Dante of the Maury River

by Gigi Amateau

  For my first dressage outing, we’d trailer over to Tamworth Springs to try to redeem ourselves.

  “If you see that mule Molly, tell her I said she’s a real stinker, and she’s got long ears,” Napoleon said.

  Turns out, the Belgian had practically been raised by the Tamworth Springs mule. He came to her defense. “She’s like a mother to me,” Macadoo said. “She taught me everything I know about Saddle Mountain and the river.”

  Napoleon taunted him. “You’re quite a clumper yourself, Mac.”

  I left the two of them swapping insults and chasing each other around the field. And enjoying every stride, by the looks of it.

  At our first dressage show, Ashley did her job before tacking me up. Peppermints and longeing ruled the day, and we took plenty of time in the practice arena.

  Mrs. Maiden, Dana, and Claire drank hot chocolate and watched us warm up. Everyone was in good spirits, including Ashley and me. We’d put in a lot of hours and effort, and today was our day to shine.

  I thought our outing would be a cinch, because no single component of the dressage test we planned to ride at Tamworth Springs presented a challenge. Matter of fact, the whole purpose of the introductory level was to give horse and rider a taste of the sport. Our job in Intro Test A was to show the judge how well we could move forward with a good, steady tempo, both keep our balance, and show that we could ride the pattern. Technically, not much to this one: free walk, medium walk, working trot, twenty-meter circle, and halt through the walk. Not a problem, as Napoleon liked to say.

  The judge sat in a truck with the engine running, keeping warm, at the top of the arena. I could hardly make out her face. When she was ready for us, she honked the horn, then Ashley put her leg on to ask for a working trot. We circled the outside of the ring once, entered at the trot, and halted square, facing the truck where the judge waited to evaluate our every move. Ashley bowed her head and extended her right arm down through her fingertips in a formal, crisp dressage salute.

  Throughout the entire test, Ashley didn’t speak. She wasn’t allowed to make any noise. She had to do all her talking with her spurs, her seat, and her hands. We didn’t keep ourselves in that good river-floating place for every step of Intro A, but we had some smooth moments where we moved like the Maury. With the final halt and salute, Ashley broke her silence. “Good boy, Dante.” She patted my neck, and our Maury River Stables family clapped politely. Dressage folks don’t hoot and holler, but I know our people wanted to.

  After the test, we all huddled up together to keep warm. We waited, then waited some more to get our results. I ate hay and let Claire practice leading me around, which went better than the first time.

  Finally, Ashley stood beside me, silently reading our scores and the judge’s comments. Now, I am a horse of many talents, but I cannot read.

  I stomped once.

  I pawed.

  Then I lifted my hoof up to get her attention.

  “Dante, what?”

  I pushed my head into her arms, nudging her to get on with the sharing.

  Finally, Mrs. Maiden seemed to read the one thing that wasn’t getting read: my mind! “Read the test out loud, Ashley. So we can all hear.”

  Ashley took in a deep breath. “All sixes, one seven, and one eight.” She scrunched up her face.

  “That’s wonderful!” Mrs. Maiden said. “Those are terrific scores for your first time out there.”

  Ashley made a face. “But listen to this: ‘Stiff through turn. Needs more supp. Hollow. Fussy in contact. Rider needs to relax so he will relax. Keep trying!’ ”

  “Now read the compliments,” said Mrs. Maiden.

  “At the free walk, the judge wrote, ‘Shows relaxation.’ She wrote, ‘Nice forward, fair shape,’ for our twenty-meter circle.”

  “Let me see. Anything else?” said Mrs. Maiden.

  “Umm, not really. Oh! This is good. ‘Rhythmic entry, smooth transition. Talented, athletic, and opinionated horse. Cute pair, lots of potential.’ Mrs. Maiden, what does the judge mean, ‘more supp’?” Ashley asked.

  “She means that sometimes Dante looked tight and stiff. He could stand to be more responsive, but we knew that. This is a terrific test. You should be very proud of yourself and your horse.”

  “I wish Dante could be my horse. I love him so much.”

  Mrs. Maiden put her arm around Ashley. “As long as he and you are at the Maury River Stables, he’s yours to ride and love.”

  A wide and full smile broke across Ashley’s face.

  We hung around Tamworth Springs long enough for the results to get posted and to collect our pink ribbon. Fifth place.

  Dana put her arm around Ashley. “Sweetie, I’m so proud of you and Dante.”

  “You’re not disappointed in us for only getting fifth place?”

  “Not even a little. I know winning is fun, but give yourself and your horse a little credit. Some days, the big victory is showing up and sticking with it.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. In a few months, you’ll look back to today as the beginning of something special. I’m so happy I was here to share this with you.”

  “Me, too, Mom.” Ashley nuzzled me, and the whole herd of them gathered around me. Mrs. Maiden, Claire, Dana, and Ashley.

  “Group hug with Dante,” Dana said. They all laughed.

  I closed my eyes and couldn’t help but let out a big old sigh. I knew there’d be fresh hay waiting in the net when we got back to the trailer, but, for once, I was in no hurry to be anyplace else.

  We got back to business in the dressage ring. Ashley improved with her aids. I improved in my listening. Mrs. Straff kept coming, and our work got even harder. After every lesson, the soreness in my muscles lasted a good long three days. At least.

  Throughout the spring and into early summer, nobody even mentioned jumping or showing. Junior Horse Trials at Lexington was on the horizon. I know because Ashley was begging for us to go. She could hardly talk about anything else.

  We hadn’t jumped a single fence since the fiasco, but Ashley was serious about going to the starter horse trials in September, where jumping would be two of the three disciplines we’d have to master.

  “Please, Mrs. Maiden! We’ve gotten so much better at dressage.”

  “You think you could handle him for all three components of eventing? Dressage, stadium jumping, and cross-country?”

  “I know I could. Now that he’s listening and responsive to my leg. Now that I know how to ask him for what I need. We know dressage. We know how to jump.”

  “You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you if you want to go to the Junior Horse Trials. He’s never been cross-country. We don’t even have those kinds of jumps here.”

  “We could build them! Please?”

  Three days later, thanks to Stu and the riding school students, we had an open field with eight more or less natural obstacles set up for practice. The new Maury River Stables cross-country course was shorter in distance than any competition course we’d face, but it worked a whole lot better than nothing. In our home-style version we’d start off with a single log jump. From there, we’d breeze past an old hay ring, roll back and over the brush jump made of fallen tree limbs, then bend to take a hay bale–two strides–double log combination. Up the hill over an old picnic-table bench; down the hill over another. Back around the hay ring, over some vertical brush, and then pick up speed toward the last combination — a bounce of tire jumps.

  Having been up Saddle Mountain, I knew well all the threats and dangers that we potentially faced out there in the open field. No two ways about it, the cross-country course gave me the heebie-jeebies, the willy-nillies, and the creepy-crawlies. On more than one occasion, Ashley had to smart me with the whip just to get me to agree to go.

  Mrs. Maiden had yet to make any promises about whether or not we could enter the horse trials, but all signs pointed to yes. She started reminding Ashley to find and clean her show clothes. And they started worry
ing out loud about whether I’d let them braid my mane or not.

  Even though we didn’t have a firm green-means-go light, our training shifted from learning to practice. Practice with a goal in sight, if not on the actual calendar. In our dressage lessons, we rode a full test, from centerline entry to final salute. Mrs. Maiden put up new dressage letters that would guide our pattern. She turned half the riding ring into a makeshift dressage arena and the other half into a stadium course. The attention paid to every fine detail reminded me of the old days, right before a race. Mrs. Maiden even whipped out a clipboard of her own to make notes of our progress.

  My previous life was lodged there in my memory, all right, but it rarely broke through the surface. Doctor Tom and Red, Mrs. Eden and Melody, Gary and Filipia, and, of course, Marey. But none of that felt like me any longer. I was so busy listening and practicing, and so tired — more than once I fell asleep with my muzzle in my dinner bucket — that I hardly had a minute to remember my racing days.

  As we neared the date of the Junior Horse Trials, Ashley returned to school and came out to the barn every day afterward. We switched between practicing our dressage, jumping in the ring, and negotiating our way through the homemade cross-country course — my least favorite, even more so than dressage.

  The only reason I could even tolerate that part of our training at all was that Ashley used her ingenuity to help me find a little joy in it. She thought it might be good for me to get used to going through water, since we’d for sure see that at a real-life event, so sometimes our entire afternoon of training consisted only of crisscrossing the Maury River.

  “Let’s go play in the water,” Ashley would say. I loved those words dearly. Best believe, I never hesitated — not once — on that cue.

  “Look at him prancing and flicking those feet. I agree with you. He seems to gain confidence in the water,” Mrs. Maiden agreed. “Dante, you are unlike any horse I’ve ever known,” she said to me. Mrs. Maiden said that with a smile, too.

  Ashley gave me one or two full days off every week. She came out on those days and groomed and massaged me. No complaints there, except when she also tried to sneak in a little bit of desensitizing of my mane. I knew she wanted to braid it up nice, in case we did actually go to the horse trials, but that wasn’t happening.

  Now, trust me, I didn’t haul off and kick her whenever she started fiddling with my mane. I mostly had outgrown my immaturity in that way. I danced around a little, not much. Pulled my neck out of her hands. Bonked her with my head to send a message.

  Mrs. Maiden increased my grain. My hay, too. Various supplements started showing up in my meal bucket. Fine by me. I was working hard every day and ready to drop at night. I figured that after Ashley and I made it through trials, then I might let myself reminisce about the old days in Kentucky. Until then, I was a single-minded off-the-track Thoroughbred.

  We repeated our dressage test until I really was dreaming about twenty-meter circles instead of peppermint candy. We jumped oxers and bounces. We rode to the jumps with Ashley counting under her breath the whole ride. One, two. One, two. One, two. One, jump. We let the jumps come to us. Just like the Shetland taught me.

  Every day. Every afternoon.

  Ashley’s legs got stronger. Her hands softer. I stopped trying to have everything my way. Not all the time, anyway.

  Then one Saturday morning, Ashley got out to the Maury River Stables extra early. Mrs. Maiden started the truck, backed up to the trailer, and loaded me and all my accoutrements, as Gwen liked to refer to tack, brushes, show supplies, et cetera. We set off for Lexington, where Ashley and I were to make our eventing debut at the Junior Horse Trials.

  Now, the Maury River Stables lies only about fifteen miles — even less as the crow flies — from the Horse Center in Lexington, Virginia. We pulled into the compound and were by no means the first to arrive. Seemed like everybody had the same idea to come in a day early to acclimate and prepare. Give ourselves time to work through nerves.

  The horses at Lexington were fancy and their airs confident. I walked beside Ashley as we followed Mrs. Maiden to the cinder-block barn, where I’d be lodging for the next two days — one to get ready, one to go.

  Instead of driving back to our home barn, Mrs. Maiden and Ashley brought everything I might need to get comfortable and stay happy: grain, hay, and shavings. Water, as much as I could drink, was on the house.

  Ashley filled up two buckets from a nearby hose, and as I was quenching my thirst, a runaway horse came tearing around the corner, snorting and foaming and looking scared. Reins whipping, saddle hanging upside down.

  I let out a good squeal, one in about the same range that I reserved for alerting the rest of the herd back home to when the boarders were threatening to revolt.

  Ashley was quick to notice the runaway. I expected her to jump out of the way, but instead she darted out in front of him.

  “Whoa. Whoa.” She held her hands out wide. “Easy.”

  Mrs. Maiden had gone back to the trailer for my brush box and tack. She wanted everything situated and organized for the next day’s competition.

  That stray horse was badly spooked and committed to it, so he didn’t take kindly to Ashley shutting down his escape route. He stopped, looking for the way out, giving Ashley an opportunity to grab his reins so he wouldn’t trip and fall. Loose reins are a morbid accident looking for an opening.

  Instead of settling, the bay reared up, jerking the reins from out of Ashley’s hands and dashing past her with such force that Ashley fell down. Then, around the corner came a sleek charcoal-dappled pony, a little Connemara a squeeze bigger than Daisy back home. Galloping full speed away from something or somebody.

  Ashley hadn’t time to get up on her feet. I saw her scrambling backward toward the cinder-block wall of the barn.

  “Heads up,” a girl about Ashley’s age hollered, a lazy stretch behind the action, just as the two horses came racing back our way — manes flying and reins dragging.

  By that time, I was pretty darn frustrated at not being able to get out there and help Ashley. If there was one thing I knew I was good at by then it was bossing around ponies and geldings. Macadoo and the boarder horses gave me plenty of practice.

  “Help me!” the girl demanded of Ashley. “Grab the gray.”

  Ashley, being ever so eager to prove herself in all matters of equine endeavors, gave her best effort, but the pony was having none of it. Rather than get knocked down or dragged around, Ashley let the pony take off again. She was right to do so, but that other girl steamed.

  “Thanks a lot,” the girl said. Then she bolted after the two horses. A wake of shouts and booms and barks faded after the careening runaways.

  About that time, Mrs. Maiden returned to a mess of Ashley sobbing and sniffling and me snorting and kicking. Not the ideal frame of mind to head into our biggest meet yet.

  “What on earth?” Mrs. Maiden looked confused aplenty. “Ashley, why are there tears in your eyes and rips in your breeches? Please tell me those are not your show pants.”

  So much for easing into the eventing environment. Ashley was a shaky wreck.

  “I knew I shouldn’t be here. I’m not good enough to show with these other girls.”

  Mrs. Maiden looked up the aisle toward the racket of urgent whinnies and angry shouts. Yep, those two horses were making good sport of their girl. I watched Mrs. Maiden quietly figure it all out. “Oh, goodness, what happened? Are you hurt?”

  Ashley shook her head. “I couldn’t even catch a pony.”

  “Sweetheart, that’s not your job. You’re here to take care of Dante and to ride.”

  “But we’re not good enough to be here. Did you see that girl? She’s wearing Vogel boots. Custom made!”

  Well, Ashley really stepped in it with that remark. No more sympathy from Mrs. Maiden. I could have seen what was a-coming next from well across the pasture.

  “She obviously couldn’t handle her horses, and you’re worried about he
r boots? Have you even seen her ride?”

  “No, but did you see her horse and that pony? All braided and fancy? There’s no way Dante and I can win against those kinds of horses.”

  I whinnied in protest at that comment. Had Ashley forgotten about my pedigree? I stomped my foot.

  “You want to talk about fancy? Look at Dante!” Mrs. Maiden wasn’t exactly shouting, but her voice slipped momentarily into high-pitched frustration. “Ashley Marie, you’re the one who convinced me to go back and get Dante two and a half years ago precisely because he’s fancy. And I agreed with you!”

  “I know, but —”

  “Nope, no buts. Do you know the lifetime earnings of Dante’s Inferno?”

  “Yes, $356,718.”

  “Exactly. Do you know who his mother is?”

  “Two-time Horse of the Year Dante’s Beatrice.”

  “And, let’s not forget, who was Dante’s grandfather?” Mrs. Maiden was really on a roll.

  “The last Triple Crown winner, Dante’s Paradiso.” Of course, Ashley couldn’t forget Grandfather.

  “I’m sure glad to see you remember; I was worried there for a minute. I’d say all that makes Dante pretty fancy. But guess what!”

  Ashley looked off into the distance. No doubt thinking about that sign posted outside the riding ring back at home. $5 FINE FOR WHINING. I imagine she was having a time doing all the fancy math it would take to add up how much she owed Mrs. Maiden by now. Beyond me, that’s for sure.

  Mrs. Maiden didn’t let Ashley off the hook. “Guess what! Fancy doesn’t guarantee a win here or on the track. Training wins. Practice wins. Heart wins. Sure, fancy can help. Confidence helps more.”

  That moment of Mrs. Maiden handing Ashley a bucketful of tough love is exactly when I started to love Mrs. Maiden. I had respected her, listened to her, and appreciated her, but watching her stick up for me and for Ashley, when Ashley couldn’t manage to do either, gave me a new affection for Isbell Maiden. Hearing her stick up for my bloodlines to boot? Well, that clinched it.

  “But how do I get confidence when I’m so nervous? This show is different from riding at home, or even at Tamworth Springs.”