Dante of the Maury River

by Gigi Amateau

  Right away, I spotted a problem getting back inside the field. Evidently, enough time had passed between Napoleon’s return and mine for Mrs. Maiden to stop by for night check and repair the fence. I figured now they were out looking for me. I just hoped they’d brought some protection.

  Trouble was, now I had no way in.

  I wasn’t afraid of the dark, but I surely was afraid of being eaten by an irate predator. Although I was fairly confident that the bear had decided I wasn’t worth the effort of crossing the river, I did not savor the idea of spending the evening all by my lonesome on the wrong side of the safety zone.

  “You’ll have to jump it,” Napoleon hollered at me.

  I stared blankly at him. “Negative,” I said. “I’m a racehorse, not a jumping horse.”

  “I’m afraid you’ve no choice. None at all, Mister Dante.” Then he added, “Come on, I believe in you.”

  Naturally, seeing how he looked up to me, I didn’t want the frightened pony to know that I quivered at the idea of jumping anything, but a horizontal wire charged to zip-zap my tenders was unnerving.

  By now, it was nearly dark. Napoleon would be needing his story soon, and if I could make it back to our field, boy, did I have a doozy for him. One I expected he’d ask for again and again.

  I paced back and forth, trying desperately to figure another way over, under, or through.

  The Shetland started to get restless watching me.

  “My friend, have you not ever jumped before?” he asked me.

  I whinnied; time to fess up.

  “No problem, no problem. Not. A. Problem,” Napoleon assured me. “A little help over here?” he called to the others, and that brought all the geldings and mares to the fence line.

  Down the back line, all of them started to whinnying. Cowboy. Jake and Charlie. The Belgian. The mares — Daisy, Gwen, and a couple of the boarded ladies, Lilac and Princess. I wasn’t convinced any of them could help, but I sure had an audience. From the sounds of it, the Maury River Stables’ horses had given me long odds at making it over the fence. My favorite kind of wager.

  “Here’s what you do,” Napoleon advised me. “Back up a bit. Yeh, good. No, quite a bit more. There you are, right. Now, pick up a canter, and when you get one stride out from the fence, lift your front feet and hurl yourself up and over, right? Lift. Hurl. Got it?”

  So I picked up the canter. The bit about lifting and hurling eluded me, but with the mares and geldings all watching, I was determined to succeed. Just maybe not on the first try.

  “No, No, NO. Front feet up and hurl over. Really go for it,” Napoleon said. “Up and over. You didn’t do that part. You stopped cold, as we say.”

  I backed up farther down the trail. Seemed as though I was the evening’s entertainment, because this time all the geldings and mares counted out my strides in unison. From way far back they counted, “One, two. One, two. One, two. One, two.”

  While they were so exuberantly carrying on, the Shetland stayed focused on coaching me home. A few strides out he said, “Get ready to lift your front feet quite a lot.” Just as I was about to, he shouted, “Oh, and I forgot; push off with your back legs. Yeh, don’t forget them, your back legs.”

  I slammed on the brakes and almost slid into the fence, all coiled and ready to shock if I didn’t make it.

  “Dirty stop!” yelled Daisy.

  “Come on, fancy boy,” Cowboy said.

  “How’s that pedigree working out for ya, Dante’s Infirmo? Get it? Infirmo?” Jake was always trying to one-up Cowboy. I’d have to work on helping those two find a new place to board once I made it back into the pasture.

  Napoleon hopped down from the boulder and waved me over with a front hoof. “Yeh, right. I see the problem. You’re looking at the ground. Can’t do that. You’ve got to find your takeoff spot — the spot that’s close enough but not too far from your obstacle. When you hear me say ‘jump,’ I want you to lift —”

  I cut him off. “— And hurl!”

  “Right. And remember to push off with your hind. Now, back up. Quite a lot more. Still more. Really lift this time. Give it your all. Yeh, good, come on. Now, everybody count!”

  All the mares and the geldings joined in. “One, two. One, two.”

  “Get ready,” the Shetland called. “One, two. One, two. One, jump!”

  I lifted and pushed and hurled myself straight up off the ground. Mares-in-heaven, if I wasn’t floating like a bug on water. Up and over I went. Neither hair nor hide felt the slightest singe. Lo and behold, I cleared the electric fence. Not gracefully, but clean. I landed clumsily, all four legs splayed out in all four directions like a newborn foal unsure how he got there.

  “You did it!” Napoleon started bucking. Charlie and Jake, too. “Scopey!” yelled Gwen. Cowboy reared up and brandished his hooves.

  “Holy Moo,” Napoleon said. “You cleared that fence by two feet. I mean, yeh, you fell down. You’re supposed to land on all fours, and canter away with your mane flowing in the wind and all, but so what? You’re home.”

  I hauled myself up off the ground and brushed myself off with my tail as best I could.

  “Holy Moo?” I asked him nonchalantly. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Moo, that’s my dam.”

  “Her name was Moo?”

  “Yeh, I’m adopted. My dam was a cow, a Hereford heifer, actually. She never calved. She had her hooves full raising me up, I imagine. Plus, there was no bull around.”

  We had both worked up a good appetite and stood around the hay. Daisy and the mares crowded the fence line to join in the party.

  “Nice work bringing the pony home,” Daisy said. Before I could offer a whicker of thanks, she added, “But that jump? Despicable form.”

  My coat was still lathered from fighting and a bit wet from splish-splashing in the river.

  “So, buddy, what made you leave today? I was halfway scared you wouldn’t come back.”

  He had a big mouthful of hay dangling from his bottom lip.

  When he finished chewing, Napoleon explained. “The electric fence looked saggy, and I like to take long walks. What with us going to be in at night again soon, I thought, Now, here’s an opportunity. I like to walk the trails with the birds. Yeh, look at the birds. Waxwings, nuthatches, wild turkeys, and the like. Did you happen to see any good ones while you were out?”

  As arduous as show day was, what with it being my first competition, my first venture up into Saddle Mountain, and my inaugural encounter with a bear, it proved also to be a turning point. Suddenly, I was not the horse with the problem but the hero of the barn.

  Thanks to John the Farrier, I had started seeing a decent ration of treats come my way. Thanks to Napoleon, I was learning how to be brave. With Daisy’s help, the geldings were under pretty good control, and Ashley kept up a predictable routine of working me on the flat. Life was good, and I wanted more. More ribbons. More praise. More peppermints. More friends.

  As a reward for solid effort and good behavior, Mrs. Maiden gave us the niddly-nod to participate in a little hunter show at Tamworth Springs, not too terribly long past my seventh birthday. This time, Ashley and I set our sights on something bigger than Walk-Trot. I had come a long way since getting out of prison. The Tamworth Springs show would prove to everyone just how far. For this outing, we’d be going in Walk-Trot-Canter.

  The best thing about Ashley? She wasn’t scared of anything. She liked speed and power. Not once did I pick up on a riffle of fear in that gal.

  Trouble is, hunters aren’t really judged on speed and power; it’s more about style and consistency. And keeping cool and calm.

  On the upside, I will say that if there had been a class judged solely on being good-looking, Ashley Brooks and I would have pranced off with one of those fancy multicolored reserve-champion ribbons.

  First-place blue was not to be our color at Tamworth Springs. Nor was red, yellow, white, pink, or green.

  While Ashley wasn’t a day
in her life afraid of me, she was a nervous, quivering ball of upset on show days. One word describes her: shaky. As we got ready to enter the ring, where the judge would be eyeballing Ashley more so than me, my rider was a knot of nerves.

  “Dante can sense your heart rate,” Mrs. Maiden said. “Take a few deep breaths. Good. Now, roar like a lion.”

  That made Ashley giggle. I wished that trick had a longer-lasting effect, though, because once the class got under way, she couldn’t remember any of the rules that Mrs. Maiden told her.

  “Stay on the rail.”

  “Keep out of traffic.”

  “Be on your best behavior.”

  “Pay attention to your transitions.”

  Like I said, we two were impeccably turned out. Ashley’s curly, long black hair was neatly pinned up in a bun and covered with a hairnet. Even though the judge would have allowed a heavier coat, Ashley was all about looking good. Despite the fact that we were all walking around in cold clouds of our breath, she turned out her formal dark jacket and crisp white collared shirt, both clean and well fitted. She carried a smart-looking crop, for looks, and wore brand-new black leather gloves. I had not a fleck of dust or mud on me. My mane was expertly and tightly braided. And that’s a fact, for I did my best to rub them out. See now, if the judges had realized the heroic effort required for me to stand moderately still while they were being done — well, how about some kind of ribbon for style, is all I’m saying.

  We got lots of nice looks. From everybody. I myself didn’t spot a pair in the ring who could have racked up more points on style than Ashley and me.

  Now, good manners?

  Sadly, that’s another story.

  I never liked being crowded on the track. There, pushing and shoving and using your strength to clear out some space was an asset. In the hunter ring? Not so much. I imagine that’s why Mrs. Maiden instructed Ashley to stay on the rail and stay out of traffic.

  Listen, there’s a whole advertising system that informs riders and spectators at horse shows of one particular thing or another about the horses competing. Tail ribbons, who knew?

  Theoretically, if your people tie a ribbon around your tail, the color sends a coded message to everybody on course. Our fearless Welsh leader, Daisy, sports a red ribbon every time she goes out. That’s because she kicks. Gwen, arguably the most regal among us, gets a pink one. But only when she’s feeling moody or susceptible to the charms of a stallion. If a stallion were out there with us, he’d likely be wearing a blue tail ribbon of his own. Just because it helps everybody to know when a stallion is anywhere in the vicinity. Of course, there’s also the white ribbon. Nobody wants to be flashing white, which advertises: this horse is for sale.

  My green ribbon, woven into my plaited tail, alerted everybody that I was, in fact, a green horse. Inexperienced. Translation: this guy might spook. He might throw a conniption fit for reasons known only to him. Give him a break, and give him a wide berth.

  At the show, I certainly did earn a few demerits in Mrs. Maiden’s eyes, largely due to an incident involving one of Mrs. Maiden’s youngest students, a girl named Claire. Let me start from the beginning.

  Ashley and I had made a rats’ nest mess of our class. I misunderstood all of the judges’ cues, and so we actually rode our Walk-Trot-Canter class as a Canter-Canter-Gallop class. Impressive but noncompliant. As a result, we pinned a grand total of zilcho-zero ribbons. The only words Mrs. Maiden offered Ashley were “Why don’t you take Dante back down to the trailer. Put his blanket on, grab your big coat, and then come back up here, and we’ll talk.”

  Mrs. Maiden’s directions rang as clear as Saddle Mountain, now that all the leaves had dropped from the trees. Nothing wish-washy about what she instructed us to do. We got waylaid on the way to the truck when we happened onto little Claire, who seemed to always be in tow with Mrs. Maiden, even when she wasn’t riding or showing.

  I could hear Ashley’s stomach growling for lunch, as she was too nervous to eat at all before our class.

  “Claire,” Ashley said, “mind holding Dante for me? I’ll be right back. I need some fries.”

  The littler girl wore a floppy wool hat with long, dangly strings. She tilted her chin and looked at Ashley. “But Mrs. Maiden said we would all eat together.”

  Ashley pulled rank on Claire and, frankly, turned a bit snotty, which I myself admit to doing on occasion, so I am nowise judging. Just saying that she intimidated Claire because she could. “Claire, I’m serious. Just hold him for one minute. I’m starving.”

  In hindsight, I suppose a safer plan would have been for me to stand still and unmoving until Ashley returned. Instead I panicked.

  My intentions were true. I promise. See, things had been going fine and dandy for me for a good little stretch. In an effort to obey Mrs. Maiden, I made for the trailer and the peppermints that I knew were waiting for me there. Now that I think about it, I may have, possibly, dragged Claire along behind me. Knocking into chairs and tables. Bumping into dogs and people and the like. Though I hadn’t a clue where the trailer was parked, I kept whinnying as loud and often as I could in the hopes that somebody from our barn might help a Thoroughbred out. Seemed like a good plan right up until the show secretary came over the loudspeaker.

  “Isbell Maiden, please head over to the pavilion, where your horse is wreaking havoc and making a little girl cry.”

  By the time I reunited with Ashley and Mrs. Maiden, a kindly whiskered gentlemen had ahold of me, and his friendly, equally whiskered companion had wiped Claire’s tears away.

  Mrs. Maiden packed up everybody in record time. We drove home to the Maury River Stables in silence.

  After our embarrassment at Tamworth Springs, where I had demonstrated that riding around politely with other equines was not my strength, in our next lesson Mrs. Maiden recommended a change of plan. “You two might enjoy jumpers more so than hunters,” she said. “Let’s give something new a try.”

  Little did Mrs. Maiden know that the mares and geldings had already given me my first jumping lesson back in the fall. I knew how to count out my strides and where to look for my spot. And I was well aware of the lift-and-hurl technique, though apparently I needed to work on my landing.

  For my first few times in the jumping ring, Mrs. Maiden had us play Follow the Leader over little cross-rails that she set up. Napoleon would go over, and then I would go after.

  Afterward, instead of story time, Napoleon and I would pass our overnights in the barn discussing jumps. We lived side by side indoors in the winter. He was a good friend to quiz me about what I had learned.

  “Here’s an easy one,” he said. “What d’ya call the two tall poles on either side of the horizontal one that you jump over?”

  “The standards,” I said correctly.

  “Yeh, good. Another easy one: if you just have one horizontal pole resting there between two standards, waiting for you to go over, what’s it called?”

  “A vertical?”

  “Yeh, good. Harder one: you’re coming down the straightaway and what do you see but two verticals in a row. And you have plenty of room between them to get in a few strides.”

  “Uh, I reckon that’s two verticals?”

  “Yeh, good, but you want to call it a line. Right? You see that? Two or more verticals in a line with some strides in between, just say ‘a line.’ ”

  “A line.”

  “Yeh, good. Harder: two verticals set up but you got no room at all to land in between. You have to jump the spread all together. What kind of jump am I describing, Mister Dante?”

  Oh, I knew that one right away. “Why, that’s an oxer.”

  “Quite right, an oxer. Hardest: you see you got a line of, say, three jumps with room to land and come up and go over but no room for any extra stride.”

  “A hi-lo?” Just a guess.

  “Yeh, wrong. Look, what are you doing to get over those obstacles? Yeh, you’re bouncing between them. Call it a bounce.”

  “A bou
nce.”

  “Quick, how many jumps make up a double bounce, then?”

  “Three?” I guessed.

  “Yeh, good.”

  Pretty quickly, I discovered that I liked jumping even better than racing. With just Ashley and me in the ring, and nobody kicking mud up in my face or growling at me from behind, we only competed against ourselves and the clock.

  For the rest of winter and into springtime, whether we were schooling someplace new, working at home with Mrs. Maiden, or racing the clock in a jump-off, as long as were together and jumping we were happy.

  Of course, our rounds would get compared to all the other teams, but when the time came to perform, Ashley and I became a world unto ourselves. Just us. Nobody else. Until at the end of a clear round, when Ashley would smile.

  Occasionally, Ashley would slice too close or turn me one hundred eighty degrees to pick up a rollback, and I’d hear a gasp from the crowd. Or some busybody would say under his breath how lucky Ashley was that I was a point-and-jump horse.

  Believe me. I know the truth about myself. Ashley was a good jumper, but more important to me than how accurate she was with this aid or that yield was that Ashley was good to me. So I tried to be good right back to her. I’ll say this: we never quit. By the end of our first summer season, we became the junior pair to beat.

  For weeks, Ashley and I prepared for our biggest show yet, at a highfalutin barn on the other side of the blue mountains, where horses would come from all around.

  At our big show, Ashley and I completed our first course of twelve jumps early in the morning. The crowd was getting settled with their coffee and crullers. Mrs. Maiden was helping the younger students tack up, so Ashley and I were left to our own devices to prepare for our speed round.

  We liked working on our own. Ashley planned to longe me a bit to burn off some energy, but as she clipped on the longe line, the gatekeeper yelled over, “Number three-two-six? You’re two rides out!”