May, 2010
Archie, it turns out. is a superstar. That makes me, like Calvin Burrell; a superstar's jockey. The only big difference I can see is that I used the $50 I won on the Kentucky Derby with Calvin, to pay to jump with Archie and Calvin got to buy a swimming pool. So it goes.
I have to admit that although I was excited about tackling our first cross country course, I had my doubts about galloping with an uber-charged first timer whose big picture of cross country might mean setting off across the lush mid- Connecticut meadows, galloping straight home to western Massachusetts. To this end, I'd offered Arch a few back- of -the- tongue grams of a sweet herbal paste called "calm and cool" whose marketing had instant appeal to me--mellow a hot horse right on the spot--an hour prior to his trailer junket. My guess is that the placebo effect was more on me than on Arch, but he traveled curious and calm the hour and a half to the course, unloaded like a champ and stood to be brushed and tacked up, despite his fascination with a really hot filly parading around next to us.
We checked our gear (helmets, safety vests, gloves, taut girths, sunglasses, iphones, crops and a nonchalant air of old hand) and filed down to to warm- up in the high meadow ring, popping over a few small fences with panache. The cross country course required a haunch- hopping descent down into a long hilly valley where we had the opportunity to bounce down the drop fence (no problem) and size up the choices.
Archie was listening to me, swiveling his ears around, chomping his new bit and letting us trumpetingly know that the hot filly was joining us. I talked to him a lot. "Well Arch, this is a ditch, we're just going to walk through it" etc. and other dumb stuff like that while Archie snorted as we upped the ante to leap ditch, then logs, then coop. So far, so good.
Heather had us put a circle loop of fences together which tested the caliber of our whoa. Archie has a bouyant tendency to treat small jumps like they need wings, and played the air- leaping game on our first circuit. This game begins with a sensible approach to a fence even I could jump over on two feet. Archie pretends he is going to gently glide over as one with a canter stride, arrives and whoosh--he pushes his mighty quarter horse hocks into the ground, arcs several feet over the fence which has a knock-on effect of arcing me several feet into the air over the horse where I watch us both jump the f
ence from my vantage point in space, and we (thus far) miraculously reunite as I float gently down to find the saddle. We found each other at the exit stride after each leap in this go-round, and cantered on happily to the next.
Michelle volunteered to take the fall we knew was coming to one of us, but gamely clambered back on board Braveheart and went around again. Archie loved the whole effort--the wide open spaces, the joy of leaping over interesting jumps and into grassy meadow. He never hesitated, and his enthusiasm was contagious. Running and jumping, laughing, blue sky, sun, confidence and a springy sense of go; we were hooked.
Heather led us over another few fences on the lower course and we cantered up a steep hill to the high meadow where the fences were a little larger and more challenging. Archie's edge was off now, and he cleared his jumps sensibly, allowing me to actually stay with him over the logs, the snake, the rails, the coop, the brush. Whee!
Calling it a day (Archie and I needed to be hauled in--we foolishly felt as though we could jump on and on) we ambled back to the trailer. I was annoyingly euphoric. More, more, more! When can we do this again!
Heather praised us all and told me that it's not all whoopee--if Archie and I want to do novice eventing, we will have to perfect our dressage, which is a concept we are not keen on, so it's back to the shoulder-in, the twenty meter circle and the right lead canter on a touch. Onward--and, if this jumping stuff is any measure of what the future holds--upwards.
Recent Comments