The Eighty-Dollar Champion - Elizabeth Letts [104]
But people hoping to see the Americans triumph instead saw the Germans hammer the Americans in every international class. The U.S. team members put in a collection of hair-raising rounds—complete with knocked down fences, crashes, and falls. By the last night of the show, the team had managed to collect only two ribbons, a third and a fourth. Then, during the evening performance, Frank Chapot, riding one of Eleo Sears’s horses, crashed spectacularly on the final fence—a fall so devastating that the crowd paused in horror, unsure whether anyone would walk away. Fortunately, neither horse nor rider was seriously hurt.
In the open jumper classes, Snowman and the newcomer Windsor Castle battled it out. Snowman won the first class, but lost to Windsor Castle in the second, and Windsor Castle was in the lead for the show championship. Dave called Harry to give him the news. Snowman needed to win the stakes class or he would no longer be in the lead for the American Horse Shows Association Horse of the Year award. Windsor Castle had been campaigning since the spring—winning big at Devon and in Virginia. People were saying the seven-year-old was the most promising new horse on the circuit. A high-strung half thoroughbred, he looked more talented than Snowman—by a lot.
Back in St. James, Harry waited for Dave’s nightly telephone call, with his reports of the German triumphs and the United States’ dismal failures, and of the fierce competition from Windsor Castle. Harry was grateful to Dave, and yet he could not help feeling that maybe if he were there … the horse’s familiar rider … but there was no use thinking about that. He had responsibilities that came before winning blue ribbons. Windsor Castle was tough competition and Dave was not making any promises.
On October 15, the show’s last night, the giant gates of the armory show ring swung open. It was time for the parade of nations. The U.S. Army Marching Band played “The Caissons Go Rolling Along,” and President Dwight D. Eisenhower sat, with Mamie beside him, up in the presidential box. First into the ring was the German team, carrying the German flag. The four horsemen, who together had taken every single championship ribbon in the international competition, stopped under the glowing spotlights and saluted. Next in line was the Mexican team, whose mounts, according to the Washington Post, “looked like rodeo ponies next to the big German horses.” Perhaps, but they had still managed to collect more ribbons than the Americans.
It probably did not escape a military man like General Eisenhower that Frank Chapot sat upon Trail Guide, one of the greatest horses ever to compete for the United States Equestrian Team. The last American horse still competing to have served in the United States cavalry, Trail Guide had been bred in the army’s Remount Program—the ambitious breeding program that had produced so many great horses, possibly including Snowman’s sire. Trail Guide, the last remaining link to the great military jumping tradition, was the only horse that actually belonged to the United States Equestrian Team.
That night in front of the president, Frank Chapot, perhaps still sore from his horrible crash of the night before, rode Trail Guide to a triumph in the jump-off over Fritz Thiedemann of Germany—the only win of the show for the American team. Last up on the agenda was the crowd-pleasing favorite: the open jumper championship. Dave Kelley rode the big gray gelding out under the spotlights of the armory, then stopped to salute the president. The crowd was already keyed up from Trail Guide’s victory.
The international competitions were thrilling, and seeing the Stars and Stripes win was always exciting, but when Snowman, the underdog favorite, entered the ring, the crowd let out a cheer. Snowman represented every little guy: everyone not sitting in a VIP seat, every worker at the armory that night—pushing a wheelbarrow or a broom—and everybody who was not born into the kind of privilege that competed