The Eighty-Dollar Champion - Elizabeth Letts [132]
But when Harry exited the arena, he was surprised by what he saw. Joe Green was standing on the ground next to Windsor Castle. Sitting astride the bay was twenty-year-old Kathy Kusner from Virginia. Tiny and petite, she was an ace rider and one of this year’s sensations in the show ring. As far as Harry knew, she had never ridden Windsor Castle before, but now she was poised to ride into the ring for the final class. A single glance told Harry the whole story; barely five feet tall, Kusner probably did not weigh a hundred pounds. For a tired horse, taking away the extra forty or fifty pounds by putting a lighter rider in the saddle might make all the difference. It was a gutsy move—and Harry admired guts. He wished young Kusner luck as he watched her ride into the ring. She might have been small, but Harry had seen enough of her to know that she was a tough competitor.
Sure enough, the petite dynamo piloted the horse around with panache, and Windsor Castle finished with a clear round. From the way Joe Green was grinning, Harry figured he must have made a good jackpot by betting right on the outcome.
Windsor Castle won the President’s Cup, but Snowman, winner of the stakes class, was still the show’s overall champion open jumper. When it was time for the parade of champions, Harry led Snowman into the ring to the rousing sounds of the U.S. Army Marching Band and the uproarious cheers of the crowd. And as they crossed in front of the presidential box, Harry was filled with pride. He and Snowman had reached the moment they had worked toward for so long and so diligently.
It was another great triumph for Snowman, hard earned over the course of a tough week of competition. But Harry was worried. Only another few weeks until the Garden, and the repetitive jump-offs late into the night had taken a toll on the horse. Harry vowed to lay off jumping until the National, where he knew a fresh posse of horses would be waiting, eager to steal the plow horse’s crown.
23
Camelot
New York City, 1960
November 8, 1960. Election Day. And this was a momentous one. Eisenhower had completed his two terms, and the Democrat John F. Kennedy was running against the Republican Richard Nixon. The seventy-seventh National Horse Show opened with its usual pageantry; the Parade of Teams, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The de Leyer children lined up in the stands, blue eyes lit up by excitement. As the two-time reigning champion, and recent victor at Washington, their beloved family pet was the star of this year’s show.
Harry had told the children not to worry. Snowman would do his best.
By the end of that day, John F. Kennedy had been declared the winner and the era that became known as Camelot was ushered into existence. As though in celebration, the first class of the show started beautifully for Snowman, too: he brought home the blue in the first open jumper class. There seemed more wheeling and dealing than ever behind the scenes. Bigger, more astronomical sums of money changed hands. It was a new era in the horse show world, too. Corporate sponsorship had arrived. This year, for the first time, the horses would be competing for a Ford Motor Company prize. In the lobby was a gleaming Ford car. The classes had been rearranged and shortened to cater to the ticket-paying spectator, so that people could come out to watch the show and still make it home on the last train.
Harry knew that he could sell Snowman in an instant, or take up Bert Firestone on that blank check, but word had gotten around that the horse was not for sale. Harry de Leyer had not been cut from the usual cloth, and people had figured that out.
When Harry was not competing or looking after the horses, he was an avid spectator in the stands, and he loved to watch the international team competitions. The pageantry of the parade of teams, the different riding styles of the