A picture worth a thousand words

This is a picture of the time that I didn't trust.

Over and over again, he reminded me that I could trust him. That he would take care of me.

Amarillo came to me when I was thirteen. He was too much horse for me, and I wasn't scared of anything. We were a good match. We learned dressage together. I taught him to jump by trial-and-error. I put him wrong, gave him bad spots, misjudged pace, and he took care of me. Again and again.

We went from the insulated small-town hunter world that existed in Florida at the time to the old-fashioned eventing-and-hunting world of Maryland and our lives changed forever.

Suddenly we were hurling ourselves across fields larger than we'd ever seen before, racing down slopes steeper than we'd ever thought of, swimming through rivers in the short summers and hopping ice-fringed ravines during the winters that seemed to last forever. I introduced him to snow and he introduced me to running hell-bent back to the barn, a Florida-bred scared out of his wits by the white stuff that had taken over his world.

We went back to Florida and mucked around for a few years, teaching lessons here and there, doing some dressage, bored out of our minds, until we found ourselves in the Promised Land, Ocala, amongst the live oaks and the horsey set, surrounded by Thoroughbreds. I settled in Rillo's hometown, Williston, and one day cold-called his breeder by sifting through the white pages and saying, "Hi, do you breed Thoroughbred horses? Remember Amarillo Elbert...?" I just wanted to tell him how much I loved the horse he'd bred. One of these days I want to walk up to him at OBS and show him this picture.

There wasn't any money for regular lessons, but by good luck and poor career choices I managed to squeeze in one with Christina Schlusemeyer and another with Peter Atkins just before our inaguaral Training Level event as an independent duo. I think we did Novice level at Basingstoke and had a pause at the water that the jump judge interpreted as a stop. Mike Winter was good enough to walk the stadium-jumping course with me and we did great until the combination, where Rillo flattened out and dropped a rail. Whatever the case, we went to Canterbury to do their fairly straight-forward Training course sans-trainer, as we always did.

We went hurtling across the course without incident until the ditch and wall. I am afraid of ditch and wall fences. I can't help myself. They frighten me. And because I was without a trainer, I didn't have a pep talk. Or a plan. The plan was to trust Rillo.

Rillo, you see, didn't refuse fences. I had once tacked up Rillo to go for a trail ride. We went ambling down the driveway of the farm (I was about sixteen, and at a farm inhabited entirely by rabid eventing fans between the age of 14 and 18. It was amazing.) and came across a new fence that had been built into one of the pastures. It was a fairly large, maxed-out Training level picnic table. The other teenagers shrieked that it was too scary to jump.

Rillo literally gathered himself up and dragged me to the fence. About three strides out he broke into a canter. I trusted him. The girl that had been sitting on the picnic table trusted him too. She knew he'd go over anything he was pointed out. She scurried out of the way just in time. Good thing, too, since Rillo seemed to pause in mid-air, reassess how wide the table was, dragging one hind hoof across the fresh black paint of the top boards, before completing the leap. It was the strangest jump I'd ever taken, and entirely too large for my skill level at the time, but I knew Rillo would jump it. I trusted him.

As we came bolting across the long galloping path towards the ditch and wall, I waited for Rillo's decision. If he wanted to jump it, fine. I'd close my eyes and we'd go over it. If he didn't want to jump it, well - that would be fine too. I would trust him, as I always had.

Five strides out, Rillo's head came up from its customary place between his knees, and his ears fixed on the fence. His weight shifted back, and his stride shortened. Then faltered.

I should have put my leg on him. I should have sat up and dropped my heel, pressing my calf firmly on his side, and told him something encouraging, like, "Let's get on!"

I sat in the saddle and waited. I put my hands down on his neck and waited for him to slide to a halt. I supposed we'd re-approach, and re-assess, after the refusal.

Two strides out, Rillo remembered that jumping was his job, and that he never refused anything.

He threw in an extra stride and launched.

I heard a gasp from the jump judge, who had probably already filled in my first refusal. Hell, she'd probably already picked up her radio and reported it. We had been so lacking in impulsion, cantering down to that fence, that no one in their right mind would have tried to send their horse over it.

Rillo jumped the fence perfectly, a beautiful parabola, arcing in the sort of bascule that only a long-backed horse can show you, (none of that back-cracking u-shape that a short-backed horse gives you) and landed only a little harder than usual before driving off towards the cow pasture.

I also jumped the fence beautifully, but since I'd been caught unawares, I was about half a stride behind him. Look in the picture and admire my crest release, and think how nice I would look if he were just taking off, instead of in full flight.

I landed so hard on his neck (because by the time he hit the ground, my legs were practically on the cantle of the saddle) that I nearly rolled over his off shoulder. He was already head down, galloping hard, driving down the gallop path, and flicked an ear back at me which said, "Why would you think I would stop?"

I should have trusted him.