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By Root 1295 0

be unbeatable, but other times, he was a dirty stopper, or refused even to let his rider mount. Each time the horse needed to enter the ring, there was a ruckus of handlers shouting, of crops and spurs. The bay gelding could back away from the ring entrance at an astonishing speed. When the two horses competed in the same class, Harry sat—reins loose on Snowman—and watched the spectacle with amusement. He simply never rode a horse like that—or, rather, no horse he’d ridden had ever behaved like that. Not to say that Windsor Castle had been mistreated, but he had changed hands often and had experienced many riders. It was impossible to know what Snowman thought of his unruly competitor, but anyone who had ever watched the pair together could tell that Snowy loved and trusted Harry.

“Ya gotta talk Dutch to them,” Harry chuckled to himself. If that were his horse, he would lie in bed puzzling it out, trying to figure out how the bay thought. Harry believed that there was a way to get along with any horse. The great grand prix rider Bernie Traurig commented that Harry “seemed like he could get on any horse, no matter how dead green, ride him for a couple of weeks, and then take him into the show ring—he had a tact with horses that was surpassed by none.” So Harry watched Windsor Castle with a mixture of interest and disbelief, amazed that the horse could make the whole thing look so difficult, when in contrast, Snowman made it look so easy.

Still, once they got him into the ring, Windsor Castle was sharp and a good jumper—good enough that he often couldn’t be beat, and he had a string of championships to prove it. And his owner was not taking any chances. Ballard had coaxed the wily old trainer Joe Green out of retirement to ride the horse. Green was a legend among show jumpers. In the old days, he was known to bet on his own horses, sometimes pulling up between fences during a class to offer to change the odds on his bets. Green hadn’t ridden much since breaking his pelvis a few years ago at Piping Rock, the year Dave Kelley had stepped in to ride Green’s horse, Belmont, in the championship. It was Green who had first sold Sinjon, and the trainer had, according to legend, lost another horse, Nautical, in a poker game—the gelding who, under Hugh Wiley, had become the first American horse ever to win the King George V Gold Cup in London. Tonight, Green had bitted the bay with a complicated scissor bit—a severe bit that gave the rider tremendous control.

That night, the first round eliminated all of the horses except for the big two. The jump-offs started, and since this was a knock-down-and-out class, the fences were raised each round and time was a factor.

Harry sat unperturbed on his horse, waiting for the jump-off to start. Sure, Windsor Castle was younger, and his half-thoroughbred breeding made him naturally better suited to competing with time as an element, but he was using up a lot of energy fighting his grooms and rider, and all of the commotion with crops and spurs and people waving their arms and shouting just might distract him from the task at hand. Green rode the horse hard, with a firm hand on the rein. It was not pretty, but it was effective.

At the end of the first jump-off, both horses were clean. The efficient jump crew quickly raised the jumps another four inches. Now even the lowest fence was five feet, nine inches. These were big fences. But the flashy bay showed no signs of tiring. He was still willing to put up a stink before each of his entrances into the ring.

Harry worried that Snowy might tire. He walked the horse around to keep his legs soft, and Jim Troutwell folded his white PHA Champion cooler over his haunches to keep him from being hit by the evening chill. Harry muttered encouragement to the horse, and as always, he saw the horse’s ear flick back, a sign that he was listening. By now, Snowman knew the ropes.

Inside the arena, the crowds were overflowing, and though it was getting late, not a single spectator was heading for the parking lot.

Another round—a study in contrasts. Windsor