I don’t care. I can deal with it, I already dealt with it before, I told myself, just keep going.
I did repetitions until my body started shaking.
Doesn’t matter. Ignore it. Do the other leg now, I forced myself. I have to do this.
I was going to ride again soon, and nothing would stop me.
21
When I could walk, I was ready to go to the farm.
“You are not riding yet,” my mother insisted.
“I know. I just want to see him.”
The hour-long drive out to the farm was uncomfortable. The car seat was much firmer than the couch. I tried to be subtle when I shifted my weight to alleviate the pressure, so my mother wouldn’t think I was in pain.
When we arrived, the parking lot was full, as it usually was on Saturday afternoons.
“Victoria! Hi!” Boarders and trainers greeted me as I walked from the parking lot to Moony’s stall. I whizzed past all of the distractions and rushed to my horse.
“Hi Moony!” I called as I walked into the barn.
His head shot up, hay sticking out of the corners of his mouth. His ears flew forward, and, for the first time, he nickered at me. I opened the door and gave him a carrot as I petted the white star on his head. He looked different, but the same. He had no scratches or bruises, but he was so dark now, almost black. I had never considered Moonshine a nice-looking horse, but now, with his gleaming white star and almost black fur, he was beautiful. I wanted to take him outside, but there was still a blanket of snow on the ground, and I knew no one would let me do it.
“Hey there! I heard you were here!” I heard Carol say as she approached Moonshine’s stall. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m good.” I lied. It hurt to stand.
“Great, well Moony’s doing well.”
“Yeah, he looks good.”
“Yep, he can do some tricks now,” she beamed.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Half-passes, shoulder-in, haunches-in, flying changes . . .” she trailed off.
I knew these were more advanced movements, but Moonshine didn’t know them.
“I don’t get it,” I was puzzled.
“I’ve been riding him,” she revealed.
“Are you serious?” I had not expected this.
“No, just kidding. Of course I’m serious!” she teased.
I knew her training was invaluable; I also knew how expensive it was, and that my mother had not said anything about paying any kind of training bill for the last two months. Carol had trained Moony for free.
I was touched. I didn’t know what to say. All I could do was thank her. “Thanks so much, Carol.”
“Don’t sweat it. So, when can you ride again?” she asked.
“The doctor said not to even think about it until April.”
“We’ll see how you feel next weekend,” she winked, understanding the addiction.
“I think your first ride back should be in a lesson, so I’ll put you down just for a half-hour lesson for next Saturday.”
“I can do a regular, one hour lesson. I’ve been working out.” I was eager to get back to my life.
“OK, Rambo, we’ll play it by ear,” she said.
I was thrilled.
I groomed Moony in his stall, smiling as I brushed his dark, soft coat, gleefully breathing in the mixture of hay, dust, and manure that now smelled almost foreign. I had never noticed how strong the smells could be, but they quickly became familiar again. I scratched Moony under his neck, one of his favorite itchy spots, while he continued to munch on his hay. No other horse had breath that smelled that sweet when they chewed on hay.
“I love you so much, Moony Monster,” I whispered to him. And then he shoved me in the belly with his head, sending me flying into the wall, like he always did when he saw an opportunity for a good head-butting. I could almost hear him say, “Cut the shit and just scratch my neck, you sap.”
22
The following weekend, I could stand up without the excruciating pain that had plagued me for the past few months. What little pain I felt was bearable, so I eagerly put on my riding breeches, slipped on my paddock boots, and headed out to the car.
It was the second week of March, and even though it was normally still cold in March, the past week had brought us a heat wave. The temperatures soared to fifty degrees and melted all of the snow. It was just as warm on Saturday, my first day back to riding. The sky was clear blue, unusual for a winter day.
I got to the farm later than I had wanted and rushed to tack up so that I had at least twenty minutes before the lesson to adjust to sitting in a saddle again and riding my horse.
I put on the saddle, led Moonshine outside to the mounting block, stepped into the stirrup and threw my right leg over his back. In that instant, the pain I first felt rushed back. I plopped into the saddle. My right leg was paralyzed.
Moony, please don’t move!
I needed a minute to recover. The aching did not subside, but Moonshine, growing restless, had begun to paw and shuffle, so I knew it was time to get him going. Luckily, no one was around to see me wincing in agony.
I knew Carol wanted me to go to her in the indoor but I needed to be alone. I was afraid that if anyone saw me, they would pull me off my horse. I pointed Moonshine to the farthest arena on the property.
I insisted he walk slowly. Amazingly, he obeyed. His walk was even less choppy than I remembered. I was grateful. Then, I looked up ahead and realized I was riding again! I was where I belonged, in the saddle, on my horse. I finally felt whole again. The soreness in my back and legs didn’t matter anymore. Nothing else mattered now. I turned Moony around and pointed him toward the indoor. I was ready for my first lesson.
I could only ride the walk and rising trot. Most of the fancy movements were done at the canter, but Carol knew I couldn’t handle that yet. Although I was elated to be back in the saddle, I was annoyed that I couldn’t canter. I wanted to ride those fancy moves!
“I was going to teach you the upper level dressage moves at the walk anyway,” she declared, detecting my frustration. Somehow, she had turned my limitation into an opportunity to teach me more. Unlike anyone else, my trainer understood me. She knew what to say and how to say it.
__________
By April, I was riding pain-free. Even though I was riding again, training was still hard. Carol constantly pushed us, challenged us.
“Keep at it,” she would say, “Legs on strong, keep your seat strong,” she often instructed. She would work us until I had very little strength left, and then offer a walk break. I found it fascinating that she knew what my breaking point was physically, brought me to it, and then let me rest just when I reached it.
How does she know how much to push and when to back off? I wondered. She seemed to have full access to both Moonshine’s and my own thoughts and physical capabilities. We were transparent to her.
Moony and I continued to progress, although occasionally my back would freeze up, inhibiting my ability to sit his choppy strides. He would responsively also freeze up. I should have known that he was just reacting to the tension in my back, but instead I immediately got frustrated. Before the accident, I was able to compensate for Moonshine’s stiffness by overusing my back, but now, that ability was gone. I would then kick my horse in my annoyance, which set him off on a bucking spree—also not ideal for my weak back.
After a few lessons, Carol sensed my growing aggravation.
“You can’t get mad at him when your back gives out. So you temporarily lost one of your tools. Why don’t you replace it with another one?” she said.
“Like what?” I asked.
“Your mind. When you get angry, that means you’ve lost control. That means that that control has shifted over to Moonshine. So basically, every time you lose your cool, the
horse is outsmarting you,” she said plainly.
And now I felt stupid.
“So how do I avoid that?” I asked.
“You will have to figure that out. But what I can help you do is to gain some advantages,” she said.
“Like what?” I asked.
“Little tricks; because dressage is performed in a rectangular arena, you can use geometry to help you reinforce your aids if the horse is ignoring them,” she said.
“How?” I asked.
“Let’s say you’re having trouble with your shoulder-ins, utilize the corners just before the movement to establish the bend you need for the shoulder-in on the long side of the arena. It’s impossible for him to not bend in the shoulder-in if he’s already bent before he starts. Let’s try it out. Pick up the trot and bend him before you start the shoulder-in, let’s see if he stays bent in the movement.”
I squeezed my legs, cuing Moony to pick up the trot, and headed to a corner leading into one of the two long sides of the arena. I bent Moonshine’s head and neck to the inside, just as I approached the corner. It was easier to ask for more bend in the corner, as his body was already bending into the sharp turn. As he trotted through the corner, I applied my inside leg to my outside rein, so that I could bring his shoulders to the inside of the track (hence the name shoulder-in). To my astonishment, he stayed bent! It was so much easier to just keep my inside leg on to keep him moving down the long side on three tracks, as opposed to applying my leg and wrestling his head to the inside with my reins.
“It worked!” I let out.
Carol was amused, as usual.
“Let’s try it a few more times, just to make sure that wasn’t beginner’s luck,” she coached.
After trying this trick out on both directions to ensure that it wasn’t an accident, I was ready to learn more.
“What’s another trick?” I asked.
“Oh, now you’re ready for all the tricks in the book, huh?” she teased.
“Of course!” I played along.
Now, taking an air of official authority in a very non-serious manner, Carol started, “Well, technically, there are no tricks in dressage. You know all the experts say it’s just a matter of hard work.”
“Those experts never rode Moonshine!” I retorted.
She laughed.
“OK, back to work, cheater,” she joked. “Pick up the trot on a twenty-meter circle around me.”
I did as I was told. Moonshine picked up his pogo-stick-like choppy trot. He was almost round in his body, but not quite. He was almost working through his back, pushing off his hind legs, but still rigid. He was always “almost” there.
“Ready for your next trick?” she asked.
“Yup!”
“OK, is he totally round?” she asked.
“No,” I admitted.
“What’s the aid to make him round?” she tested me often.
“Inside leg to outside rein,” I let out automatically.
“Good, did you apply that aid?”
“Yes,” I said.
“OK, we know he didn’t immediately respond to the aid for roundness. So now we need a little reinforcement. Only use this when the first aid doesn’t work. This is more of a tip for when you’re desperate, like in a class at a show or something.”
“I’m always desperate on this horse,” I joked, half-serious.
“I know, I know, woe is you,” she dished back.
“Back to business, what you can do to reinforce the aid for roundness is to take your inside rein in your inside hand, and sort of move your fingers around softly but firmly, like you’re milking a cow.”
“Milking a cow?” I asked.
“Yeah, haven’t you ever milked a cow before?”
“No,” I said.
“What about a goat?”
“I’ve never milked anything before,” I told her. Did she forget I was from Queens? Where was I supposed to find a cow to milk in Queens? I wondered.
“Really? OK, well anyway this is what it looks like when you’re milking a cow,” she said as she lifted her hand and tickled the air with her fingers. It looked like she was playing the piano.
“So when he locks his jaw and grabs the bit in his mouth, you can massage the inner corner of his mouth and unlock the jaw by moving your fingers on the reins like that. But you have to be gentle, you’re playing with a piece of metal in his mouth, the most sensitive part of his body,” she warned.
“I think I got it, can I try?”
“Sure,” she said.
I tried wiggling my fingers slowly and gently on my inside rein. His mouth was rigid and unyielding to the rein. It took a few revolutions around the circle when I noticed that he started chewing, a sign that his jaw had unlocked!
“That was harder than the first trick, but at least it worked,” I said to Carol.
“It will get easier,” she assured. “When you ride alone, don’t let him outsmart you. Don’t let him get you riled up, because as soon as you get emotional, the ride is over and you might as well just hop off and go home. Ride more from a technical point of view. If you see a problem, try to figure out how to fix it before getting mad that there’s a problem in the first place, because I’ve got news for you—there will always be problems. Everyone has problems. Even the super star Olympians have problems on their super star Grand Prix horses. The key is how you handle a problem when it creeps up on you.”
“OK,” I replied, digesting her expert advice.
23
I was approaching the end of my freshman year in high school, and had to shift my focus to school, to do well on my final exams. I didn’t find any of my classes particularly challenging, but I still knew I had to get good grades because a good GPA would lead to a good college, which would lead to a good job, which meant that I would be able to support my addiction to dressage. I was acutely aware of how expensive it was to board and train a horse. My mother had grown accustomed to confiding in me about her problems, the biggest of which were finance related.
My mother also urged me to reconcile with my father.
“You only have one father,” she reasoned.
“But he’s an asshole!” I started.
“No cursing!” she interjected.
“Guess who taught me all the curse words I know—in Romanian and English,” I shot back at her.
“He’s still your father,” she insisted.
“I don’t care. Besides, family is a group of people who love each other, whether or not they’re related. He’s not my family. Never will be.”
“No, family it’s blood,” she retorted, letting her grammar slip as she grew angry.
“I don’t think so,” I argued.
“Just call your father!” she huffed, ending the conversation.
It started out with short telephone conversations. Even though the court had still ordered him to have weekend visitations with my sister and me, he was no longer interested in having us over to his apartment. Instead, whenever he felt like going for a weekend excursion, he would show up to drive me to the farm. I always accepted, as this would be an opportunity to ask him to pay one month’s board for Moonshine, as my mother perpetually lamented how the horse was depleting the family’s funds, and my father had not paid child support in years. He got away with it because she could not afford any more attorney’s fees.
Even though he was an attorney with his own practice in downtown Manhattan, he insisted he was poor. I knew it was a lie; almost everything he said was a lie. Nevertheless, I was persistent, or desperate, and as soon as I had him trapped in a car for a good solid hour, I went on and on about my dedication to the sport; how it shaped my life; how hard I had tried; and how far I had come, but still did not neglect my school work. I told him how when I wasn’t at the farm, I was either in school or doing homework, and how I wou
ld be doing this for the rest of my life, etc. I knew he was a selfish, stingy person, but also knew that I was the only person he cared about. He often told me he loved me because I looked like his mother, but was smart like him. He was an egomaniac, so of course I spent the first hour of the drive to the farm telling him what a great father he was and how much I admired him, and the second hour—the drive home from the farm—telling him how much I needed his support.
“Victoria, be serious. This is a joke. This is not serious. Just focus on school. You just work on getting into Harvard,” he would say in his thick accent, condescendingly.
“Dad, I am serious. Lots of people say I have a talent for this.”
“So? I also have a talent for many things, but I don’t do it all. It’s a waste of time and money,” he would continue.
“Dad, I know you’re great at everything you do. But I’m not you. My only talent is for riding.”
“So who cares about talent anyway? Will it pay the bills and put food on the table? No, it won’t. You need to forget all this hanky panky nonsense, get your head straight, and just focus on school. You are smart girl, Victoria. Don’t act like stupid,” he would add in his broken English.
On most occasions, he grew frustrated and I knew nothing was going to happen. But after a few drives out to the farm, he took an interest. We resumed our usual conversation regarding my talent for the sport.
“How do you know you have talent anyway? You think you are a superstar at fifteen years old?” he challenged.
I knew I had a chance of convincing him how dedicated I was and how much I needed his support when he challenged me.
The Tale of the Dancing Slaughter Horse Page 12