Dante of the Maury River (17 page)

“No disrespect,” I said. “I thought Gwen was the lead mare.”

“No, I am now. We came to a civil agreement after she saw how I put you in your place the other day. She’s been a good alpha, and I love her, but things are changing. The Maury River Stables is bigger than just Gwen, Napoleon, and me. Mrs. Maiden is trying to run a real riding school. A new kind of leadership is needed. Gwen understands.”

“She agreed, just like that, without a fight?”

“She’s older now, and she tires more easily. Her job will be to mentor new horses, especially those working in the therapeutic program. That’s a higher calling than lead mare, to tell you the truth.”

She pulled some clover, and we grazed side by side in silence for a time.

“Why did you call me over here?” I asked.

“Dante’s Inferno, I want you to stay at the Maury River Stables,” she said. “And if you’ll follow my orders, you’ll remain here and our two fields will become a herd. I want you to take your command from me.”

One thing I knew Daisy couldn’t do as well as she’d have liked to from her side of the fence was to control the geldings. But I most definitely did not need the burden of managing that motley group of equines.

I learned pretty quickly, however, that the Welsh are a stubborn, determined breed.

Daisy sure was trying to convert me over to her version of the world. As if I had a choice, if I wanted to stay. I needed to fast-track my way into Mrs. Maiden’s good graces.

I bowed toward the gray cob.

“You got it. Dante’s Inferno at your service.”

“Good! We’ll start you off with the Shetland. Have you noticed how Napoleon prefers to stay near you?”

Seemed like I could hardly step to or fro without knocking into the little guy. Even though the pony was always under my feet, I liked him. Daisy had noticed the easiness between him and me, and she had a mind of shifting some of her Shetland duties over to me.

“Before you came, I would huddle at the fence under the stars with Napoleon. He likes a story at night,” she said.

“I’m not ashamed to admit, I’ve become pretty attached to the Shetland,” I told Daisy. “But I don’t know many stories.” I lifted my head and looked around to be sure I knew where he was. Right on time, he stood first in line at the hay, as Mrs. Maiden tossed in our evening square bales.

“No worries. You’re in training.” She flicked her tail. “Besides, I know some of the Shetland-breed tales. I learned them from my dam, whose name was Fancy, only I called her Mabin. I can teach you my Mabin’s stories.”

In training? Learning stories wasn’t hardly any kind of training. Not for a Thoroughbred. As much as I had taken a shine to Napoleon, the thought of Daisy thinking she could offer me any kind of training at all hit me like an insult.

Didn’t she know what all I had accomplished in my life? I may not have won the three tests, but I was still a grandson of Dante’s Paradiso, and in my glory I showed as a fine, fine racehorse.

I walked over to the cedar tree to think a minute. What Daisy was suggesting was mares’ work.

“I’m a racehorse, not a pony sitter,” I told her when I came back.

“Correction, Mister Sporty-Sport. Were. You
were
a racehorse. What you
are
trying to be now is a school horse, so act like one.”

I showed that mare my backside like I never intended to turn my face around to her again.

“Go right along playing like you’re ignoring me, but you’d better listen. You could be a great leader. You have what it takes, but you lack discipline, focus, and drive. I can teach you, and I will. If you agree to do as I say.”

As the sun disappeared behind Saddle Mountain, the temperature dropped, too, and all the geldings settled in for the night. On summer turnout, we spent the dark hours under the stars. Like he had started doing every evening, the Shetland trotted over to me. Stuck right to me like a blanket of dew on morning grass.

The mare’s words had really chapped my flank. Me, lacking in discipline? No focus, no drive?

I ignored Napoleon, but could not ignore the shift that occurred in my heart as he followed me around the field in silence, blinking those brown lashes, seeking some comfort, looking for a friend.

A heart must hurt when it’s growing and expanding, the same way a heart aches when it’s cracking and breaking. Mine opened just enough to realize that I had given that pony no good reason to show me such devotion.

Daisy, watching me from the fence line, tossed her head up and down. I caught her drift.

“Hey, buddy,” I said to Napoleon. “Did I ever tell you about my first race? Not too terribly far from here, over in Charleston. Oh, it was a good one, too. Fifty-to-one odds in a field of thirteen two-year-olds.”

He nuzzled in close to me. “That sounds quite exciting, Mister Dante. Like a lovely story I’d like to hear. Go on, then.”

Now, agreeing to tell a pony one story does not erase a lifetime of pain and suffering, both felt and inflicted. But it’s a start.

W
ant-to is not the same as can-do. Stretch as I might, I couldn’t one hundred percent allow myself to trust anybody but Ashley. Barely tolerated even Mrs. Maiden. My bloodlines, the pedigree on file at the Jockey Club, will tell you where I came from, but I hadn’t the first clue as to how to get where I needed to go or even where that place might be.

Ashley did her best. Everybody did, but they didn’t know me well — by that, I mean nobody at the Maury River Stables yet possessed the tools to help me unify body, mind, and spirit.

After a while, my hooves had grown long and were starting to crack. Even though I wasn’t in what I’d consider a habit of real work, Mrs. Maiden knew better than to let a problem take root in my feet. I wasn’t helpful in that matter, either. I had kicked the shins of a few farriers that had tried already.

One morning after grain, I overheard Mrs. Maiden on the phone scheduling yet another farrier to come out to the barn. “We’ve got an OTTB out here who’s pretty fiery. He needs a trim, but I’ll warn you, he won’t stand easily. Three others have tried and failed. They refuse to come back.” Then I sensed a lightening of her load. “Well, I would appreciate your visit. Sure, I’ll hold him.”

It seemed the whole barn — horses and people — seemed, was about ready to give up on me, including myself, and each for our own reasons, when a miracle walked through the barn door.

My old friend John. Good glory, how I nickered when I saw him, and I would have cried had I been capable. Ashley was holding my lead. John reached his hand out to take me.

“Dante, you are a sight for sore eyes.” A big grin broke over his face. “I love this guy,” he said to Mrs. Maiden. “You don’t remember, do you? Dante and I were locked up together. Behind bars,” John said. “Right, boy?” He patted my cheek.

Mrs. Maiden’s face pinched up tight. “Locked up?”

“Yes, ma’am. I won’t lie to ya. I served five years at Riverside for a felony offense. Nothing violent, I promise. Prison’s where I met Dante. I met you and Ashley there, too.”

John had brought a little low-to-the-ground dog with him. A corgi named Katie curled right up at Ashley’s feet. Her friendliness got a good laugh and seemed to dispel the anxiety that might have been stirring up in Mrs. Maiden.

She smiled. “Oh, Bet’s program? Now I remember you. You showed us Dante, right? You’ve grown a beard. I didn’t recognize you.”

“You got it,” said John. He cut away from talking about himself. “I can show you a few tricks about him. He’s as good as they come. Particular in his ways, but as good as they make ’em.”

Ashley patted me like she always did, with a loud
whop-whop-whack
on my shoulder.

“See, that’s how I know he likes you. He’s letting you handle him roughly. He’s dancing around a bit but not putting up much of a protest.”

“That’s rough handling?” Ashley asked.

“To him? Yes, indeed.”

“He’ll hardly let anybody touch him,” said Mrs. Maiden.

John nodded. “Right, he’s persnickety. Watch.” John stroked my neck. “Easy is more his style.”

Ashley copied him. I stayed as still as a blade of grass on a day without a breeze. Only sweet feed could’ve made me move.

“Are all racehorses nervous and crazy acting like Dante?” Ashley asked.

“Nope, every single TB is different. Has to do with their pedigree and, of course, how they were treated and trained.”

“Bet tried to tell us that he needed a lot of work. I had hoped we would have made more progress by now,” Mrs. Maiden said.

“Yeah, I hear you. Everybody wants a Thoroughbred today. Some OTTBs could probably trot right in here and get working as school horses. Others? Maybe not ever. Some are wound so tight from the track that they need to chill in a field for a few years.”

“What do you think about Dante?” Ashley wanted to know. “Will he ever let me ride him without bucking and taking off? Or figure out how to do anything other than run fast and be mean to other horses?”

I understood what she was saying, but little did she know, in my younger days I’d have been vigorously protesting this entire conversation happening around me.

John took a sidelong look at me. “How’s he coming under saddle? Are you able to work him?”

“Not really,” Mrs. Maiden said. “Ashley longes him every day.”

“That’s good,” John said.

“Almost every day. Some days I just groom him, but I’ve stopped trying to tack him up, even,” Ashley chimed in.

John led me to the cross-ties. Bet your last bale of timothy hay that not a word of this talk was lost on me. While my old friend the farrier trimmed my feet, I stood for him without a lick of trouble. As best I could, of course.

“You know, I’m not sure he’ll ever get to where he needs to be. I hate to give up on a horse, but maybe Dante ought to live out his life as a companion horse,” Mrs. Maiden said.

John set down my hoof, and I already felt an improved sense of balance. “That’d be a shame, for sure. He’s talented. He has a good heart. In prison this horse was my best friend. There for me every day. Who knows what all he’s been through.”

“Maybe you’d like him, John?”

He rubbed his hand down my back. “I wish I could take him. I really do.”

“Seriously, I can’t keep him at my school if we can’t get him under saddle and if he’s not safe,” said Mrs. Maiden.

“You rode him a lot at the prison,” Ashley said. “Would you help us?”

As he was done with my feet — and with appointments for the day — I lifted a front leg out to him. John broke into a big grin. He held my knee and laughed. “That’s my boy, right there. How can I refuse?”

W
ith all the work I was doing, to tell the truth, I didn’t have much time to act up. I was plumb exhausted. My new mentor, Daisy, had me running around the gelding field learning all the landmarks and fence lines: the hay ring, the enormous gray boulder, and the old stand of cedar trees. John and the corgi started coming out to the barn twice a week to work with Mrs. Maiden, Ashley, and me.

“Can you really help me ride Dante?” Ashley asked.

“I believe so. First off, let’s see . . . do you have a peppermint? Very important.”

Ashley ran into the tack room. Lo and behold, she returned with a bag of treats. She had been holding out on me.

“Like I said, Dante is finicky. Not all Thoroughbreds are as sensitive as this guy and not everyone would agree with me on rewarding him with sweets.”

“Whatever works,” said Mrs. Maiden.

He explained how I liked to know what was coming next, and how he always talked and showed me each step. He reminded Ashley to show me the blanket, saddle, and girth before placing the tack ever so gently on my back.

“So far, so good. Go real slow with tightening the girth. Yep. Now, give him a treat. Pat his neck.”

Next, he led me into the round pen in front of the barn. Ashley followed. He picked up the longe line, clipped it to me, and pushed me out on the rail. Longeing had been a big part of my workdays since starting out at Gary’s. My mind clicked into gear. “About ten minutes on each side.”

“Oh, I haven’t been longeing him for that long. He goes so fast, and he gets all snorty and prancy. I guess I get scared and stop.”