The Eighty-Dollar Champion - Elizabeth Letts [120]
Go ahead—play the German anthem as many times as you want! They were not licked yet! Tonight, Harry wanted to win—for Snowman, for his American family, for his Dutch family, for himself. This was personal. The children promised solemnly to keep their clothes neat and clean. They had no doubt that Snowy was going to triumph on this most important of nights.
A huge crowd packed the stands, waiting to see the gray plow horse and his can-do rider. Together, they represented the attitude of Harry’s adopted homeland: skill, a little luck, a lot of grit, and most of all a belief that big dreams can come true. More and more people were rooting for the underdog horse with the oversized heart.
The sport of jumping is like no other. Man and horse, as they hurtle toward towering fences higher than a horse’s shoulders, speak to each other in the language of feel, a deep-seated connection beyond words, beyond specific cues. A great rider tunes in to his horse so deeply that he hears only with a sense of touch, and sees only through a sense of feel. On any given round, the horse’s heartbeat melds with his own, the hoofbeats becoming his own rhythm. The world around them melts away. All that remains is motion, flow, silence, and that incomparable feeling that is flight.
This was the biggest night of the biggest horse show of Harry de Leyer’s life. The big plow horse had captivated all who had seen him, but that guaranteed nothing.
Twelve horses, twelve riders, twelve owners: a year of training, discipline, and sacrifices to get ready for this one night. Nerves had no place. Fatigue was no excuse. This was a time for a rider to dig deep, to ask of his horse, and to see what the horse had left to give back. The last night of the last week of the last show of the year. Tonight, this was a test of courage—of bottom.
Harry sat astride his old Teddy Bear, reins loose, the same look of unflappable calm on his face that the spectators and competitors had seen there all week. Nobody at the show except for Johanna knew about the time that Harry, as a boy, had driven a beer wagon past Nazi checkpoints with contraband grain hidden inside one of the empty kegs. Nobody knew about the time he had found his brother Jan lying still as a stone in the field after touching a cultivator made live by a blown-down electric wire. Nobody knew that Harry de Leyer—had World War II not intervened—would probably be on the Dutch team, riding the European circuit, getting the best horses, and looking toward a berth for the 1960 Olympics. You could not read any of that on Harry’s face—but you could not miss the look of steadiness. It was something shared by man and horse. These two understood endurance. Both knew you could do no better than to give it your all.
As the riders and horses circled the schooling area, as overdressed and interfering owners strutted back and forth, as grooms scurried about flicking away invisible bits of dust from their charges, Harry and Snowman seemed above the fray. The horse was relaxed, and so was the man. They would help each other, come what may. So far, not a single horse had achieved a clean round. Any faults and the horses would enter a grueling jump-off, but a clean round would win the title.
The big gates swung open and Snowman entered the ring. As usual, Harry gave him a moment to survey the crowd—the sounds of the shouting and applause from up in the cheap seats was deafening. Harry tipped his hat to the crowd to acknowledge the support. Then the noise and the crowd, all the people in the grand hall, and even the hall itself all fell away.
There was nothing left but the sound of his horse’s footsteps on the dirt, the line to the next fence, the gathering, the lift, the soar. Each approach to each fence was fluid, each takeoff sure, each landing effortless. Harry and Snowman seemed in such harmony that it was hard to tell where one stopped and the other began. Harry guided the horse through the tight turns, over the cross-bars