobile home surrounded by chain-link and banana palms, we passed a nursery with a duck pond out front, we passed a sign for a private airport runway. We were back out in rural Florida at last, it had just taken forty-five minutes longer to get there then it used to.

  None of my students were particularly thrilled to spend the day on the flat, but they approached a dressage show with the same intensity that they did the more beloved show jumping classes, because I told them they had to. Dressage kept jumping horses supple and obedient, as I reminded them when I added a dressage show to the calendar and was rewarded with a collective groan of disappointment. Dressage made their horses more athletic and sure of themselves, better able to get out of sticky situations and manage slick footing in the jumping arena, I lectured. Did they really want to deny themselves the show-ring edge they’d have from having horses with solid dressage training? Of course they didn’t. So they grimly tightened the girths on their dusty dressage saddles, lengthened their stirrups, and schooled their tests until show day. One by one, the Seabreeze ladies entered the arena at A, halted at X, and saw the dirty deed through, usually bringing home a few ribbons at the end of the day.

  That tended to sweeten the deal. If there was one thing my ladies loved, it was hanging ribbons on their horses’ stalls.

  Personally, I loved dressage more than anything, and it rankled that my students practically had to be bribed into doing one measly test per year. If I thought I could have run Seabreeze as a dressage training center, I would have done it in a heartbeat. But the money, at least in my neck of the woods, was firmly in favor of show jumping.

  The students had gone back to gossiping in the backseat, my momentary slip over the group trail ride idea forgotten. Gayle was giggling over some story Colleen was telling, which was a shame, because Gayle was notoriously bad at memorizing dressage tests and hadn’t managed to get her First Level test straight all week long.

  “Gayle?” I asked her reflection in the rear-view mirror. “Do you know your test?”

  The smile dropped from her cheeks. “I think so,” she said haltingly. “Yes?”

  “I’m asking you.”

  “Yes,” she decided in a more resolute tone. “I know my test.”

  “Can you go over it with Colleen really quick? Just to be sure?” The truck jounced over a bump in the road. Ivor kicked the trailer wall in response. I knew it was him — it always was. Picky brat, I thought, even though I liked his bad attitude. It made life more difficult than it really needed to be, but it was part of what made him special. Except for the trailer-kicking; that didn’t help anyone. “I won’t have time to call the movements for you. I have to be schooling Hope for his test while you’re in the ring.”

  Gayle nodded and pulled her phone out of her pocketbook, opening the app she’d bought which laid out all the dressage tests, step by step, on the screen. Colleen leaned over it as well — she was doing the same test with Bailey, and she stood a much better chance of bringing home a ribbon, if only because she had actually memorized the movements. Like Gayle, she was a fair-to-middling dressage rider, really no more advanced than anyone riding a Training Level test, but she had the sort of horse who could get her through the movements if she just stayed out of the way.

  It was the same with the show-jumping — which was why the horses had cost a small fortune, and why I worried about them constantly, and why I didn’t want them leaving the arena, no matter how enticing another rider might make it seem.

  The group trail rides would make things even more complicated, if I decided to go down that route. Unless I sat everyone down and explained that they could go on a trail ride if they used one of my trail-broke horses and myself or whoever I hired as a guide to go out with them…

  I worried it over, chewing on my lip, aware that Anna was giving me the side-eyed look again. Well, she was just going to have to get over it.

  After all, worrying was I did best. I was better at worrying than riding. I thought that was actually the way things should be, when you were a barn owner and a manager and a riding instructor and a trainer all in one. I’d seen what horses could do when you gave them half a second of split attention. It was better to keep them in your sights at all times. Worrying over them, clucking over them, shaking your head over them. Anna would learn that over the years.

  Ahead, the road began to curve around ancient trees, and u
ndulate with rolling hills. We were nearly there, climbing up onto the ridge where the farms still ruled supreme. Now there were other horse trailers on the two-lane highway, all heading for the same isolated show barn in the middle of a rifle-shaped county in Nowhere Special, Florida. We’d shaken our heads when Kelly O’Brian announced she was leaving behind her small show barn near Orlando and building a magnificent new show-place equestrian center in such a desolate location. But five years later, Kelly was right and we were wrong, and now I was the one they were shaking their heads at as I refused to follow the herd.

  Boy, the other trainers would just love the trail rides idea. I’d get laughed out of the warm-up arena if that news got around. There was a pretty firm line of demarcation between those who produced nationally-ranked show horses, and those who hoisted beginners onto quiet nags for an hour-long walk in the woods. If I went through with it, I’d have to step across that line alone.

  Everyone perked up when the scrub oaks and dry grass along the road suddenly parted and gave way to the prancing bronze horse statue that heralded the entrance to Oak Ridge Equestrian Center. A fountain’s sparkling waters played against the horse’s raised hooves, causing a chorus of oooes and aaahs from the backseat. I slowed the truck and trailer to a crawl and made the turn slowly and gently enough for even Ivor, while the ladies swooned over the elegant surroundings.

  I hated coming here.

  “I love coming here,” Colleen sighed. “This is what a stable should look like.”

  I glanced in the rear-view mirror, hoping to catch her eye so that I could intimate to her how insulting I found such a statement, but she was still gazing out the window, admiring the white PVC fencing that marched around spacious pastures, dotted with grazing horses. I hoped she realized Oak Ridge was a very different kind of place from the stable I ran — this was a real farm, with hundreds of acres of pasture, with a cross-country course, with warm-up rings and show-rings and boarders and lesson horses of every age and description. Kelly even took in broodmares and foals, something I never would have considered at Seabreeze. This place was an entire horse city. Seabreeze was just a horse apartment complex.