Winter Circuit (The Show Circuit -- Book 2) (19 page)

Feeling teary, I excused myself and went to the bathroom. For distraction, I took out my phone and was nearly pleased to see four texts from Linda, until I read them.

Tizz got cast.

Trying to get him out.

Sorry to interrupt your party but I’m freaking out.

Got him down but it’s not good.

I stepped outside the tent and called her. I was in first responder mode now and it was a relief not to think about how the night was turning out. “How is he?”

“It’s not good at all. He seems to have really hurt his back.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. I’m sure he’s out for a while. Dr. Robb stabilized him and gave him some meds to make him comfortable. Tomorrow we’ll get X-rays and see what’s what.”

“Do you want me to come over there?”

“No, you’re at the party. You should enjoy yourself.”

“It’s not been that great so far.”

“Really, why not?”

I thought about unloading on Linda but it didn’t seem like the time for either of us. “I’ll tell you later. I guess I should get back.”

“Okay, see you tomorrow.”

At first I couldn’t find Chris when I came back into the tent, having steeled myself to pull it together. I spotted Andres, who looked like he was flirting with an older gentleman. Maybe Chris wasn’t the only person at this party hunting for a sponsor. Finally, I saw Chris with Mary Beth. Chris didn’t look glum anymore. Quite the opposite. He was throwing his head back as he laughed in that way I had fallen in love with in Vermont. I wasn’t loving it so much now since it was Mary Beth that was making him laugh. She was laughing too, holding her drink out to keep it from spilling she was guffawing so hard. I strode over to them and linked my arm through Chris’s. It was very un-me, showy and possessive but I’d had enough.

“You were gone a while,” Chris said.

“I had a bunch of texts from Linda and then I stepped outside and called her. Dakota’s best jumper got cast and Linda thinks he’s really hurt.”

“Well, they certainly have enough money to get a replacement,” Mary Beth remarked.

“Still, the horse is hurt.”

“You’re right,” Mary Beth said, quickly correcting herself. It was like she had let her real, harsher self slip out for a moment and then caught herself.

I hated when people talked about horses “breaking” as in, “Oh, my jumper’s broke so I had to go shopping in Europe for another.” These were animals, not cars. Who knew what would happen to Tizz if he didn’t recover enough to be a jumper again. Maybe Dakota’s parents would retire him to some nice farm down South—they certainly could afford to. But more likely he’d be passed on to someone else and passed on again and might end up at a not-so-nice barn getting poor care.

“What was making you guys laugh so much?” I asked them.

“We were remembering the first Nations Cup we ever showed in,” Mary Beth said.

I raised my eyebrows at Chris. “Well, I want to hear about it.”

“It’s not really that funny,” he said.

“I’ll tell the story,” Mary Beth said. “And it is funny. Okay, so we’re in Bratislava. I think we were both nineteen, right?”

Chris nodded, looking uncomfortable with how this whole thing was going down. I hated that the story was all about them. Surely it would be about how they were such babies back at age nineteen—the age I was now.

“We’re so excited to be riding for the U.S., we’re out of our minds. It’s our first time wearing our pinque coats. We have our white breeches on. We’re thinking we look so good and we’re the Americans and we’re gonna kill it. I’m the lead-off rider so I go first and I trot into the ring thinking I am the total bomb. Chris is watching from the in-gate. Well, my horse stops at the second jump and I go flying. It’s a grass ring and it rained the day before so the grass is still kind of moist and my white breeches are now brown-green. Disgusting. I limp out of the ring feeling like such a loser. Then Chris goes in and his horse stops at the third jump and he goes flying off and we now have matching brown-green breeches.”

Mary Beth giggled and glanced sideways at Chris. “It wasn’t really funny at the time. At the time we were pretty mortified but it got funnier over the years.”

“That
is
so funny,” I said, which is what someone says instead of laughing when something really isn’t funny. Maybe it was funny. I couldn’t have an objective perspective on it because I was so rattled by their shared history.

Chris added, “We both went clean in the second round though.”

“And you won the grand prix that weekend,” Mary Beth said.

“And you were second.”

“So it wasn’t really too bad for a first European outing.”

I wanted to vomit at their cute patter.

“And we went out to a pub that night and drank with the Irish team and the Dutch team and got totally wasted,” Mary Beth said.

I looked askance at Chris. “
You
got totally wasted?”

“That was a long time ago. Back then I didn’t worry so much about, I don’t know, about everything, I guess.”

“I wish I had known you back then,” I griped. It was mean-spirited and airing our dirty laundry in front of Mary Beth. I felt yucky after I’d said it.

“It was easier back then, wasn’t it?” she said, as if I hadn’t even spoken. “I mean we were just so happy to be riding for the team. We were on cloud nine about it. We weren’t necessarily thinking about the World Cup or the Olympics. I mean, sure, if we made it, great, but it wasn’t like that was all there was.”

“Yeah, it was different, that’s for sure. I wasn’t worried about my business. I kind of just thought it would all work out. I’d ride well, sponsors would find me, and buy me horses. I guess I was naïve back then.”

“I’m not sure you were naïve,” she said. “We just didn’t know the business enough. That comes with experience.”

Chris turned somber again but it was different from before because Mary Beth shared the sentiment. They were on the same wavelength. They understood each other in a way I worried I could never understand Chris. Although, I wasn’t sure exactly how Mary Beth understood it all so well since she had her parents’ money to fund her career.

He continued, “Veteran riders talked to me about how owners were fickle and horses got hurt and one moment you were the top in the sport and then you had nothing to ride. But I never really believed that would be me. I thought somehow it would be different for me. I’d keep my horses sound. I’d keep my owners happy…” Chris trailed off.

A few tables over a handful of people burst out laughing as if it were designed on cue to make our group feel worse.

“Whenever I want a laugh I close my eyes and imagine our breeches that day,” Mary Beth said. “Cheer up. You’re a great rider. You have some promising horses. Your luck will change. You’re acting like you’re fifty and your career is dead.”

I waited for Chris’s response. I certainly had never dared say basically the equivalent of ‘buck up’ to him before and when I’d tried to be generally positive earlier in the night he’d shut me down.

“Thanks,” Chris said, and he sounded genuine. “You made me think about when I loved this sport whole-heartedly and I needed that tonight.”

Mary Beth held up her drink. “To many more Nations Cups and keeping our breeches clean!”

Chris raised his glass and I did too, even though it felt like the toast was more about them than me.

Chapter 22

Eduardo had gone into the tack room and I was fussing around with Arkos. He was such a beautiful horse and sweet, too. It didn’t seem fair that pretty soon it could be the end of the line for him. Well, to be honest, maybe his life would be better as an equitation horse. He wouldn’t have to jump nearly as high, but then again he’d probably be drilled over three-six constantly. Either way would have its plusses and minuses. One thing was for sure, Arkos was lucky he was in Chris’s barn. In another stable, he would probably have been coerced into being careful. Chris had used bamboo a few times with him but bamboo used correctly wasn’t cruel, he told me. I had watched him school Arkos once using a bamboo offset and from what I saw I had to agree with him. But another trainer would have poled Arkos relentlessly, used capsaicin to make his skin sensitive, tried bell boots with carpet tacks sewed into them, and God knows what else. Chris wouldn’t do any of those things.

I wished I could peek into Arkos’s mind and see what he was feeling and thinking. Did he want to be a show jumper? Some people believed that horses didn’t think about these things—but I believed that the best horses actually wanted to win. That they knew when it was a big night and a big class and they tried their hardest to leave the jumps up. That it wasn’t just self-preservation when being thrown at a huge obstacle; that they knew on some level what clearing all the jumps meant. I’d even seen horses that seemed to be smart enough to know how much they could touch a jump and still leave it up. They were the horse-equivalent of the student who learns how to skim a book and still pull off an A paper.

Arkos had an intelligent eye. He seemed like he’d be one of the smart ones. So why was he knocking the jumps down? The only answer was that he was playing hurt but again and again the tests had come back negative.

I ran my hand across his neck, feeling the muscles underneath. He got acupuncture, massage, all kinds of treatments by experienced professionals. There was no way I could find something that they had missed. But I couldn’t help myself from trying. I worked from his poll to his withers, using my fingers pressed together and leaning in at times to get the right amount of pressure. Arkos curled his head toward me and gave me a pleased look like he was saying,
I didn’t know I was on the schedule for a massage today
. Some horses were less enthusiastic about being massaged but even the nastiest ones usually came around to enjoying it when they realized how good it felt.

I detected the usual knots and sore spots but nothing out of the ordinary. No Ah-ha moment. It didn’t help that I had no idea what I was looking to find.

I gave up on his neck and worked around his poll. I used my thumb this time to palpate the areas behind his ears like Dede had shown me. He lowered his head happily but then when I moved to the spot right behind his eye it must have hurt because he jerked his head up, nearly smashing my nose in the process.

I withdrew my hand. “Did that hurt?” I ran my thumb on the same spot. Again, he jerked away. This time I was prepared and drew back so I wouldn’t get hit. I took him off the cross ties and put a lead rope on him so he wouldn’t end up breaking the cross ties. Once more time I pressed the same spot. This time he shook his head like he was trying to get me to go away. I tried the same spot on the other side. He flinched but it wasn’t as bad.

Eduardo came out of the tack room and I put Arkos back on the cross ties for him. I patted his neck and told Eduardo I was just giving him a little massage.

As he took off the ice-boots, I sat down on a tack trunk and texted Dede.
What does it mean if a horse is really sore in the spot between eyeball and ear?

How sore?

Whip head back and try to run sore.

Don’t see that very often. But could be TMJ.

Like the jaw clenching thing?

Yup.

Horses can get that?

Yes. Teeth floated regularly?

I was sure Chris’s horses had their teeth floated on schedule but I would certainly check.

I decided Chris wouldn’t mind if I asked Dede to see Arkos in person.
Could you come look at him? He’s at Chris’s barn.

Maybe later today. At the end of the day.

That would be amazing.
That would give me time also to mention it to Chris.

Chris had stayed at the show with Lily so I decided to wait at the farm till he came back. I Googled TMJ and TMJ in horses. Of course Dede was right. It was a legitimate thing. I read that it was often hard to know what caused it in the first place but actually having the equine dentist come and use the oral speculum could exacerbate it and so could something as simple as eating a hard treat like a big carrot. I thought about the steroidal carrots that most farms had delivered from the landscapers in industrial size thick plastic bags.

When Chris came back, I explained how I’d been messing around with the limited massage techniques Dede had taught me and discovered that Arkos was really sore between his eye and ear, especially on the right side.

“When was the last time he had his teeth done?” I asked.

“Before circuit.” Chris was looking at me like I was crazy and like he didn’t have time for quackery.

“I know it sounds wacky that I’d find something that might be wrong with him. But what if this is actually something? What if this is making him have all those rails? Dede thinks he could have TMJ.”

“Like the thing people get from grinding their teeth?”

“Yeah, but that makes it sound like it’s nothing. It can cause headaches and a lot of pain, even in horses.” I motioned to my phone. “I’ve been researching.”

“I don’t know, Hannah. I’m not sure the reason why Arkos can’t jump clean is because he grinds his teeth.”

“He doesn’t grind his teeth. It’s not that. Well, just, I know it sounds crazy but you’re about to give up on him and sell him as an eq horse so why not let me explore this one last crazy thing? Is it okay if Dede comes and checks him out later today?”

Chris looked up at the sky like he was so tired of everything. Of Arkos, of not having a top horse, of not having a good sponsor, of working hard every day and it not paying off for shit. “Sure, whatever.”

Sure, whatever
was a very un-Chris response. It told me all that I needed to know about his mental state.