Horse Crazy (10 page)

The Verig Academy featured two large outdoor
rings--one which had jumps--and an indoor area where the winter
lessons took place. The barn and the Verig home were attached to
each other as well as to the indoor ring. In fact, the Verig family
living room picture window looked out onto one of the riding rings,
allowing the family, or whoever was interested, to watch the
lessons in the comfort (and warmth) of their living room. Just like
watching TV.

The barn itself was neat and warm and clean.
The 25 horses each had their names on their stall doors: Netta,
Imprint, Mestoza, Katrinka, Siglavy, Big Boy, and Traveler (every
southern barn has at least one horse named after Robert E Lee's
famous mount, and the horse does not have to be white to merit the
honor). At night, tucked into their warm blankets and surrounded by
sweet bedding, they would nicker softly to one another.

It was a good barn and seemed a happy
one.

Twice a week, every Tuesday evening and
midday on Saturday, I would bundle up against the January cold,
pull on bulky sweaters, my riding boots and my schooling chaps over
my boots, and trudge off to class.

We students were asked to check a list
hanging on a clipboard in the center of the barn to see which horse
the instructor had decided we were to ride that day. There didn't
seem to be any particular method to this decision. But it did serve
to make us feel that someone was in control of things, or had a
master plan of sorts.

Then, we would find the horse in its stall,
find his tack, tack him up, (the verb form of the word "tack" means
to saddle up, since that's basically what "tack" means--the horse's
saddle and headgear), lead him to the center of the indoor ring,
mount him, and be waiting in line for the instructor to appear.
(Having never taken any other kind of large group riding lessons, I
don't know if this sort of regimen is typical of group riding
lessons or just specific to the German military leanings of the
Verigs.)

These particular horses, although disdained
heartily by Angel Barnes as "school horses" were, nonetheless,
nothing like the sweet, sometimes-plodding pasture ponies on which
I'd begun my tutelage. Remembering that I broke my shoulder on one
of those poky pasture ponies, my heart quivered at the size and
spirit of these "school horses." They were beautiful Lippizans,
many of them stallions. It seemed to me that these horses were only
one step away from the Horse of Horror from which I'd catapulted at
Angel's barn. Goodness, at least Amadeus had been gelded. (A
gelding is usually calmer than a fire-snorting, ground-pawing
stallion who is out to prove his virility at the expense of your
peaceful ride through the pasture.)

My first few weeks of lessons, I was assigned
to a large Lippizan mare named Netta. Netta, at 24 years, was the
oldest horse in the academy. She had foaled half the barn and was
not terribly affectionate, perhaps as a result. Although, happily,
she did not bite like some of the others.

As I bumped around the ring, holding
shamefully onto the pommel as I went, various riders in the group
would mention to me that they had taken lessons on Netta when they
were children. The knowledge that I was so green that I was a
palsied, trembling coward even on a children's mount--and an aged,
nearly decrepit mount at that--did still less for my confidence
level. (On the other hand, I did sort of wonder at these peoples'
progress if, fifteen to twenty years later they were still in the
beginners class at the same riding academy.)

One afternoon, after we'd done several boring
laps at a slow trot, Netta got a little frisky and did a wee buck
and wing in one corner of the ring, joylessly called the "ghost
corner" because the horses tended to spook more often when they
went past it.

Although she regained her composure and
promptly went back to the mindless, drudge-trudge that had
previously carried us around the ring, I was stricken. I moved her
woodenly to the center of the ring where the instructor stood and
there we remained for the rest of the lesson: immobile and afraid,
with my wanting very much to be off the frightful beast altogether.
It would be my riding nadir.

Slowly, as the weeks passed, I was able to
rejoin the other students and continue the tentative, unhappy
plod-trot around the ring. I never felt confident during this time,
but I was eventually able to trot the ring without gripping the
saddle with my left hand. Knowing better than I, the instructor
soon began assigning me to different horses, although it took
several conversations and a crowbar to unpry me from Netta.

I worriedly rode Imprint, a bouncy greyhound
of a horse, and a friendly one, and loved him immediately. He had
none of Netta's attitude of resignation and apathy, but seemed
eager to trot about the ring as if he'd not done it a hundred
thousand times before with various degrees of jerking on his poor,
soft mouth. It was a good experience for me to be able to compare
the two.

In a few weeks, I was able to climb onto the
more advanced horses, although I never cantered any of them. The
feeling of being able to ride them--if only at a trot--helped cheer
me considerably.

When I saw new riders enter the academy and
inevitably begin their schooling on begrudging old Netta, I felt
buoyed with the evidence of my obvious improvement. The old mare
died six weeks after I came and promptly threw the whole barn into
a real grief. She'd been one of the original foals from the group
the Doctor had brought over from Austria and old grouch or not,
she'd served them well and to the day she died.

The indoor ring, in which we took our winter
lessons, was approximately 50 feet by 70 feet. One side of the ring
was open to the makeshift gravel parking lot and one side was
covered by the longest, widest mirror I've ever seen. In the
winter, the sounds of cars attempting to squeal and shimmy their
way out of icy tire ruts would panic the horses and send them
bolting for the opening that led back to their stalls and
presumably, safety. Although, in every case that this happened, all
riders were able to regain control of their exiting mounts, I,
nonetheless, harbored images of all the horses racing
en
masse
for the meager opening and leaving several severed knee
caps behind them (at least two of them mine).

The instructor would have us trot in
single-file around the ring and then in a figure eight while she
reminded us of various things:

"Susan, are you on the right diagonal?"

"I guess, since you ask, I'm probably
not?"

"Sit through a bounce, please."

Being able to see yourself in a mirror is
second only to having copious video-tapes of your riding as far as
being able to critique your position. What feels right is one
thing, but when you're able to see your toes jutting out, your
heels parallel to the ground and great gaps of daylight between
your knees and the saddle, you know, comfortable or not, that it's
wrong.

Correcting the position while you're seeing
yourself lets you remember how it feels too. Holding the correct
position without the mirror to correct and confirm you is the green
rider's nemesis. It's hard and it takes hours of riding. Practice,
practice. And more of it.

Riding in endless circles may sound
titanically dull to the experienced rider, even to the non-rider,
and is absolutely to the horse, but it is surprisingly unboring to
the green rider with a confidence problem. Every jog is a potential
springboard into a buck, every shake of the head is a probable
mutiny-about-to-happen, every sneeze is the beginning of an amok
about to be run.

I was even afraid on the ground. With visions
of Flicka rearing up to stomp-to-dust the bad guy trying to burn
down the ranch, I would tug on stirrup leathers with trembling
fingers. (Some horses will automatically give playful,
patella-pulverizing kicks when you tighten their girths.)

I kept my feet well away from theirs too. It
is incredible the number of things that can startle a horse. And
once startled, they usually like to react by jumping to the side or
up in the air or turning around briskly...often with little regard
as to whose sneakers they crush in the process.

The instructor, Valerie, had the misfortune
to demonstrate this particular situation while I was in the ring.
The horse shied onto her left, booted foot and although it didn't
break, she did limp for a week. I wanted to look into the
possibility of ordering an eight-foot lead rope, but she insisted
that the incident was a fluke and that horses almost always shy
away from you. It's in their genetic code. Those essential
avoid-stepping-on-human-feet chromosomes that make up every great
horse.

But through the worry and the paranoia and
the physical discomfort, there was the memory that it used to be
good. It used to be fun. There was the image of riding fast as the
wind through a sunny pasture, jumping coops and small fences with
your horse eager and sure-footed beneath you and the air sweet with
spring flowers. Perfect days could be had if only this particular
hurdle could be tackled successfully.

After four months of riding rigidly around in
a circle, I slowly began to unclutch the pommel. The dark,
bone-cold evenings in the ring gave way to lighter, warmer lessons.
My friend came home from New Zealand and I quit the lessons and
returned with her to the farm in Cummings, Georgia to finish my
treatment; the final steps in my shaky recovery.

In many ways, I left the lessons more afraid
than when I began. But, in any event, I had developed some good
riding habits and they would stick with me when I later regained my
nerve.

Borrowing other people's horses now and then
was not giving me enough riding opportunities. I needed hours in
the saddle. Needed lazy Saturday afternoons, Tuesdays after
work...needed to ride to my own schedule if I were to ever break
the fear-grip and begin pleasure-riding again.

As incredible as it appeared to family and
friends who knew my riding level (not to mention Valerie, my riding
instructor), it seemed pretty clear to me that a horse of my own as
the answer.

Chapter Eight

How To Find A good Riding Horse For Under
$1,000

There are some horse people who will tell you
that you cannot find a good riding horse for under $1,000. It's
true you probably cannot find a brilliant dressage horse,
hunter-jumper or racehorse for under $1,000. But you can find a
nice pleasure horse to carry you over hill and dale, fence and
coop, one who'll nuzzle your shoulder after a long trail ride and
generally be a sturdy, pleasant riding companion.

There are, of course, the famous stories:
Pharr Lap was found in a remote part of Australia and picked up for
a handful of feed (practically speaking). He went on to win every
horse race in the South Pacific and was in the process of
conquering American's racetracks when he was reputedly killed by
unscrupulous owners of rival horses.

Cononero II was a horse that won the 1971
Kentucky Derby after being bought for not much more than a thousand
dollars--and was sold at stud for over a million.

Angel, a milkman's cart horse at the turn of
the century, (and an abused one, at that) was discovered and bought
for a pittance and went on to win every top jumping show in the
United States.

There are hundreds of wonderful stories about
horses bound for the dog food factory that are rescued at the last
moment so as to go on to glory and estimated values in the
millions. It must be said, however, that, for the most part, the
good ones are generally recognized early on and priced accordingly.
Which is not to say that you can't get a truly beautiful animal,
even a thoroughbred, for under a thousand. You can. Well under.
Free sometimes. But a thoroughbred, high-strung and bred to run,
will often prove to be an unsuitable choice for anything else but
the track or breeding farm. And if he's available for less than
$1,000, you can rule him out. As a pleasure horse, a thoroughbred's
nerves will do him in every time.

A horse who is bred to bolt and run as fast
as is in him to run, at the flick of an eyelash, will probably have
some trouble staying calm around farm tractors, barking dogs,
rustling leaves, footsteps in the sand, and the wind sighing
against a bird's wing. Little eruptions, like a cow sneeze, can
have you clinging to your beauty's neck with legs and stirrups
flapping behind you while he does the ring at a comfortable 65
miles an hour.

Very old horses can usually be had pretty
cheaply too. Which is not to say you shouldn't consider them. But
it might be wise to see how much the knackers will charge you to
have the carcass removed if your new purchase looks like he might
keel over any time soon.

On the other hand, many horses are as
spirited and active in their late teens as they were as young
horses. And for this reason, if the price is right--and age is the
only thing wrong with them--they might well be a good investment.
(Which isn't to say that you'll get any financial return on your
investment, of course.)

Once you've decided you want a horse, can
afford one, will spend the time with it and are at a riding level
that will allow you to ride unsupervised, then you simply need to
decide the kind of horse you want.

A pony? A jumper? A very quiet one? One with
some spirit to him? How about a sense of humor? One that rides
Western? English? How about the sex of the horse? There are some
riders who swear that mares, for example, are flighty, bitchy, much
more unpredictable than normal and relatively worthless as mounts.
Many horse people keep mares strictly for breeding purposes. They
can be a bit, shall we say, moody. (Well, the horse person too, I
suppose, but I'm referring to the mare.) Then again, you'll meet
people who swear by mares (not at them). But if you're a beginner,
it's probably best to rule her out as a riding companion.