Horsekeeping (27 page)

“Why don't you enter as well?”

My reaction was again “no way.”

She peered at me with a sideways grin. “I'm going to bring Toby over for some events too. I think we'd have fun, and you can certainly do the long-stirrup (meaning grown-up as opposed to the child “short”-stirrup) walk-trot division, and maybe even the walk-trot-canter.”

Yeah, right,
I thought. “But what about my steering? I'm not even comfortable sharing the ring with one other horse, let alone more,” I puffed from hoof-picking Bandi's heavy left hind.

“So, don't do the canter, just the walk-trot.”

Like that helps
, I thought. “How many people are in the ring at once?”

“It's hard to say. Could be two, could be ten. More than that and they'd probably divide it into two groups.”

“I don't know.” I bent to the right hind hoof.

“Remember: everyone will be going in the same direction, and if you come up too close on someone, just make a little circle or cut across to a less crowded spot. This is perfectly acceptable.”

I hesitated as Bobbi fed Angel two carrots and walked her smoothly into her stall.

“I'll think about it.” I hoisted Bandi's saddle to the curve of his back. He whinnied for Angel.

“You can always enter and then pull out at any time. Even just before your particular event. Horses scratch all the time. We could even put Jane in the kids' lead line walk-trot. She'd have a blast, and they all get a ribbon at this stage.”

“Would you have a hold on her the whole time?” I looked her right in the eye.

Her baby blues returned confidence. “Absolutely. Bandi seems to sense when he has kids on him and behaves even better than usual.”

With that, Bandi let fall an odiferous splat of manure and looked at me with sweet pleading. Though I suspected it was all about his mess (Bobbi later gave me a tote bag that said “behind every good horse is a woman cleaning up”) and more carrots, I took his expression as a sign.

I smiled, “Okay, Bandi, we'll give it a go,” and collected the shovel and broom to scoop the poop.

Competition was beginning to sound like fun. I still had several weeks to change my mind. And, technically, it wouldn't be our first. We attended a low-key show in a neighboring town when Elliot was seven and riding with Jessica. As a novice, Elliot entered one event—lead line walk and trot—in which the horse is tethered to the instructor, but the child's form is judged for posting and sitting. Nine kids competed, and Elliot's excellent posture, quiet hands and balance were accented by his hunter green show jacket that we found, second hand, at the tack shop. We beamed at his skill and effort.

The judges ordered the line-up, and places five through two went to other riders. His place came down to first or one of three unrecognized lasts. When the loudspeaker rang out “Elliot Bok riding Sultan,” Elliot smiled, but Scott and I went wild, probably against all protocol. So, my one show experience was warm and fuzzy. Elliot lacked a horse this
time around and would have to wait, but Jane and I would debut, me on Bandi in the adult walk/trot and Jane in the children's lead line, also on Bandi. Bobbi assured me we would all be fine, even five-year-old Jane, who didn't know the word “post” and had been on a horse about four times. Despite our return to New York and only weekly riding, I felt sort of ready, and in the coming lessons, Bobbi would review a few pointers about competing to increase my comfort level.

 

 

BY THE DAY BEFORE THE SHOW Riga Meadow Equestrian Center had been transformed. The outside grounds still buzzed with last minute preparations so Bandi and I joined three young riders atop ponies in the indoor ring. It seemed every show entrant had the same plan for getting ready, but sharing a ring, which demands steering accuracy and etiquette, rattled my nerves. Around and around we motored, changing direction as a group to avoid face-offs. I grew steady and confident.
Maybe I am ready,
I thought. As I trotted a left past the barn door at the far end of the ring, a loud tractor started, gunning its engine. I didn't register it amidst the other commotion, but Bandi jumped straight up, simultaneously spinning a one-eighty to the left, quick as lightening. Sailing off to the right I thudded hard on my side and replaced hip. I sensed flight for a flash second and hit the ground before I had time to freak out. Previously, I had talked to Bobbi about falling, about which I was petrified.

“Is there a way to fall so you don't get hurt?” I asked, trying to sound more calculating than cowardly. Having inherited a tendency towards doomsday scenarios from my eastern European immigrant ancestors, I cannot fathom innocuous falls. Those must be the exceptions that prove the rule. My mind immediately veers toward the worst case, and I picture Superman in a wheelchair.

“Well, the best strategy is to not tense up and try to roll away from the horse,” Bobbi answered. “But it happens to everyone, and eventually it will happen to you.”

I've had maybe fifteen rides in my life, but managed to stay on, and I had convinced myself that sheer will power would stick me to the saddle, no matter what. In actuality, there is
maybe
a nanosecond to consciously avoid coming off a quick-darting horse or to engineer a
graceful
landing, at least at my level of non-skill. Even Bobbi admitted there is precious little time to plan. Experienced riders with an excellent seat can anticipate a spin, spook or buck and prevent or “sit” it by keeping a tiny part of their brains and bodies ever at the ready. But “experienced” wasn't even in my vocabulary yet.

I had placed too much faith in Bandi and myself. One minute I confidently entered my turn at a happy trot—“Look at me, moving sooo well, feeling at one with my horse, ready for this show”—the next I was eating dirt, clambering to my feet, my brain yelling “Holy shit” over and over in an internal loop of panic; hearing Bobbi asking me from afar, rather calmly I noted—
doesn't she ever get riled? What kind of drugs is she on?—
if I was okay; watching my horse tootle over to the narrow open door, pause, and then bolt, a copper streak, out across the farm; seeing Bobbi, on foot, chasing after him. A series of cinematic scenes. My hip felt fine—big relief—and none of the kids lost control of their calmly coping ponies—bigger relief. Ashamed to be the grown-up that found trouble, I sprang up and raced to the door, feeling responsible for my runaway beast. I vaguely registered that no part of me hurt. Upon racing the length of three paddocks Bandi slowed by the silos where one of the stable girls caught him. I met Bobbi hiking him back to the scene of the crime.

“Are you sure you're okay?” Her uncharacteristically knitted eyebrows made me suspect I wasn't, so I re-extended all my limbs and shook myself out.

“Yeah. I can't believe it, but yes.”

“Well, congratulations. Now you're really a rider.” Her smooth brow was back.

“Thanks, I guess. What happened?”

“He spooked. He went left and you went right.” She smiled, forking her arms.

“Should I have stayed on?”

“Possible, but not likely. He
is
a Quarter Horse, remember.”

And why, then, do I own a Quarter Horse,
I wondered?

“Is Bandi alright? Does he know what he's done?” I wouldn't fully realize what he had done, how he fated us, until weeks and months later.

“Oh yeah, I gave him a good talking to. Any horse can spook, but I'm kind of surprised he went out the door. He's a smart horse to find that narrow exit. I don't think he still feared the noise, but when he realized he'd dumped his mother—'Oh-oh, big trouble'—he decided to run for it.”

Small comfort. I'd rather have my own incompetence fell me. At least that I am in control of, could work on. But to have to deal with my own problems and his seemed a tall order. How to anticipate the loud noise that I can't predict, not to mention imagined bogeymen in the scary bushes? Another horse's panic? A bullfrog skipping across the path? A bee sting? A horse-hating dog in hot pursuit? A crouching piece of rusted farm equipment? A sunbeam menacing a funky shadow? All likely scenarios out on a trail, but I considered the indoor safe—sort of hermetically sealed. And the whole point is to
eventually
enjoy the great outdoors, atop a tamed wild animal, feeling like I'm in Marlboro country (minus the yellow teeth and lung cancer). What I want is the thrill of victory without the agony of defeat. Is there such a horse?

I am learning no. Horses are like husbands, wives, kids, friends. They harbor complex personalities and neuroses, unpleasant behaviors and stubborn habits alongside their unique, endearing gifts. We choose partners whose negatives we can tolerate. Children are a crap shoot and we diligently nurture and fix them, rarely giving up even on intractable problems. But friends we accept or reject, depending. How much does one tolerate in an equine? Was it more my fault or his?

I survived my first ejection and that counted for a lot. I was told I should be relieved that I “got ‘that' out of the way,” and get grateful I
wasn't hurt, except for the slight tweak in my back that developed more from post-traumatic stress that froze me rigid as a barbell. I knew I needed to skip gingerly past this inevitable milestone, but I tend to obsess.

I composed myself enough to climb back aboard Bandi as soon as we returned to the ring. To my credit, I trotted and even cantered, slowly inching Bandi back toward the offending far end. He didn't want to go and jigged away while I pushed-pulled him toward his fear and fought my own tension back from the cliff's edge of panic. My nose would grow if I denied my great relief at ending the lesson.

Putting on a brave front, I accepted condolences from riders and workers alike. This did not help. Everyone was unsettled and seasoned at the same time: they had all been through this major “it”—“the first time
it
happened to me, blah, blah, blah . . . ,” and though they pretended like hell to have gotten past it, their eyes betrayed them. Their own falls were all right there, vividly clawing beneath the bravado. Their overly compensatory confessions didn't hide their insecurity about tempting fate, on the contrary, they rang more of appeals to an equestrian saint (Anne, George, James the Greater, Martin of Tours?) for protection. I did not buy their queasy “You'll get used to its.” Their body language drenched me like a menopausal flash: no matter how long or how well one rides, danger always persists, a third, shadowy companion to horse and rider. I felt indoctrinated into a club alright: one where the inner circle's shared secret comes weighed down by “de”-enlightenment rather than the anticipated liberating revelation. My honeymoon period had ended.

Linda gently put her arm on mine.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. I think I am, physically at least.”

“Well, it happens to the best of us. Now we can put your name on ‘The List' we keep of all the people who've had a spill while riding here.”

A strange kind of glory, but I took my door prize. I pictured a wall of fame for fallen would-be heroes, a before and after smiling rider morphed into worry-laden risk assessor and back again. Scott later
suggested “the list” satisfied insurance requirements, deflating me further. But there was some comfort in the numbers who get back on. I continued to hear many a tale on my way out of the barn.

“Oh, my horse used to dump me all the time,” confided sixty-plus-year-old Mary.

“I've fallen off so many times I've broken every bone above my waist at least once,” boasted Margaret Ann.

“Did you ever learn how to fall?” I interrogated each, desperate to plumb the physics of how to avoid breaking every bone above my waist at least once.

“One time I did try to roll over my shoulder blade. They tell you to avoid the neck and spine, and I guess I did, but that was my worst break: cracked my collar bone clean in half.”

My quelled panic threatened to surface, and I bee-lined home, feeling every muscle in my body turn to glass.

I planned to keep mum about my fall. Scott was already edgy that we spent less time together walking and biking. I feared feeding him ammunition against my new pursuit, especially when I teetered on doubt myself. We had never had a sport or any significant leisure activity independent of each other, and even though the master plan included a horse for him, he'd already broadcast a clear disinclination toward time-consuming grooming, training, and a thorough education. Driving home, I didn't cry the tears of fear and relief I felt and calculated about two hours to a stiff martini. And, the show loomed first thing the next morning.

I returned home at 5:00, late as usual; by 5:05, as we readied for our date night, I spilled the beans.

As expected, he offered little comfort. The silent “I told you so but we both know I don't need to say it, if you were out walking with me it wouldn't have happened, maybe you're taking this whole thing a bit too fast and seriously” hung opaquely in the air as he shaved.

“Why can't you be supportive about my riding and the farm?” my words more an accusation than a question.

“What do you mean?” He held his razor aloft and looked at me, genuinely shocked. “I
have
been supportive—about the cost, about the time you spend away from the family, away from me . . .” scrape, scrape, scrape, rinse.

“Time?—
Time
away from the family? I'm
always
with the kids, all week long, all year long.” I argued at him in the mirror, feeling I might strike him if face to face. “You are constantly gone and have been for the thirty years of your career. Work always came first. And now, when I've found something I love that doesn't include you—not for my lack of trying I might add—you accuse me of desertion? How could you?” I shook with indignation, left-over fear from my fall, intimidation from the Riga Meadow yelling Trainer clinic, nerves about the show in less than twelve hours, the possibility that I've been neglecting my family, and my rising doubt about whether this whole horse farm thing was a giant mistake I wasn't sure how to get myself out of.