Horsekeeping (41 page)

“If it were easy, it wouldn't be as much fun,” Bobbi liked to quip.

I
guess
so. But I hanker after that fantasy. Perhaps once my skills improve, I can enjoy my ideal ride, at least for a few nanoseconds of each experience or maybe once a year on my birthday.

So, I scolded Bandi since Bobbi repeatedly had advised me to get mad instead of scared. A rough day for her: first Jane's foot, then Elliot's speed date with Turbo-Willie, and then her boss flying through the air without the greatest of ease. Bobbi placed her arm around my sagging shoulders, made sure I was okay, and asked if I wanted to get back on. That depended on the definition of “wanted;” simultaneously I thought,
I know I should,
and
hell no,
but responded “yes” with shaky conviction. I wrangled my foot high into the stirrup, grateful for no back or hip twinges, and, with a leg hoist from Bobbi, swung my dusty, dumped self up and across tense Bandi's rippling back.

“Alright, Bandicoot, you rat, let's get with the program, boy.” I tried to lighten my mood.

“Ready to try that canter again?” Bobbi probed as she returned to the center of the ring.

“Sure.”

“Should I move?” Margaret Ann rose from the bench.

“No. You stay right there, as you were,” Bobbi commanded, determined to see me and Bandi through this trial.

This is like parenting adults,
I thought, remembering how many times I had helped my kids through a scary dream, climb a tree, or jump off our boat into the dark lake water. No matter how much you'd rather, you don't give in, but muscle them through, because therein lies the path to CONFIDENCE . . . or is it that deep-seated fear from which they never recover?

Bandi knew he was in the doghouse so we picked up the canter easily. As I headed for Margaret Ann on the bench, I concentrated on Bobbi's instructions so much that my brain ached.

“Keep your right leg on him and push his belly toward the bench. Let your weight drop into that right stirrup. Bend his head right away from Margaret Ann and keep him going forward. Make him focus on your commands.”

My rising panic turned my head and body hollow.

“See his ears? They're turned toward you, but still up. This is good; he's listening for your instructions. Leg on, leg on... a little right rein . . .”

We passed the scary visitor without incident.

“Good girl,” Bobbi called out. “Now ride him on, keep him going. Think gallop.” Speed was the last thing I wanted more of. “Use your seat, give him some rein and look where you want to turn, then, when you're ready, ask him to trot,” she continued.

Upon Bobbi voicing “trot,” Bandi broke the canter without any command from me.
Great,
I thought,
he understands English but believes in monsters.
Bobbi sometimes spelled out the commands, like you'd do with a child. I haven't yet met a horse that can spell, but I'm sure one exists.
Shit
, I said under my breath; I knew what was coming.

“Was that your transition or his?”

Oh, how I wanted to fib.

“His.”

“Okay, canter again and bring him down to a T-R-O-T on your command, not mine.”

The next time we got it right—a canter past Margaret Ann twice around, followed by a smooth transition to trot and then to walk, on my terms. We took this tender mercy. A glimmer of confidence mingled with my disappointment at not sticking the spook. My third time in the dirt had been easier than the first two, despite my faster mph. Maybe the horsey adage was true—you're not a rider until you've come off at least ten times. Three down, seven to go.

Scott and Elliot had been wandering through the fields and missed my little drama, but I fully disclosed it later on our bikes hurtling (fearlessly now, thank you Bandi; bikes are so much more controllable), down Weatogue Road. At home that evening we nursed Jane with ice and sympathy. A blue-black hoof shaped bruise spread from her ankle, across the top of her foot, seeping down between her toes. She hobbled two days, but relieved us with steady improvement. “We should have taken more care: the parents' old lament. Scott and I re-vowed to fix at least one pair of eyes on her at all times at the farm. While Elliot and we were acutely aware of the evident dangers and better intuited the language of horses, Jane still basked in a state of taken-for-granted protection. On the one hand, guarding her safety was our responsibility until she caught us up on the learning curve. On the other, with her jump-start in horsekeeping, in expertise she will lap us in the end, and, if Bobbi is right, easy equals limited fun.

Circumstance postponed my next rendezvous with Bandi. The subsequent weekend our family missed Salisbury altogether, heading to Philadelphia for Scott's and my twenty-fifth college reunion. The kids were excited about the train, the hotel, and a hotel-supplied babysitter, a new experience. Jane's sense of adventure and romance came to the fore.

“You and Daddy met here?” she asked again and again as we approached
the block of high rises at the west end of the University of Pennsylvania campus. We pointed our fingers toward the sixteenth floor of High Rise North. Elliot squirmed and rolled his eyes.

“Yes we did honey, on the very first night that Mommy moved into the school.”

“Act out how you met!”

Scott and I smiled remembering our introduction twenty-seven years ago, mere babes at twenty years old. We also winced at how fast all had gone since.

“Well, I can't remember exactly, but Daddy's roommate invited me over to meet some of the people on the floor. Daddy walked in, wearing a suit and tie having been campaigning for the first George Bush, and by midnight we were all singing and dancing with lampshades on our heads.”

“Lampshades? Why lampshades?”

“I know it sounds silly, but it was something we did back then to have fun.” I winked at my perplexed daughter.

“From then on, Mommy and I hung around a lot together, going to basketball games and downtown into Philly to see things like the Liberty Bell that we're going to see later,” Scott added, with nostalgic eyes.

For Elliot we reenacted our chants including “Sit down, Pete!” whenever our arch rival Princeton's basketball coach ventured up off the bench. The Palestra was a great place for ball, and Scott and I fondly remembered stashing our books in Rosengarten Library, only to collect them just before closing at 2 a.m. after a game date, complete with a late Double-R-Bar Burger at Roy Rogers and a long stroll through a moonlit Center City. As an insecure transfer from Monmouth College in New Jersey, I also recalled Scott's kind support as I sweated my initial grades at Penn.

The story of my path to Penn and our marital destiny is known to many of our friends though not to the kids. I had been commuting to Monmouth College and dated a classmate. It was a serious relationship, and Andy suggested we should spread our wings. We applied to NYU and Penn. I was accepted to both, and Andy to NYU. Selflessly, he
persuaded me to take the Ivy League opportunity (though I barely knew what the Ivy League was). I went off on my own amidst sworn promises of fidelity. Always homesick as a kid and reluctant to venture far from home, some cosmic force propelled me west toward a deeply satisfying education and also to Scott. Just a few weeks after I arrived, I “Dear John”ed the much-too-good-for-me Andy and a twenty-seven year relationship began for Scott and me. I sincerely hope Andy found someone worthy of him. As one friend said, “You owe a lot to that guy.” And so I do.

My two weeks' riding reprieve, courtesy of the Penn reunion, was welcome given my latest fall from the Bandicoot. Fruitlessly I used the time to obsess:
is this really for me if I'm so relieved not to ride
? But spring had fully arrived in our absence: the farm radiant in May's monochromatic fashion show of pale to deep greening grass and unfurling trees swishing against too-blue sky, my back and nose fully healed, and my immune system strong again. Bandi and our bursting-with-life trails beckoned like a siren's call.

 

 

BOBBI RUSHED BACK from a show Saturday late afternoon of Memorial Day weekend so we could ride. I had a test to learn for our dressage show. After my first pre-show experience at Riga Meadow, I couldn't muster much enthusiasm, but Bobbi summoned enough for us both.

“You'll be fine,” she assured. “It couldn't be any more comfortable, our own show at our own barn, totally familiar territory for you and Bandi.”

I wondered how a show at my horse's home could be advantageous now at Weatogue Stables and yet was disadvantageous at Riga Meadow, and I concluded Bobbi manipulated the facts toward my greater comfort. But Jane was excited without really knowing why, and once I told a reluctant Elliot that his Cleo really wanted him to show her, he readily agreed, not questioning my pony language powers. Like Bobbi did with me, I was not above manipulating my kids for their own benefit, or for mine for that matter.

I like dressage. Introductory level A and B require walking and trotting a set test pattern, hugging the wall or fence, transitioning smoothly between gaits, changing rein (or direction), circling evenly, stopping squarely and saluting the judge. Sounds easy, but you can spend a lifetime perfecting the intricate details of a seamless, elegant connection between horse and rider. A perfect circle with good form is harder than it sounds. The rider appears to just sit and take the ride: still hands, motionless legs, perfect upright balance of a graceful body void of busy maneuvering. Slight shifts in weight, eyes and thoughts, and wiggly fingers project a seemingly telepathic communication. An equine puppeteer, the dressage rider strives for invisible strings. Done expertly, the judge barely sees commands and simply enjoys the results.

I appreciate the quiet, measured pace of dressage, and the solitary act of me, the horse, a judge and a score. Of course that means judging eyes are on one rider at all times; she'll not miss any mistakes. Placement accrues from accumulated points against a tough standard calculated as a percentage of 100, rather than your ride rated against others alongside. Anything in the 50–60% range is good, 70s get rare, and you want to avoid 40 or below which signals incompetence, a possible risk of injury to the horse, so much so that the judge can actually excuse you: a slam-dunk of embarrassment. If you can avoid that, it is mostly a civilized one-on-one, the only free-for-all occurring at the warm-up when riders share the practice area. But because there is no jumping and because each test concerns one rather than multiple riders, even this progresses sanely.

My hardest task would be keeping my mouth shut. Points are deducted for talking to the horse or clicking the tongue, which I tended to do on a continuous basis at the trot in a vain attempt to keep a steady rhythm. I was a human metronome.

“Remember: no clucking,” Bobbi warned.

“OH. Right,” I said, getting right back to it after one pass, “Cluck, cluck, cluck.”

“Bandi, tell your mother to be quiet.... Bandi says ‘be quiet, Mom'.”
Bobbi was now talking both to and for my horse, a veritable equine ventriloquist.

“I can duct tape your mouth,” Bobbi suggested.

“Maybe if I chew some gum.” I pursed my lips into a cramp.

“Cluck, cluck, cluck.”

“Just think whip instead of mouth if he needs some energy.”

“Can you tape my ass to the saddle while we're planning props?”

After a few silent minutes: “cluck, cluck, cluck.”

I bit my tongue through the test course a few times, feeling accomplished and eager, for once, to return the next day and hack away at it some more. Multi-taskers, welcome—about six or more maneuvers must occur at once, in varying combos: pressuring one or both legs into Bandi's sides, edging one back or forward, not too much, turning one or both feet to employ a spur, or not (just as difficult), shoulders back and down, half-halt with my outside hand (that one rein squeeze and release that keeps his attention), flex the ring finger of my inside hand (or is it the other way around?), reins taut but giving, elbows relaxed (yeah, right), hands at the withers, thumbs up, no unintentional tickling with the whip but no rapier flailing either, no crossing over the reins to adjust for poor lower body action, ugh—(that last circle was an amoeba), left seat bone down, heels down, weight into the right leg, shoulders
back
(I revert to Quasimodo style ASAP), strong belly forward, oops—missed that corner altogether, sit heavy, loose hips, tighten thighs, no—loosen thighs, change the whip gracefully to my inside hand, no sound effects . . . oh, and my old favorite, look where I want to go. Following the course requires enough intensity of focus to edge out any concern about spooking or falling. The concentration freed me. I toted the test score sheet back to NYC to memorize it, all fired up now about the show, thinking less often about scratching at the last minute. I did not tell Elliot that he and I might compete against one another. This was getting interesting.

After my first official dressage lesson, Bobbi, Angel, Bandi and I headed out for a trail ride in the late afternoon sun. The day ended steamy as
New England's moist spring often invokes summer's heavy heat; only last week we feared frost would harm my family's incautiously planted zinnias, delphinium, foxgloves and tomatoes. We lazily followed the farm's dirt road watching Chase and Q run flat out around their paddocks, bucking, jumping and farting so that the ground shook under our feet. Their wild speed and agility both awed and terrified me, such powerful otherness that we somehow collect and tame—almost, but not quite—that plainly broadcasts horses' retained freedom and strength. I'd rather not see what they can do in their natural state.
Can they reliably sublimate those instincts when we're on their backs
?