Raja, Story of a Racehorse (10 page)

Sitting lightly and perfectly balanced, she told me things with the way she sat and used her weight and reins and legs. Stretch my neck and back, bend and straighten my body, change my balance and speed, it was a new language. At first I didn't understand, but she kept asking and asking and when I did it right, she rewarded me with a big pat.

“Good boy! You're a smart one.” She turned to Oakley. “The most important thing we can do is to give Raja a good foundation on the flat. Dressage is a jumper's secret weapon. He needs to be working in the right balance and tuned to our aids: seat, hands, legs, voice. Then his natural athleticism can take him where it will, maybe even the Olympics.”

I wasn't sure what the Olympics were, but I knew they were big.

“I went to zee last Olympics with l'équipe du France,” Toile told me one night when I asked her about them. “Eet ees un grande show. Only four 'orses from each country. Zee best in zee world.”

“The Olympics are overrated if you ask me,” Holzmann snorted, “but I'll admit that it feels good to know that you are the best in the world. I still get little girls at horse shows wanting to pat me. That's the best part, being a show-jumping legend.”

“Oh, great Holzmann, you're a legend all right,” Prism giggled. Holzmann pinned his ears and snapped at her, swishing his tail.

“Who's the one with the silver medal, Shorty?”

Prism could barely contain herself, she was laughing so hard. “You, Lord Holzmann, how can we ever forget?”

The best in the world. A gold medal! Those sounds perfect.

A group of Michelle's students sat in the shade of a big moss-covered live oak on the long wooden bench in the corner of the arena, watching her teach Oakley on me. Piewacket and Muttley lay contentedly at her feet.

“Now that he's warmed up, let's start with the red vertical rails to the brush box. Try it in five strides. As my old coach, Colonel Nicolai Belanov, one of the greatest horsemen of our era, used to say: your horse must come to the obstacle in the right direction, speed, balance and impulsion. So…your job is to get him to the fence in the right canter and stay out of his way. His job is to jump the jump. Wait…wait…good, nicely done. Sit quietly…good…again. Now do the in-and-out.”

I bucked after the in-and-out.

“I think he's enjoying himself,” Oakley laughed as Michelle taught him on me.

“Now, do it again. It has to be perfect. That's what Colonel Belanov drilled into me and I'm going to drill into you. He used to say, ‘There are no shortcuts in horse training. It's like watching grass grow, but in the end you have a beautiful lawn.'” She paused to raise the jump a hole. “He was the real deal, a genius, an old school riding master at the Russian Imperial School in St. Petersburg, who came to this country during the war and coached the United States Equestrian Team for years. I was very lucky to be taught by him.”

Oakley circled me around yet again, sitting up to adjust my balance as we headed toward the in-and-out in a light, springy yet powerful, canter.

“That was good. That's enough for today. Good boy, Raja. Give him a pat.”

March, Ocala, Florida

“The official show time is nine o'clock.”

A loudspeaker! We can't possibly be racing. I'm not in shape!

I started pawing the trailer floor impatiently and tossing my head.

“Relax,” reassured Prism, along to keep me company for my first show. “It's really easy. All you do is go around an arena and jump. Try not to knock down the rails. You get jumping faults for that and for refusing.” She continued, “The worst part is the warm-up area with all of the riders careening around and not looking where they are going. You're going to hate it.”

Whoa! What are those horses doing?

I spooked across the arena as three horses came at me. Horses and ponies were everywhere, warming up and jumping in the three arenas, each filled with brightly painted jumps and decorated with flowers. A small dog held by someone driving a golf cart yapped at me as I stared at a horse with his mane tied up in little knots — braids, Prism called them — while a groom carrying a rub rag and fly spray trotted after him.

“More leg, eyes up,” the instructors shouted to their students.

“Heads up, vertical,” the riders called out to the other riders, heading to a jump.

We were on deck, then it was time to go.

An audience!

I tried harder, showing off my “floaty trot” and “springy canter,” knowing they were all watching me. Michelle sat up taller, also basking in the audience attention.

Interesting — I didn't know she was such a showman.

We were alike, Michelle and I. Winning was everything. But winning in style in front of a crowd was best of all.

Let's go! Let's go!

“Easy, love,” I felt Michelle's weight suddenly get heavier. “Whoa,” she said without words, doing a strong half-halt as I galloped in the arena, on the muscle. Six fences, then across the arena diagonally. Two more, an in-and-out and, finally, four more jumps the other direction.

Easy peasy!

“Good. We've qualified for the jump off.” Michelle told Grace, who had come to help out, “I think I'll let him roll on a bit, see how he likes it. I hope I have brakes! He's still pretty green. This might be interesting.”

This time, Michelle let me go a little faster.

“A clear round for number 27, Raja, ridden by Michelle Taylor. Raja is our new leader!” The loudspeaker boomed.

We won!

“Well done, Raja.” Michelle gave me a sweet, delicious sugar lump and patted my neck over and over as Grace helped her take off my tack, wash me and cool me out before we headed home. “I was only out for a school today, but you were going so well that I thought, ‘Why not go for it?' You're a natural. I'm very pleased with you.”

June, Chester County, Pennsylvania

“Those chicken coops in the fence line are for the hunt to jump in and out of the fields when they come through the farm,” Prism nodded sagely as we grazed under the weeping willows at Michelle's summer base in Pennsylvania. I looked up at the endless line of post-and-rail fence, interrupted every once in a while by green mesh metal gates or the funny wooden triangles Prism was talking about. Michelle's barn stood shaded by thick-trunked old maple trees, grassy paddocks and buttercup-filled yellow and green fields dotted with turnout sheds and more shade trees. A row of horse trailers lined one side of the large, jump-filled outdoor sand arena and a knot of plastic chairs huddled under a shade tree at the other end.

We had come here for the summer months to be closer to the big horse shows in the Northeast and it seemed like every day a new student arrived to work with Michelle. Mostly, I loved the big grass fields we lived in every night.

Alfalfa! And clover!

Pink-and-white nectar-filled clover flowers that lingered like sugar cubes on my tongue. Summer days rolled into one: schooling in the cool mornings and afternoons dozing under the weeping willows with Holzmann, my best friend. Telling stories; nibbling at each other; eating clover; standing head-to-tail swishing flies; eating more clover; and watching the tractors next door drive across the big fields, cutting and combing the grass into long rows and dropping neat square bales of hay onto the field.

“Ah, The ‘summer girls' are out of school,” Holzmann observed as more people and horses started arriving at the farm. “Oakley had better watch out. They all buzz around him like bees to flowers.” He gestured toward a tall girl, Mary, who was heading toward Oakley.

“Oakley, can you help me with this figure eight noseband? Do you want to go swimming with us later?” she asked hopefully. Suntanned, with her long dark hair twisted into a braid that swung from side to side when she rode, Mary liked Oakley.

Oakley always smiled quietly and helped, but he never said much.

“Chip...chip...chip,” a sparrow warned. Swallows swooped and soared over the endless timothy and corn fields as Oakley on me and Mary on Legato, her big brown Dutch Warmblood, hacked out one late August day after a lesson. I jigged a little. I was feeling fitter from going up and down the hills surrounding the farm. A red-tailed hawk above us glided effortlessly in an arc as a summer breeze rippled through the hay fields and rattled the tall stalks of corn beside us, now as high as my withers. Mary chatted the entire hack, oblivious to the fact that Oakley was more interested in riding me than listening to her.