Then Carol rides, right?
Right. Carol tacks Gifted up and they go to work. She usually rides him for forty-five minutes every day. They practice all the special dressage moves they do in competition. Gifted’s favorite movement is one-tempo flying changes—he canters across the arena, changing his lead leg every stride. It looks as if he’s skipping. Gifted thinks the piaffe—the trot in place—is hard, and any movement that calls for him to go sideways is difficult for him because of his size.
After forty-five minutes of hard work, Gifted is hot and sweaty. Carol takes his saddle off and lets him have a drink of water. Then she gives him a shower for another forty-five minutes. She’s careful to put a lot of cold water on his legs. This is good for Gifted’s tendons, which take a lot of stress from his weight. Carol has special “soakers” that attach to Gifted’s hind legs and drip cold water down them continuously.
Then does Gifted relax?
Yes. Carol dries his legs and wraps them in bandages to protect them. Gifted has white stockings up to his knees on all four legs, and the pink skin underneath the white hair is very tender. Fly bites make his legs bleed. So Carol bandages them—and she has to wash the bandages every day.
Gifted has his own grass paddock attached to his stall. Carol opens the door in between so that he can wander in and out as he pleases. “He usually falls asleep lying down, wakes up, lifts his head to eat the grass around him, then puts his head back down and sleeps some more,” she said.
Then does Carol relax?
No! She has other horses to ride and train. She has students to train. She has bandages to wash.
When she and Gifted are at competitions, especially in Europe, she often can’t find a paddock for Gifted to relax in. When she can’t, she takes him for long walks in the afternoon.
How does Gifted travel to shows?
In the United States, Gifted rides in the Giftedmobile. He’s so long that he doesn’t fit in regular horse trailers, so Carol had to have one specially made for him.
On airplanes horses travel in shipping stalls. When Gifted flies he has to have two stalls because he’s too wide to fit into a single one. The airline has to take out part of the back of the stalls, too.
How does Gifted fit into horse stalls?
Not very well. At home he has his own superlarge stall, but at shows he has to have a regular stall like all the other horses. “He’s so big that if he just turns around in an ordinary-sized stall, he breaks something,” Carol said. “He’s always getting cut because he’s got pieces of boards or something around his feet.” That’s another reason why Carol keeps his legs bandaged.
How did Carol find a saddle to fit Gifted?
She won it! Carol used to ride in the widest saddle she could find, but sometimes it still made Gifted’s back sore because it didn’t really fit him. Carol and Gifted won the World Cup Freestyle League dressage championships in 1992. One of the prizes was a saddle made by Hermès, a famous French saddle company.
When Carol told Hermès that the prize saddle didn’t fit Gifted, they offered to make her any kind of saddle she wanted. Hermès flew a team of saddlers to Sweden, where Carol and Gifted were competing, and they measured Gifted and talked to Carol about how she wanted the saddle to fit. After a few adjustments, the saddle was perfect! Carol got it just in time to use it in the 1992 Olympics.
Gifted’s other tack has to be specially made, too. His horse blankets are more than seven feet long, and they have to have extra material added at the sides so that they fit around Gifted’s middle.
Where did Carol get Gifted?
She bought him in Germany. Gifted was four years old and had never been ridden. “I’ve always started all my horses,” Carol explained. “I’ve never had a competition horse that I haven’t trained completely.
“I didn’t think Gifted was difficult to train, but other people have told me he was,” she added. “Gifted has very strong opinions … when he doesn’t want to do something no one can make him. You either figure out how to make him want to do it, or you just give it up for a while.”
Will Gifted be on the Olympic team in Atlanta?
Carol hopes so! She thinks Gifted is stronger and better now than he was in the 1992 Olympics. She and her superstar horse will give it their best shot!
I’d like to thank Carol Lavell for telling me all about her supersized superstar.—K.B.B.
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