Champion Horse (14 page)

‘Well, no. Of course he would recognise that Blue is a sensitive animal—’

‘Maybe Sophia is sensitive, too.’

Jane said, ‘Maybe she is. But, Abby, Peter Finneran’s job isn’t the same as my job or, say, your friend Jem’s job. Our job is to find a way to bring every horse and every child along, if that’s possible. His job is to cull the herd.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘That means, part of what he does when he goes around giving clinics is look for horses and riders that might go really far, like get on the team. That is only a handful of riders. They have to be talented and experienced, but they also have to have a certain temperament. Do you know what that is?’

I nodded. ‘You mean, just the way that they are, starting when they’re born.’

‘Yes.’

‘Like my colt Jack is bold and full of energy.’

‘Yes.’

‘So what is Sophia’s temperament?’

Jane stared at me. I hoped that she wasn’t going to do what the teachers at school liked to do, which was to say, ‘What do
you
think?’ But she was nicer than that. She said, ‘I thought Sophia was tough as nails. So did Colonel Hawkins. That time she hurt her shoulder, she almost had him convinced to let her keep riding.’

I said, ‘Has he asked her why she doesn’t want to ride her horses?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know that the colonel ever asks why.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, you know. “Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die”.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Oh, it’s a poem, “The Charge of the Light Brigade”. It’s about being in the cavalry, which Colonel Hawkins was in for years before it disbanded.’

‘Well, someone should ask her.’

‘Someone should,’ said Jane.

When I was walking out to the car park to wait for Mom, I went by Pie in the Sky’s stall and spoke to him. He looked at me, but he didn’t come over for a pat. Onyx, though, came right to his stall door, put his head over, and nickered at me. He was still my friend.

That afternoon, when I was working with Blue, I thought about what Jane had said. I hadn’t told her everything that was on my mind, but partly that was because the things that were on my mind weren’t very clear even to me. While I brushed Blue and he did his usual thing of knowing exactly where I was and staying out of my way, and also co-operating and being a good boy, I wondered about Sophia and Pie in the Sky. Pie in the Sky had a temperament just like Blue or Jack or Onyx did, and I had experienced it enough for it to be pretty vivid in my mind. In some ways, he was most like Jack – he had what I would have to call pride. He wanted to do things his way and he felt his way was right, but his way wasn’t always right. It was like he was saying all the time, ‘I know what I’m doing,’ even if he didn’t really. Onyx did know what he was doing, so he just did it, and it was easy to go along with him. Onyx had not pride but self-confidence. It was not easy to offend Onyx, but it was easy to offend Pie in the Sky, and if you offended him, he got back at you by refusing or bucking. People talk a lot about pride. If I’d asked Dad, he could have reeled off ten quotes from the Bible about pride. The one we always talked about in church was ‘Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.’ I knew that one by heart.

When I was brushing Blue’s face with the soft brush, I said, ‘You don’t have a haughty spirit, do you? No. You are a sweetheart.’

Obviously, Sophia had lots of pride. That was the reason she pretended not to notice any of the other kids, and that was the reason she did things her way, like the plaits. And probably that was the reason she rode the way she did – her position was always correct and she never forgot what she was doing. If she was supposed to make a fifteen-foot circle and then go down over the two jumps with three strides in between, that’s what she did. And if she was scared of anything (how high the jump was, how big the water was, or how tight the turn was), her pride meant that she wouldn’t ever let on.

I put the English saddle on Blue – the nice brown one that his owner had bought for him – and then his English bridle, and I led him to the mounting block. I still didn’t know what we were going to do, but once I was sitting in the saddle, I decided to try riding him on a loose rein, the way Mr Littauer recommended in the book Jane had lent me. It seemed like an experiment, but as I was doing it, I realised that not much was different from my normal way of riding him – of course I let him go on a loose rein when we were finished with an exercise or at the end of a ride. What was different was how I felt about it. At the end of a ride, I would be relaxing and thinking about what we had been doing or about what was coming. But now, at the beginning of the ride, I was not relaxing. Mr Littauer said that a horse on a loose rein with his head down is a relaxed and happy horse, more like a horse on his own in the pasture. We made bigger and bigger circles, and pretty soon we began to trot. What I noticed was that Blue did act like a horse in the pasture – he glanced here and there, and his ears flicked around. He went where I told him to go, but his attention wasn’t completely on me. Was this good or bad? We kept going.

I was surprised at how uncomfortable my experiment made me feel. I really wanted to pick up the reins, at least a little. Mr Littauer said that picking up the reins raises the horse’s energy level, and you want the horse’s energy level to stay low. It was also hard to lean forward the way that the lady in the pictures was doing – not physically hard, of course, but mentally hard, because what if he stumbled? What if he put his head down? These were things I never normally thought about. But Mr Littauer said that if you were balanced over the horse’s centre of gravity and going along with him, he would be less likely to stumble. He would just carry himself and you in the easiest possible way. I made myself find that spot, that moving spot, where he and I were exactly together.

Then we cantered. I put my heels way down, like the lady in the picture, and made my back very straight, so my shoulders did look sort of soldiery. I made my elbows and hands as loose as I could, and though the reins weren’t flapping, they were loose. I did not feel Blue’s mouth. Blue seemed to stretch a little bit, and lift his front end. As far as I could tell from the saddle, his head was up and his nose was out, just like the horse in the picture. And if I’d thought his canter was delightful before, well, doing it this way was amazing. It really was like flying along. Blue seemed to enjoy himself, too. We went around the arena three or four times in each direction. When we were finished, Blue was hardly sweating. Afterwards, I didn’t know what I thought about it, except that it surprised me that being relaxed could be so scary. But it was fun, too. There is something pretty irresistible about an activity that is both scary and enjoyable. I patted Blue on the neck and asked him to walk. I picked up the reins enough to hold them, but not enough to make contact. We wandered towards the arena. Nobby whinnied to us, and Blue looked at her but kept walking.

So if your horse was prideful, like Pie in the Sky, maybe that was why he was willing to jump those big jumps – not for fun, like Onyx, but for showing off. I knew from riding Pie in the Sky, though, that when his pride was offended, you had to persuade him to co-operate by convincing him that you knew what you were doing. That meant that you had to get him to jump the course your way by keeping your leg on, flicking the whip, and knowing where you were going. If you did that, then the next time around the course, he did it your way, but even better – he showed off doing it your way.

Really, though, I didn’t want to think any more about Pie in the Sky – not my horse, never to be my horse. I wanted to try that loose-reins thing again. I made myself not pick up the reins, and tried to guide Blue with my weight and my legs. He understood. We made some big loops in both directions at the walk. I patted him, then urged him up to the trot. He was lively about it. He seemed to understand what we were doing better than he had the first time, so he moved more willingly and supplely. I made tighter loops and circles, using only my weight and legs. With each turn, he got better at it. I forced myself not to think what if, or to remember those big spooks I had seen him do when we first got him. We just went around, and if I wasn’t quite relaxed, well, he seemed to be.

Finally, I did pick up a rein – the right one, but very lightly – I just used it to ask him to bend his body a little bit as he went through the turn, then I dropped it.

I wondered about Peter Finneran. Maybe he had seen how much pride Sophia had, and decided to do something about it, and maybe he had succeeded. Maybe Sophia had stopped riding her horses because she wasn’t proud of her riding any more after the way he talked to her and about her in front of us. And then I thought, What business was it of his? But it did seem to fit what the proverb said – Sophia’s pride had gone before her destruction, and her haughty spirit had led to a fall (even if it wasn’t an actual fall from her horse).

I got Blue to turn to the left, using just a little rein again, and then dropping it. Now the interesting part – stopping. But of course Blue stopped. He came to an easy halt as soon as I settled my weight into the saddle. And then we just stood there, reins hanging, while I petted him in long strokes on his smooth, dappled, beautiful haunches. I said, in a low voice, ‘Blue, Blue, how are you?’ and his ears flicked back and forth. I turned to the left, and, reins still loose though not dangling, asked him to canter. He lifted into an easy canter and swept down the long side of the arena. By the time I got Blue back to the barn and was taking his tack off, I had sort of forgotten about everything else. For one thing, he made me feel so much like I was out with a friend when I was on him – and when I was off him, too, since he would walk along behind me without me holding his reins. And for another, his canter put me into a dream, it was so light and smooth.

Dad came home from wherever he had been, and we rode the other horses. Lady was getting to be a pretty good reining horse. I watched Dad rope the saw-horse as I was riding Oh My, and I said, ‘You need to get invited to work some cattle with her.’

Dad nodded, then said, ‘Can’t say I thought she had it in her, but sometimes they surprise you. Sometimes the ones who look lazy are just bored.’

At supper, Dad asked me how the lessons had gone. I said, ‘They were good. As long as Melinda and Ellen get to see one another for a few minutes between lessons, then they both have to show me who’s the best.’

Mom laughed, and said, ‘Who’s the best?’

‘Well, Melinda in one way – she knows what she’s doing more and is more considerate of Gallant Man. But Ellen wants to try new things and her attention never wanders. Sometimes I wish it did!’

‘What about the pony?’

‘Melinda is getting too big for the pony. If her stirrups are the right length, her feet hang down a little far below his chest. I haven’t said anything, though, because if her dad sells the pony, then I don’t know who Ellen will ride.’

Dad said, ‘Icelandic horses are about the same size as ponies, and adults ride them. There’s a German breed, too. Blond, kind of stocky.’

‘I saw one of those at that show – the first one we took Gallant Man to.’

Dad nodded. ‘I guess adults ride them, too.’

‘I suppose Jane will think of something.’

‘I suppose,’ said Dad.

Mom said, ‘You didn’t ride Pie in the Sky today.’

I shook my head.

There was a silence.

Dad said, ‘Her father did call me.’

‘About what?’ said Mom.

‘About Abby riding that horse in shows next year. Lots of shows.’

I put my fork down.

Dad said, ‘He offered to pay her.’

‘How much?’ said Mom.

‘Thirty dollars a day.’

‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ said Mom.

‘It’s not me being ridiculous,’ said Dad. Now they both looked at me.

I said, ‘Sophia should ride her own horse.’

Dad said, ‘Mr Rosebury says that the two of them don’t get along.’

‘Then they can call Jem Jarrow. He’s a lot cheaper than thirty dollars a day.’

‘I did suggest that,’ said Dad.

‘He doesn’t really buck, not like Rally did, bound and determined to get you off. He just likes the rider to get organised and be organised.’

‘Well,’ said Dad, ‘if you understand that, then why don’t you want to ride him?’

‘Shows always go on Sunday.’

‘I—’ But he stopped. Of course that presented a problem, but was it a thirty-dollars-a-day sort of problem?

I decided to change the subject. I said, ‘What would you do if a horse was prideful?’

‘Prideful?’ said Dad. ‘I don’t know what you mean. A good horse does what he’s told to do.’

I picked up my fork and ran it around on my plate. ‘But do you think a horse jumps a really high course of jumps because he’s told to do it?’

‘Well, I guess so.’

‘Does Happy make those cows follow her orders because she is told to do it?’

Mom laughed.

Dad said, ‘Obviously, Happy has a lot of cow in her—’

‘But that means she wants to do it.’

Dad gave me a look, then a half-smile. The look said, ‘You got me,’ but I wasn’t meaning to get him, I was just meaning to understand. He said, ‘Yes, she wants to do it. I think it’s a bossiness thing. My dad had a mare back in Oklahoma, and she was the lowest mare in the band until Uncle Luke taught her to cut cows, and then she worked her way to the top of the group by staring at the other mares and making them move, just the way she would do a cow.’

‘Oh, I remember her,’ said Mom. ‘She was the sweetest thing.’

‘Not to the other mares,’ said Dad.

I said, ‘So, she was prideful?’

‘You could say she got prideful,’ said Dad. ‘She got to be a good cow horse and the boss of the mares.’

Mom said, ‘What are you getting at, sweetie?’

I said, ‘Well, I wish I knew.’

Dad said, ‘Maybe you’re saying that showing a really good horse would be a way to learn something that otherwise you might not have a chance to learn, and you realise that when opportunity knocks, you should answer the door.’

I shrugged. I was sure that Mr Rosebury had talked rings around Dad, who was pretty quiet with strangers. But I also didn’t know what I was saying.

Sophia was back to school on Wednesday. I saw in ancient history that she had a bag with her, of some sort of food that she was willing to eat. We had been in school for a month. Kyle gave an extra credit book report on a book called
The King Must Die,
in which the people in one of the Greek city-states killed the king every year so that the queen could marry another one, and the main character, who was named Theseus, went to Crete and was there when the earthquake destroyed the labyrinth. We then had to write a short essay on the myth we read in the myth book about Ariadne and her thread, and how this was similar or different from what Kyle talked about in his report. I wrote for a page and stopped.

What I thought was amazing was that there were so many people in the world of the Israelites that we never talked about in church. Miss Cumberland told us that she had been to Crete and walked around the palace of Knossos one summer, and that the tiled mosaic floors were still there. However, she said that she liked the Greeks better, and that we would spend a month on them. I kept looking over at Sophia, wondering what I was going to say to her. When the bell rang, Sophia slipped out of her seat and left the room.

Our table at lunch was not one of the really big ones or good ones, but it was our table, and we all had regular places – Leslie sat at one end, with her back to the windows and her face to the door. Stella sat at the other end, because ‘the light was better.’ Mary and Luisa sat on one side, and Gloria and I sat on the other side. Sometimes I sat closer to Leslie and sometimes I sat closer to Stella. That day, I was sitting closer to Leslie, and we both saw Sophia come into the lunchroom, carrying her bag. She did not look around, she just put down her books, sat by herself, and opened her bag. Leslie said, ‘Where’s Alana?’