Raja, Story of a Racehorse (18 page)

I'm enjoying this.

“Diana!” Beth shouted, her voice alive with excitement.

“Come quick, you have to see this. I feel like I'm like riding air…or butter...I'm not sure which. Raja has an education! He was schooled by someone, someone good, after he raced. He knows what he's doing and he's perfectly soft, light and balanced. Let's see what he does with a real fence.”

Diana came out of the barn to watch as Beth headed me toward a big oxer.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Diana called.Again, I cantered down to it in perfect balance and popped over it lightly, enjoying myself so much I gave a little lighthearted buck after the fence.

“Wow! That was beautiful. His knees were up to here.” Diana held her hands to her face, cupping them.

“I know! Isn't he amazing? What a mystery. Not only was he a talented racehorse, he's had great classical training somewhere along the line. And boy, can he jump!” She patted me. “Good boy, Raja. You're a special one!”

By now, my mane was pulled evenly, my rain rot gone, and I was starting to build muscle. Beth and Diana fed me delicious feed and their field was full of the sweetest clover I had ever tasted. I felt stronger, fitter, more like my old self. Beth rode me every day. She was right. I was starting to feel like a “real horse.”

“Diana, it's such a pleasure to ride a horse that's so well educated. I'd forgotten what it's like.”

Diana steered the wheelbarrow around a stack of hay bales that one of the volunteers was throwing down from the hayloft.

“Have you decided what you're going to do? Are you going keep him? We should figure out how many stalls we have open before the fall racing season, it's always our busiest. You know how all those race trainers panic about keeping unprofitable horses for the winter.”

Beth carried the saddle — the heavier jumping saddle she rode me in now — into the tack room, returned with a rub rag, and started to rub the spot on my back where the saddle had been. It felt good. I reached around and nudged her, hoping for a carrot. She pulled one out of the plastic bag on the grooming shelf and gave it to me.

Yum!

“I've been wrestling with that for weeks. I'd love, love, love to keep him and get back into eventing. When I ride him, I feel like I could go and do an event tomorrow. Heck, I feel like I could go around Rolex again, but I can't afford to keep him. Eventing is so expensive. All of those entry fees and stabling and lessons add up. I need to spend my money rescuing horses, not competing. Besides, the stall he takes up for a year could be occupied by ten horses that might otherwise go to the killers in that time.” She shook her head. “He's really, really special. He can't go to just anyone. He's so talented. I'd commit hari kari if someone got him and ruined him by pushing him too soon. He's been through a lot.”

I want to stay!

She frowned in concentration for a while, then her eyes lit up as a smile jumped onto her face. “I think I know just the person!”

“Yuri, it's Beth, how are you?” I heard her speaking on the phone in her office next to my stall. “It's been a while. It seems like yesterday that we were hanging out at the team headquarters with your grandfather.” She walked out of her office and started to throw hay into the stalls, continuing the conversation perfectly, holding the phone to her ear with one hand while she doled out flakes of hay with the other. “How's the NYPD mounted unit? Really? I'm good, the farm is great. Yeah, I know it,” Beth laughed and smiled, “you too, it's been too long. Listen, I heard that your horse went lame and I'm calling to tell you I have a surprise for you. Come this weekend if you can. I'll pick you up from the train station. The express from New York gets in at three o'clock. You won't be sorry. Good. I'll see you then.”

Diana appeared with the wheelbarrow and a pitchfork and started to pick out stalls as Beth swept the aisle.

“I might have found a home for Raja,” Beth told her. “Yuri Belanov is an old friend and the most incredible horseman I know. He's coming down this weekend to try him. Do you want to come for dinner?”

“He's a pretty amazing guy — a genuine horse whisperer with a classical education and cowboy attitude. We both had summer jobs when we were 16 working at the U.S. Equestrian Team stables in Gladstone for his grandfather, Colonel Nicolai Belanov, who was coaching the Team.”

She blushed a little, a small smile stealing across her face. “I'll admit it, he was my first boyfriend. I think you'll like him. It's hard not to.”

Beth began to measure out the afternoon feed, accompanied by a series of low nickers and high pitched whinnies. The horse in the stall next to me banged his stall door impatiently with his front leg. “You'd think we starved them. Anyway, Yuri grew up surrounded by the world's best riders and horses when his grandfather was preparing them for the Olympics and World Championships. Pretty amazing education, eh?” She paused to dump a small bucket of feed into my feed bin.

“Does he train or compete? How come I've never heard of him? I've heard of his father, of course. Everyone involved with horses during the last forty years has.”

Beth shook her head. “He could. Easily. He rejected the elite equestrian world to make his own path. He never talks about his grandfather. Don't ask me why. It must be complicated being the grandson of a legend. His father died when he was young, so Nicolai raised him — when he wasn't off coaching at international competitions. Truly, I think the horses raised him. I've never seen anyone communicate with horses the way Yuri does.”

“So what does he do? Why does he need a horse?”

“Believe it or not, he's a mounted police officer in New York City!” Beth laughed as she started to unwind the hose to top off our water buckets. “Yuri and Raja have got to meet. Oh my god, I'm late. I'd better go and pick him up at the train station. Can you finish watering for me? Thanks! Dinner tonight?”

“Ah, Beth, you're a miracle worker. This isn't a horse. This is a dream, a poem — out of a legend.”

The big, deep, accented voice perfectly matched Yuri's confident, erect, yet loose-limbed bearing and blazing green eyes. He wasn't someone who faded into the scenery. Your eyes couldn't help but be drawn to him — in a good way, I mean. He reminded me of a racehorse: fit, athletic, focused and ready to go.

The minute he stepped onto the farm, we all felt the energy change. Colors deepened, heartbeats quickened, things got more exciting. His hearty laugh and quick smile charmed every person and animal in his path, regardless of age, breed or gender. The teenage volunteers watched him in awe. Even the farm's collection of three-legged dogs followed him around, smitten.

He and Beth and Diana were outside the front of the bank barn where one of the volunteers had led me out to show me.

“Look, Raja has the Mark of the Chieftain! See the whorls on his forehead?”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Beth replied.

“You've never heard of the Mark of the Chieftain? It's an old Bedouin legend. They can read a horse's character and destiny from the whorls on a horse's coat. See the way his hair grows on his forehead? These three interconnected whorls?” He traced my forehead with his finger. “Cossacks read whorls too. This particular mark is extremely rare. The Godolphin Arabian had it and his fastest descendants have it. I'll bet you a hundred dollars that Raja comes from his line, just like Northern Dancer and Secretariat.”

Yuri placed his hands on me and stroked me all over in a gentle rhythm. He stopped to push his unruly bangs out of his eyes. “I almost forgot.” Winking, he clicked his heels together and bowed from his waist, then reached into his bag and drew out a package with a flourish. “I brought you some bagels and bialys from my favorite Russian bakery. I remember how much you love them.”

For the first two days, Yuri just sat in my stall and watched me patiently, quietly learning me, and letting me learn him. First, he blew on my nose, letting me sniff him and his unique and complex smell: saddle soap, leather, cedar and pine. I loved his smell. He smelled like deep, endless woods. Gently touching me all over with both hands before grooming me, a brush in each hand, like Speedy used to, he hummed and sang to me in a low voice. I couldn't understand the words, but I understood the tone and relaxed as if I was being worked on by Michelle's massage lady.

“Russian lullabies, like your grandfather.” A wistful smile stole over Beth's face as she walked by us, “The apple hasn't fallen far from the tree.”

“Trust me,” Yuri seemed to say with his voice and his stance and his hands, wordless, yet more clearly than if he had spoken, as if he were saying, “I respect you and want you to respect me. We're partners, after all.”

From the first moment he stepped in the stirrup and swung his leg over my back, settling lightly into the saddle, we were in perfect sync, as if reading each other's mind. Light, balanced, clear, and precise, like Michelle, with a daredevil streak like Pedro, he made me think. He challenged me. We were better together. I had to pay attention, because I never knew when he was going to suddenly turn and head for a big fence — just to dare me to keep up with him.

Dare away. I'm with you, no matter what you throw at me. I like this game.

I matched him step for step. Walk…to canter. Lengthen, then shorten, the strides…into a gallop. Suddenly Yuri leaned over, one leg over the saddle and fell off, or that's what I thought at the time. Then he was back up, laughing triumphantly and sitting up gracefully, rein contact light, holding me into a motionless halt with his stomach, legs pressed against my sides.

“I can't believe you are still doing all of that trick riding,” Beth watched us from her plastic chair by the side of the arena, “you just can't resist showing off, can you?” She shook her head, smiling. “By the way, I checked Raja's bloodlines. You're right. His great-great-grandfather is Northern Dancer. You win the bet.”