Horsekeeping (40 page)

Cleo had a sore tendon from mixing it up in the fields with her buddies, so the plan was for the kids to ride Willy at one o'clock, Jane first then El, while Scott and I lunched at The White Hart. I would ride at two, preferring to ride without the kids around. I worried about their horseplay: nothing like Jane in tears from some barn-related mishap to raise my hackles. I had to keep my cool, especially today. Eight weeks had passed since I had been in the saddle. Various ailments were to blame. On spring break vacation in Anguilla I had whiplashed my vertebrae showing Elliot how to dive from a springy board, not unlike the one I grew up with and which, no doubt, duped me into believing I was eight years old again. I had also nursed an endless cold, courtesy of my germ magnets Elliot and Jane back at school, and had undergone a nasty surgery to correct a long-deviated septum. To be honest, I had welcomed the break. I thought I loved riding, and I wanted to master this horse business, but the learning, the Bandicoot, and the horse farm in general had drained me nearly dry.

Since my first fall in summer, I had been dumped again in our own indoor ring over the winter. Bandi shied at the door during a trot, twisted left and bolted while I flew right, pretty much a rerun of my first airborne performance. I landed delicately, though the footing is never as soft as one wishes, and immediately I got back on. It traumatized me less than the first time, but not by much. Now I have had eight weeks of not riding to dwell on it.

But the beautiful early spring day meant an outdoor lesson—no spooky doors in sight.

“We're running a little late,” Bobbi said nervously as she finished tacking up Willy.

“Oh.” I said, disappointed because I had rushed through lunch, much to Scott's annoyance. “Did your morning lessons run long?”

“Not really, but Nancy wanted to finish up with a ride in the field, so Angel and I went with her. I hated to cut her short because she is such a great boarder.”

This was true. Our very first customer, Nancy had been unfailingly excited about the barn, complimentary even in the midst of the ongoing construction. She and Bobbi had succeeded so much with Chase that they were on the lookout for another horse. One owner with multiple horses is ideal business-wise—reduced traffic on the road, fewer personalities to deal with, less human congestion on the property. Although technically a for-profit enterprise, we wanted to preserve the atmosphere of our own personal space and keep it low-key for people we liked. Breaking even would be enough, but hemorrhaging money forever was still a possibility if we didn't keep our business heads. Nancy had recently acquired enough skill and nerve to canter Chase out in the open field as opposed to the ring. I envied her progress and was thrilled on her behalf when Bobbi boasted about her cantering around our large hay
field, not once but twice without stopping. I wouldn't have begrudged her the extra time either.

“We also had a little accident with Janie,” Bobbi continued.

I heard Jane cry “Mommy” in distress from the tack room.

“What happened?” I asked, blanketing the sparks in my brain.

“Angel stepped on her foot,” Elliot reported.

“I think she's fine,” Bobbi added. “She'll be bruised, but she's moving everything, and we've put Cleo's leg icepack on her.”

I jogged to the tack room, where Jane burst back into tears upon hearing my voice. Above the din, Jane's sitter Marie quickly assured me she'd been up and laughing a minute before. Timing is tricky for parents, and it's not uncommon for kids to re-fall apart when their safe emotional outlet appears.

“Poor Janie,” I took her onto my lap and kissed her head. “Did Angel step on your little hoof? Let me take a look.”

Marie had just gotten Jane's riding boots back on, hoping to encourage her to ride and take her mind off the pain. But the boot seemed tight, and I removed it to view the damage. The swelling was minimal, and Marie pronounced the bones sound. But Jane gained a fresh sympathetic audience and couldn't rally—it certainly must have hurt. We all recounted our episodes under the hooves of horses, but besides her tiny, more vulnerable feet, she also lacked her usual resilience due to a stomach virus she had weathered only two days before.

We prescribed rest and with an exaggerated groan I hoisted her up for a piggy back ride to the car. Homeward bound she brightened at the prospect of elevating and icing her foot in front of
Dumbo
and
Madeline
videos. Poor Jane: so often in tears at the barn. That her kinship with the animals made up for the occasional maiming amazed me. I gave her credit for savoring the fun and forgetting the injuries. Like her father and brother, and decidedly unlike her mother, she is a glass-half-full kind of gal.

I stayed behind to watch Elliot ride and to ready Bandi for my belated
lesson. Pausing ringside, I saw Elliot comfortably confident on Willie who he had ridden only once before.

“Whoa, Elliot! Slow down that trot,” Bobbi instructed. “Willie's turbocharged today.”

Bobbi later told me she found Elliot's ride hair-raising due to Willy's uncharacteristic burst of energy.

“I noticed he was getting a little stiff, so I put him on glucosamine. With this supplement they advise upping his grain some, so Willie is raring to go. I'll have to cut him back.”

Grain is a “hot” food and pumps the horses up with an energy boost, a caffeine kick of sorts. There is no end to tinkering with a horse's diet, including natural supplements that calm, some of which we had given Bandi. He didn't spook less, but he grouched less during grooming and tolerated cuddles better.

Elliot itched to canter Willy. It went well, if a bit fast, and Willie's big canter surprised Elliot after Cleo's delicate stride, illustrating that no two horses ride alike. Later, Bobbi rethought her decision to let him go for it. After Janie's encounter with Angel's hoof and her recent first fall, not to mention my own wobbles, Bobbi needed a break from the Bok family having adventures.

Finally my turn, I rode Bandi out to the larger ring while Elliot finished up in the adjacent dressage arena. While Bobbi, Elliot and Willy headed indoors to untack, I practiced my trotting and circles, alone and without trouble. Starting solo was risky after such a long break, but a bike ride with Scott beckoned, and I was striving to keep our relationship intact, temporarily filibustering Scott's objections to my time sink of a new pursuit.

My skills rusty, I nevertheless enjoyed Bandi again. I re-appreciated his familiar trot and even canter. Keeping him energized required steady effort, and the work strengthened my legs and kept me focused and accurate with my commands. Bobbi had recently suggested I try spurs and a whip for my lazy boy, but I was determined to muscle my
will through my body to get what I wanted from him. Bobbi could do it, so it wasn't impossible. I tired quickly, but it felt a purer form of horsemanship. And I was still somewhat idealistic.

On a short break between canters, Margaret Ann strode into the ring. A horsewoman we knew from Riga Meadow, she also sold tack and gifts and dropped by to firm up plans for her kiosk at our upcoming June show.

“Hi, Margaret Ann,” I greeted. “I'm almost done, maybe ten minutes, and then Bobbi's all yours.”

“All right, take your time. I'll just sit on the bench here if you don't mind.”

“You might get a face full of dust, but you're welcome to it.” Thanks to Kenny, our ring drained almost too well, requiring copious watering in dry weather.

A teak bench divided the two rings. Margaret Ann settled down and I confidently resumed my trot, playing to my impromptu audience.

“Energize that trot before asking for the canter,” Bobbi instructed. “Get him paying attention. Now sit the trot tall and left leg asks for the canter.”

I had trouble keeping my butt heavy in the saddle against the trot. Only in attempting this motion did I realize how natural posting is. But if the horse feels you posting he should not, and generally will not, pick up the canter unless he is particularly generous. My usual methods of cheating included standing a little in the stirrups to keep my bouncing cheeks off the saddle altogether or leaning forward and pushing the reins forward—“Giddy-up, cowgirl” Bobbi generally joked—to make up for my weak seat. Against type, Bandi picked now to show off a too lively trot when I needed him to slow down. He's a wily character.

“Remember, the hands don't make him go, your seat and legs do. You and Elliot do exactly the same thing—flap your arms to get him to go. Yee-haw!” She chicken-winged her own elbows dramatically. “This cowboy stuff won't work. Organize yourself again, slow down the trot—not
too slow—sit tall, hands give the reins
slightly
forward but quiet, and ask him again.”

This time I managed it and cantered down the long side of the ring. As I approached the bench and Margaret Ann, Bandi startled, stopped short and simultaneously jumped sharply to the center of the ring away from Margaret Ann, whose entrance and presence he had distinctly noted
and
who we had already passed at a trot several times. She had not appeared out of thin air, nor had she been transformed into a horse-eating monster. Off I flew landing with a thud flat on my back just under Bandi's left shoulder. He didn't bolt this time and high-stepped to avoid trampling me while I scrambled out of his way up onto my feet. Bobbi ran over.

“Are you okay?”

I considered.

“Yes. I think I'm fine.”

Unhurt, but mad. I grabbed a hold of Bandi's reins and shook his face. “Bandi! What is the matter with you? Stupid horse; don't you dare do that again.”

Brushing myself off, I asked Bobbi, “Where did I go wrong?”

“Not your fault. I saw him get the hairy eyeball, but he was too quick for me to warn you. He didn't really spin, but jumped to the side. I thought you were going to stick it at first, but then sometimes it's better to bail.”

“It was rather controlled and graceful,” Margaret Ann said, “a slow motion ejection.”

It did have that feel about it, even to me, but still I railed at having been unseated again, at a canter no less.

“Could I have stayed on?”

“Probably if you had had a little more right leg on him to curve his body away from the bench, the weight on your right would have balanced you when he jumped right.”

“But wouldn't that be pushing his middle into what he feared, making it worse?”

“The idea is to curve his center body toward the spooky thing and his face and hind end away. They'll always spook away, so by curving his body like a C you not only remove his eyes from the object, but impair his full ability to jump or spin in that direction.”

Sensible,
I thought, but I despaired at a weight shift that was one more thing to think about on top of a perpetual consciousness that Bandi might spook at anything, even the benign Margaret Ann, or the tractor lying in wait at the edge of a field, or a rogue daytime deer, or the giddy gymnast chipmunk, or the swooping crow, or the angry wasp, or the bloodthirsty horsefly, or the revving motorcycle, or the visitor who knows nothing about horses, or the car alarm in the parking lot, or the terrifying thoughts that flit around his small, highly imaginative brain, or, or, or . . . Toby even spooked at the sight of Cleo simply lying down in her pasture one day; she must have posed an unusual silhouette. He just flipped tight around and tracked for the hills until Bobbi, brave woman, forced his quivering, agitated fifteen hundred pounds right up to the fence where Cleo was sunning her belly.

“
Look,
Dumbo! It's only Cleo,” I heard her urge.

He snorted his panic and danced an eight-step in place, Bobbi not allowing retreat. As Bandi and I were alongside at the time, forcing a false calm I u-turned toward the barn, leaving Bobbi to fend for herself. I was the last thing she needed to worry about. Bandi couldn't have cared less about Cleo's lounging aspect, miraculously discounting Toby's agitation, so we avoided trouble. I gave myself some credit for keeping a cool head and making a good decision.

As in life, with riding there is always something. The trick on a horse is to develop good reflexes, catch spooks early and be prepared for anything. There are no assurances in this business. Shit happens, and even if you could hermetically seal your horse environment from all possible outside influences from bugs to tractors, you'd have a totally neurotic
horse who would still, I'd bet good money, find something to get loopy about. The horse term “bombproof” is silently qualified by “within reason”: the horse's “reason” that is, not the rider's. Conditioning to all conditions is the lofty goal, but some horses never adjust to the things that scare them. A slant of light striping the indoor ring; a rush of wind that rattles the barn door; the harried whinny of your horse's buddy out in the field—all unpredictable and sometimes disruptive, sometimes not. I have searched for the science of this, the logic, and believe me, it doesn't exist. The only defense is a dual personality: my riderly self must stay loose, calm and relaxed to confer a sense of ease to my horse, but at the same time sit constantly AWARE, prepared for anything and everything, from the postman filling the mailbox to the cougar my horse imagines crouches in the brush as I meander, whistling a happy tune, along a wooded verge. Does this disrupt that dreamy, glamorous, magazine-quality image I stubbornly keep in my head? Well, 'er, a wee bit, yes.