The Magnum Equation

by Lisa Wysocky

  “In second place, and reserve champion in the older youth showmanship is …”

  The silence seemed to drag on forever. If they didn’t announce the placing soon my brain would die of oxygen starvation.

  “… number 725, Darcy Whitcomb.”

  Reed jumped unto the air and let out a whoop as my breath released in a whoosh. I hadn’t paid any attention to Hunter’s performance, but he must have done well. Another day, another judge and the placings could easily have been reversed. The most important thing was that Darcy and Petey had both performed very, very well. It was my turn to be proud.

  Cat’s Horse Tip #13

  “Backing tip: When standing, be aware of which front leg the horse has the most weight on, then ask the horse to move the other leg back. Works from the ground or under saddle.”

  21

  WE HAD A BREAK BEFORE our next set of classes, so I walked over to the Dudley stalls. I was concerned about Debra’s abrupt descent on the coliseum stairs and wondered if she had received more news about Temptation’s death. I arrived to find Debra collapsed into Zach’s chest, and Zach’s arms around her.

  “Those imbecile policemen have implied that Debra had something to do with Temptation’s demise,” Zach said. “I mean, seriously? It’s impossible.”

  “Then that hateful Sloan Peters and Reed Northbrook began asking questions,” sniffed Debra. “Why had my husband and I filed bankruptcy? Why did we put our farm up for sale? It’s none of their business.”

  Hmmm. Looked as if Reed and Sloan were running their own investigation. If the information was true, it was just more proof that Debra Dudley and her husband were in an ominous financial position. A woman I didn’t know, but who looked a lot like Debra, hurried up the aisle and Debra transferred her tearful embrace from Zach to the newcomer.

  Zach beckoned to me with his index finger and we walked out of the barn and into the blazing sun near the outdoor practice arena.

  “People are blowing things out of proportion,” he said as we watched a dozen or so riders exercise their horses. “Debra hoped to keep things quiet, but you’ll find out soon enough. Brandon has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. It was their tragedy to share publicly when and how they wished, but it came out in the news today, so the decision has been made for them. They’ve lost control of it.”

  “I’m sorry for them, Zach, but how does that come into play here?”

  “That’s right, you wouldn’t know. Brandon did a lot of work on the farm, and also still modeled and made a lot of personal appearances, mostly overseas. He’s still a huge star in Japan. With MS he will have to slow down, which means less income coming in. The Dudleys are downsizing. That’s why the farm is for sale. We’re still breeding and showing, just more selectively than we have been.”

  “And the bankruptcy?”

  “A stupid business investment.”

  I walked away pondering Zach’s words. Just how much would an influx of a hundred fifty thou help the Dudleys? Depending on the depth of their financial troubles it could mean everything, or it could be a single drop in a very big bucket.

  I heard Agnes before I saw her. I also heard the clatter of what sounded like our director’s chairs falling over so I half-walked, half-ran the remaining few yards to our stalls. Agnes was sitting on the ground surrounded by pompoms, her blue glasses knocked askew. Our chairs had indeed been knocked over but before I had time to say anything, Ambrose had righted them and Lars had helped Agnes to her feet.

  “What happened here?” I asked.

  “Miss Agnes was, uh, showing us her new cheer for her, um, horse,” said Lars looking everywhere except at Agnes. Was his mouth working to hide a smile?

  “Oh yes, darling,” said Agnes. “It came to me this morning as I flew through the sky, tethered only by ropes and a tiny, tiny seat. Oh, and the nicest young man with his hair cut into a bright blue Mohawk helped strap me in. I know Sally telepathically sent that young man to me. Sally Blue. I have blue hair. The young man had blue hair. It’s obvious, isn’t it dear?”

  Yep, as clear as mud.

  “Anyway, while I was whizzing through the air, words popped right into my brain. You want to know the best part?”

  Boy howdy, I couldn’t wait.

  “The words all arrived together. Not one by one, but together. Isn’t that amazing?”

  I nodded my head. For once I was speechless.

  “You want to hear them?”

  I gathered my thoughts together, and with them, some words, but I addressed them to Lars instead of to Agnes. “Do we have a choice?” I asked.

  “No, ma’am. But the experience is worth it. Unforgettable, actually.”

  “Okay then, Agnes. I can’t wait.”

  “Yippee!” Agnes moved the chairs back against the stall walls, gathered her pompoms, then put her feet together and her hands on her hips. I imagined her as a girl, more than fifty years ago, and a genuine smile came to my lips. Actually, I couldn’t wait. I had a feeling I was going to enjoy the next few minutes very much.

  “Hey everyone. Listen up!” said Agnes in a voice that was more suited to the football field than a horse barn.

  You might be good at the canter,

  You might have beautiful tack,

  But when it comes to Sally Blue,

  You might as well step back

  Say what?

  You might as well step back

  Go Sally Blue!

  Agnes’s words were accompanied by an assortment of jumps and arm movements that brought all the horses to the front of their stalls. I didn’t blame them, for this was something not to be missed. For her big finish, in time to the words “Go Sally Blue!” Agnes attempted a cartwheel but only got her legs a foot or so off of the ground. Then she landed in a heap on the floor of the aisle, sitting with her legs splayed out in front of her, arms and pompoms raised into the air. Victory.

  For the second time in as many minutes I was speechless, so I began to clap. I turned to Ambrose to indicate that he should clap, too. Lars was right. Agnes just gave an unforgettable performance. And, it was something I desperately needed. I had been so caught up in keeping my horses and crew safe, and trying to compete effectively, that my nerves were worn raw.

  I gave Agnes a huge hug and tried to help her rise from the floor of the aisle. Eventually Lars pitched in, and together we heaved Agnes more or less into a standing position.

  “That was … amazing, Agnes,” said Jon from the door of the tack room. He must have been in there all along. I was glad he hadn’t missed what was sure to be the highlight of the day. “Very inspiring, actually. But we’ve got to get Cat, Sally, and Bob ready for their classes. Maybe you should grab some lunch before finding a good seat in the stands?”

  Agnes and Lars took the hint and the rest of us at Cat Enright Stables got back to work.

  The trail class was all about precision and smoothness. It was also about approach. Should the water hazard be approached dead center, or a little to the left? And if a rider initially decided on left, but all the previous competitors also went left, then the footing could be bad and a last minute switch in thinking was necessary. Depending on the competition, one bobble could knock a horse and rider out of the placings.

  I gathered my show clothes, a flashy royal blue ensemble that would work for both Sally’s trail class and Bob’s senior western pleasure class, and brought them to the coliseum so I could change. It would also give me the opportunity to look at the positioning of the obstacles. The course had been posted yesterday, so I knew the route we needed to take, but seeing what color, for example, the poles on the small jump were, or the width between the poles on the backing obstacle, helped a lot.

  Horses see differently than humans do. The current school of thought is that horses do not see reds and oranges very well. If that was the case, then obstacles of that color might be difficult for a horse to see.

  The size of an obstacle was also critical. Was the tent we had to pass a small
green pup tent, or was it a shiny, white, tenby-ten party tent with balloons, streamers, and a fan?

  After I changed into everything but my chaps, I went down to the in-gate to get a better look. I hadn’t been there two seconds before Cam slung an arm over my shoulder. I just as quickly slung it off.

  “Which horse do you have in this?” he asked with a nod toward the obstacles. “Oh, wait. The incomparable Sally Blue, isn’t it? I saw the, ah … cheer. Impressive.”

  I grinned. Dear Agnes. What would I do without her?

  “You?” I asked Cam.

  “Mike Lansing’s junior mare. Quarter Horse. Owned by that oil guy in Dallas.”

  “Judy asked you to ride Mike’s horse?” I couldn’t believe that. Like me, Judy had little use for Cam Clark.

  “No,” said Cam. “The owner did.”

  Ah. That explained a lot. While Mike was in the hospital trying to mend, Cam was busy hustling his owners. A trainer’s owners were sacrosanct. It was an unwritten rule that one trainer did not solicit the owners of another. I had little confidence that the oil guy in Dallas sought Cam out on his own.

  Cam saw the look on my face. “Awww. Come on, Cat. The horse was there for the asking. Really, she was, and Mike couldn’t ride it.”

  “But I bet Mike had someone in mind who could.”

  “Well, I got there first,” Cam said. “You snooze you lose.”

  I didn’t need to get angry at that moment, so instead, I left to get Sally.

  During a trail class I normally position my horse as close to the in-gate as I can. That way we both can watch the competitors who go ahead of us. I never take for granted what a horse can learn by watching.

  Today, however, I needed to use that time loosening up. In college I needed a non-equestrian physical education credit and had taken yoga. While I didn’t keep up with it, I remembered some basic moves and used those, along with the motion of Sally’s walk, to ease my muscles into a less painful frame. Then we stopped in the center of the warm-up arena and I did a quick visualization of the course, and of Sally and me completing it flawlessly.

  And you know what? That’s about what we did. Sally completed each obstacle perfectly, if slowly. When we pivoted inside a square laid out on the ground with poles, Sally’s movement was consistent and rhythmic, but painfully slow. I didn’t want to rush her and risk a less than perfect go, so we glided around the course like a herd of turtles. In fact, it was almost like she navigated the entire course in slow motion. I knew we had done well, but had no idea how well our competition had done.

  When the placings were given, the announcer first called the top six horses back into the ring. We were one of the six called. Cam was another, as was Sloan Peters. That surprised me, as Dressage horses are usually not schooled in trail obstacles. Good for her for doing something to keep her horse’s mind fresh. After the bottom three horses had been placed, it was the three of us that were left.

  “Go Sally,” I heard Agnes yell from the stands. Then, almost as loudly, I heard Lars shush her.

  I didn’t like to wish bad things on anyone. Okay, there were a few people and one of them was next to me on a dazzling Quarter Horse mare. I didn’t care if I won the class or not, just as long as Cam did not place ahead of me. My feelings were so strong that I looked at the rivalry between Darcy and Melanie in a new light. Maybe I could be the teensiest bit more sympathetic in that area. But until then I hoped with all I had that I would come out of the ring with a higher score than Cam.

  The third place winner was announced. Sloan. Cam rode over, and instead of the usual handshake, which was the normal public show of solidarity and sportsmanship between the top two competitors, Cam leaned in to kiss me on the cheek. Or, he tried to. Sally did a quick sideways move that left Cam hanging off the side of his saddle. For a second there I thought he was going to fall. Then he righted himself. Darn.

  I wish I could say that we won the class, but sometimes things do not end up as you had hoped. Later, when the score sheets were posted, Cam and the mare had scored a half point higher than we had. A lousy half point. Maybe I should have pushed Sally more, taken the risk. Unfortunately, we cannot go back in time. I would have fully embraced a do-over, however, one in which both Sally and I had stepped up our game.

  I had little time for wishful thinking, though. Bob’s senior western pleasure class was immediately after the junior trail. Darcy had tacked and warmed up Bob for me so all I had to do was hop off Sally and onto Bob.

  Doc Williams couldn’t make the performance, but I wished he could have been there. The competition must have been close, because the judges had us do more than the usual walk, trot, and lope in both directions. We changed direction three times and went from the walk, to the lope, to the trot, to the lope, to the trot, then reversed at the trot. As the commands went on––and on––my confidence grew stronger. Delays like these usually worked in our favor. Bob was not flashy. He was not beautiful, but he was precise. In most cases, sooner or later each of the other horses would make a mistake, but not Bob. And that’s what happened here.

  As Bob, Jon, Darcy, and I posed for the win picture, I gave Bob a hearty pat. He loved competing, loved the attention, and I was glad I could be part of his journey. I was also grateful for Jon and Darcy, for without either of them, we would not have won the class. Nor would we have been so close to a win with Sally in trail. I was fortunate to have these wonderful people in my life and realized, maybe for the first time, what a lucky person I was.

  Cat’s Horse Tip #14

  “If a normally sensible horse refuses a jump or trail obstacle, it might be unsafe, or it might be that she cannot see it properly.”

  22

  TUESDAY WAS AN “OFF” DAY at the show and no classes were scheduled. Management had wisely decided that exhibitors would need a break half way through the competition, and they were right. The end result was that I had the luxury of sleeping in until the amazingly late hour of seven A.M.

  Because the show was just ninety minutes from home, Darcy, Annie, and I were using the day to head home to Ashland City, do laundry, re-stock our supply of snacks, and decompress. Annie said she felt fine but I thought she still looked peaked. She’d just been released from the hospital yesterday. A nap in the quiet of my guest room might be just the thing for her.

  During any other event I would have roped another trainer into watching our horses and taken Jon with us, but given the circumstances, he was adamant that he stay. “If something is going to happen, today is the day,” said Jon. “It will happen when everyone is relaxed and off their guard.”

  Sorry to say, I thought he was right.

  We decided to bring Reddi and Gigi with us. Both had classes later in the week, but both were rowdy young ladies and I thought they would enjoy some turn out time. It would be too hot for them in the sun, but I had a covered arena and round pen. We hooked up the trailer, loaded the horses, and set off on our girls’ day out.

  My rig was an older green Ford one ton pick-up with a crew cab and more than a few dings. My trailer was a six-horse diagonal haul gooseneck, which meant the horses stood at an angle, instead of facing forward, and the trailer attached to the truck’s bed, rather than to its bumper. The front of the trailer had a small space to carry equipment and while I dreamed of a new truck and a trailer with full living quarters, I got where I needed to go with the rig I had.

  I was glad that Agnes and Lars had gone back to Louisville so she could water her plants. Only she, apparently, had the right touch for them to thrive. Otherwise I would have felt obligated to invite her and, as much as I loved Agnes, if she came along none of us would have been able to relax. Having Agnes around was like standing in a room full of rabbits; I never knew where she’d go or what she’d do. She and Lars would return to Murfreesboro on Thursday, for Sally’s next class. In the meantime, I was glad I didn’t have to worry about her.

  We sailed up I-24 at the tail end of the morning rush hour, then bumped over to I-440 around
the south end of Nashville, hopped onto I-40, and exited on Charlotte Pike on the west side of town. That led to a quick right and before I knew it, we were turning off River Road to home sweet home.

  I’d purchased the twenty acres, farmhouse, and old tobacco barn with money I inherited after my grandmother passed away. That was about seven years ago. Since then, I’d patched the roof (well, actually, Jon had) and had an apartment built over some of the stalls that Jon now called home. I’d added a covered arena and spiffed up the house some, but I had a long way to go. The twenty-thousand dollar bonus for being the top trainer at the show would go a long way toward keeping fences mended and holes out of the driveway. I didn’t dare hope that I would win the prize, but so far I was in the running. Fingers crossed.

  We were unloaded by ten A.M. Darcy turned Gigi loose in the covered arena while I led Reddi into the round pen. The two enclosures were within close sight and proximity, which meant that between them, the girls could form a herd. Having a herd was critical to horses for they lived by the motto of “safety in numbers.”

  I had a strict rule about not putting hay into any area where we might ride. This was for several reasons. The first was because the leftover wisps of hay always got mixed up into the footing and could cause a safety hazard. Two, it just looked bad, and three, I wanted the horses to have clearly defined ideas about eating/relaxing areas and exercise/training areas.

  Today, though, the mental wellbeing of the horses was more important than the condition of the footing, so I ignored my own rule and threw each girl a flake of hay next to their buckets of water. Gigi was too busy running, bucking, and yes, farting, to care about the hay, so maybe I would not have to worry about the arena. Reddi trotted around a few times and kicked out a time or two, then settled down to watch Gigi. I have to say, watching our little yearling have fun was pretty entertaining.

  When Darcy and I got back to the truck, Annie was already busy sorting laundry. We’d piled all of our clothes together, and jeans and casual clothes went into the washer in the barn while whites and more delicate fabrics were left for the washer inside the house.