Horse Crazy (3 page)

"Bugger off, Trevor."

"American girls are so charming."

Beginning your equine education is hard
enough in your own language without tackling it in another one
first. Although, granted, taupe horses probably don't exist in any
culture.

The translation problems that arise when you
finally end up back in your own country will have you virtually at
square one again as far as relearning the basic names for
things.

In New Zealand, for example, jodhpurs are
pronounced as "jod-pers", not "jod-fers". It's a small thing but
it's usually the small things that ultimately start people pointing
and staring at you.

When you initially learn something in another
culture, chances are you'll always think of it first in those terms
and then translate it into your present situation, even if your
present situation is your native country.

At a country gymkhana in Whangarei one
January summer day, I added to my antipodal equine education by
learning the accepted horse colorations. Trevor reeled off what
seemed a poetic but dizzying list of horse colors: roan, bay, dun,
speckled, black, grey and more. Although promising not to point out
in an amplified voice any more instructions to say, watch the mauve
horse, I was forced to shake my head in confusion.

"I think I'll just stick to black and white
horses."

"Might be the wiser thing," Trevor agreed.
"Only we don't have white horses in New Zealand. Do you have them
in the States?"

"What are you talking about?"

"No white horses in New Zea..."

"I heard you, but what's it mean? There's a
white horse right there. And there's another."

"We call them 'greys'."

"What?"

"We call them..."

"I heard you. But they're not gray, they're
white. Why do you call them grey and what do you call the grey
horses, then?"

"We call them grey, too."

"What a descriptive people you are. Why not
just call 'em all 'horse-colored?'"

"I'll suggest it. Bloody clever, you
Yanks."

"Oh, bugger off."

"See? Some words you have no trouble picking
up at all."

With my flowering education-on-the-ground (if
not quite the flat just yet), and the increased contact with the
odd horse through Trevor, as well as my work-related experience
with Captain Phillips, I began to develop an earnest wish to
ride.

Part of my natural hesitancy to get into
riding was the concern that I was too old to be able to do much
more than just jog pathetically about, my stirrups slapping
hopelessly at the horse's side. Dreams of the Grand National, the
Olympics, or of any sort of real equestrian competition were
laughingly out of the question. My new riding goal would
undoubtedly be to remain upright on the horse and, possibly, moving
forward.

When I began to feel tugged toward horses
again, it was with the knowledge that I would not be able to go as
far as was possible with them. My age would limit me. This, in
itself, was a new concept. But riding is physical and for the first
time, I realized that at my age, I would have to content myself
with a piece of it: the whole lovely bailiwick of my childhood
dreams was now out of reach.

It began, for me, then, in Waimauku, a
farming suburb outside Auckland, New Zealand on Trevor's wily bay,
Cuba. Cuba was lean, high-strung and very pretty. Gentle, even
uninteresting on the ground, Cuba was Hell on Hooves from the
saddle.

I waited with barely-suppressed expectation
while Trevor attempted to catch his beast in the pasture. (Cuba
obviously wasn't keen on this part of the procedure, he kept just
out of Trevor's reach, like a small mongrel terrier my family once
owned when we were living in Germany. Fritzie, half miniature
German Shepherd and half Wire-Haired Terrier, would wait with
tongue lolling and eyes dancing until we were nearly upon him
before whirling away with much, one would suppose, glee and
mockery. I must say, it's awful hearing your Dad threaten to
garrote a beloved--if aggravating--pet.)

When Cuba finally condescended to allow
himself to be nabbed by Trevor (or when the lure of the carrot
became too great), Trevor led him quietly enough back to the stable
where he tacked him up with, I thought at the time, much cursing
and stomping. Having no experience up to this point as to why or
how a horse might annoy you while you were putting a saddle on him,
I stayed out of everyone's way until they were finished. As a
result, my education on equine grooming and tacking would remain
sparse to nonexistent for awhile.

Trevor then led Cuba to an enclosed paddock.
He firmly locked the gate and then swung up on him. They both sat
there for a moment, as if startled, or perhaps they were trying to
recollect what came next. Soon enough, they began to move about a
little. And then a lot. All of the action was accompanied by a good
deal of cursing from Trevor. The two of them began to look like
they were on roller skates, weaving and twisting in one spot in the
ring. At one point, Cuba went into a small spin, using his hind
legs as a sort of pivot. I thought I'd seen something much like it
from rodeo clips on ESPN.

Tiring of this, Cuba soon began to perform a
rather attractive, if frenetic, prance-step that took him
worryingly close to the car I'd borrowed from a friend for the day
and had parked in kicking distance right outside the paddock.
Panting and frowning, Trevor jumped off and handed the reins to
me.

"There you go. I've got him settled down," he
said.

With no little apprehension, I bent my knee
to accept the leg up from Trevor. I was up, wearing sneakers and no
helmet, and the two of us were off.

It was not a pretty ride.

We jiggled and danced in one spot for about
five minutes, then Trevor opened the gate and Cuba shot through it
with me clutching to his back like a cat. Trevor took my picture
and I smiled woodenly for the camera. Cuba jerked around a little
more and I reassured Trevor that I was having great fun, but that,
perhaps, we should stop now, please.

After it was over, I felt I was lucky to have
stayed on. Trevor commented that most people didn't. Stay on, that
is. (It was at this point that I began to re-evaluate my friendship
with Trevor.)

We decided to take lessons together. We took
one. Each.

They were given by an English equestrian
living in New Zealand who had won some measure of fame in the UK
for her riding in competition, as well as a quiet celebrity in New
Zealand for her teaching.

Although only in her late thirties, Corrine
Draper didn't show competitively any more due to a set of smashed
pelvic bones. She lived with an older man who was reputed to have
even more fame and equestrian ability. He was also English. And
although I was never sure of what their relationship was (father?
husband? brother?) he also had a set of smashed pelvic bones as a
result of being caught between two too-active horses in a too-small
stall. He still taught but no longer competed either.

It was a muddy Sunday deep in the sweetest
part of Pukekohe, just south of Auckland, when we took our first
(and, as it happened, our last) lesson with Corrine. It was the
third week in October and wonderfully, lusciously springtime in New
Zealand. A rollicking army of fluff-ball lambs frolicked along the
perimeter of the riding ring, adequately distracting horse, rider
and instructor.

From atop the big white (grey) mare, I could
see the velvety hills of Pukekohe rolling in dizzingly lavish
spills of vibrant green. New Zealand is so green most of the year
that the intensity is quite hypnotic. When the spring rains force
an even more vigorous hue to the land, it seems impossible to do
anything but marvel.

The combination of such powerful, relentless
beauty surrounding me, and the compelling antics of the woolly
dickens cartwheeling on the other side of the ring proved too much
for my concentration. I felt like I was airbrushed into an existing
movie, with no idea of what was to happen next.

What did happen next was that I was put on a
lunge line for the first time. A lunge line is a rope or a rein,
about thirty feet long, made usually of canvas, that attaches to
the horse's halter (or cavesson). The instructor or trainer (in
this case, Corrine.) stands in the center of the ring and prompts
the horse, by way of a long lunging whip, to move in a circle
around her.

The idea, usually, is to help make the horse
more flexible and to prepare him for having a rider on his back,
but it's also done to train young horses, to work out a problem
with trained horses, to burn off energy with hyper horses and to
teach green riders.

In the latter case, one perches on the lunged
horse while the instructor dictates how fast and when one goes.
Usually the drill is to remove your hands from the safety grip and
learn how to balance yourself on a moving horse.

It's a great way to really feel the horse
beneath you and to start to see what's needed in the way of staying
on without using your hands for balance. It's scary too. The reins
are not real hold-'em reins, but side reins which attach uselessly
(as far as the rider's concerned) to the saddle. There's often a
safety strap to hang onto if you get in trouble but, for the most
part, you're expected to keep your hands either outstretched at the
shoulders or on your hips.

The instructor then takes you from a walk to
frequent halts to trots to, finally, a canter. In my case, she also
encouraged me to use leg and calf muscle to attempt to influence
the horse in some way. (Which was an incredible suggestion given my
greenness.)

Again, lunging is a great way to learn
because you're not responsible for controlling or steering the
beast--just for learning the rudiments without worrying about the
vehicle. At least for me, it took an awful lot of concentration to
simply keep from coming off and, I must admit, I grabbed for stubby
mane on more than a few occasions. I was glad to finally dismount
(which was more of a slide to the sloppy wet ground, knees bending
near to a kneel.)

Trevor, understandably, was more proficient
than I--although he'd never before had the pleasure of a lunge
line. But, of course, the lambs had settled down for afternoon kips
by then and the distraction level was considerably lessened.

Corrine told us we were both natural riders
and happy and buoyed, we went on a shopping spree the very next day
for rubber riding boots (65$NZ), jodhpurs (85$NZ), and riding
helmets (25$NZ). New Zealand law is very strict about children
needing to wear helmets on horseback and we're not talking about
one of those flash, black velvet numbers but the serious hard-hat
that makes all responsible Kiwi riders look like mounted motorcycle
cops.

Trevor and I dutifully bought our hats
(Corrine insisted on them and the black velvet ones wouldn't do),
and briefly debated getting black velvet covers to pretty them up a
bit. In the end, we felt they just succeeded in making us appear
hydrocephalic and so resigned ourselves to the ugly things as they
were. Back in the States, I would keep the Kiwi helmet--complete
with see-through visor--in my car trunk for neophyte riders, but
would wear my velvet hard-hat. What the hell.

Thrilled with our purchases and the
assurances of our innate riding talent, we eagerly looked forward
to other opportunities to ride. As it happened, there would be only
one other chance to enjoy my new riding togs and equipment--and
that an unsatisfactory one--before I returned home to the
States.

In the middle of the North Island, about two
hours south of Auckland, is the thermal region of New Zealand where
there really are wonders such as Lake Taupo, the bed of the
country's largest lake. The rocks you toss into Lake Taupo actually
float back to you, and the trout--first introduced to the lake in
1890--are as big as basketballs. The whole area is pretty
extraordinary, in an exceptionally extraordinary country.

Riding in New Zealand is like riding in an
orchard of Kiwi fruit trees, on carpets of orange blossoms,
surrounded by fields chock-a-bloc with lilies, pampas grass, tulips
and the ubiquitous sheep.

One of the most popularly-touted bits of data
to new visitors is the fact that there were, in 1985, three million
people on the island and 60 million sheep. (After that, and
regardless of how impressed you appear at that bit of news, you're
invariably told how many sheep per person that breaks down to.)

Like multi-fold blobs of cotton stuck to a
bottlegreen canvas, New Zealand's sheep are as essential to the
spirit of the place as wind surfing and lager.

On what was to be one of my last weekends in
the country after nearly two years of living there, I visited the
Taupo area with friends.

Keen to try out my riding gear before I
packed it up for good, I made arrangements with my friends to hire
some horses near the Tongariro National Park. Here we were to amble
along, at our various degrees of riding ability through wood and
bush until we came at last to Huka Falls, where the full force of
the Waikato River bounds over an eleven-meter ledge with much
enthusiasm and panache.

There are no snakes in News Zealand. In fact,
nothing to poison you, bite you, sting you, or hurt you. Later,
when Trevor would visit the States and ride with me in the woods
surrounding the Georgia farm where I kept my horse, he would spend
a good deal of his saddle-time looking at the ground, expecting any
minute for it to start slithering. Although I never had any run-ins
in Georgia with things that shed their skin and shy your horse, I
often long for the absolute certainty of the gentle New Zealand
countryside.

My friends on the Taupo trip were capable
riders--even the six-year old who started a precedent of children
showing me up on horseback.