The Eighty-Dollar Champion - Elizabeth Letts [41]
The doctor, though an affable man, was getting progressively more cranky. And no wonder. Harry had advertised Snowman as quiet and an easy keeper. Nothing looked worse than when a horse trader sold an animal without disclosing his faults. So either Harry didn’t know much about horses or he was a crook—passing off a horse with stable vices to an unwitting new owner.
Nothing in the horse’s temperament had made Harry think he’d try to run away. Snowman had never tried to stray from the de Leyer barn. But one dissatisfied customer could spread a lot of bad news about a horseman’s business. There had to be a way to make this work. Harry offered to check out the doctor’s pasture to see what the problem was.
Rugen’s place was typical of small farms in the area: flat fields that used to grow potatoes; brown timber fences; a salt block; and a rubber bucket clipped to a fence post. Nothing seemed amiss. A nuzzle-proof snap held the gate closed.
Still, Harry walked around the entire fence line, testing each section to see if it would budge. Nothing did.
“You sold me a jumper,” the doctor said.
Harry tried to repress a smile, but it was difficult.
The doctor wanted to know what was so funny.
“If I’d have known the horse could jump, I would have charged you more for him,” Harry answered.
The doctor did not look amused.
“Consider him a bargain,” Harry said, smiling again. It was true that the situation was a little funny. Here was a horse that couldn’t jump a pole lying on the ground, and now he had gotten himself confused with Lassie Come-Home.
Harry studied the big pasture. A smaller paddock enclosed the far end, with an open gate connecting to the larger pasture.
“Can you keep him confined to the smaller pasture at night?”
The doctor nodded, and asked why.
“Well, let’s just say he is jumping, and I don’t see any other way he’d get out, then he wouldn’t be able to get a running start from in there. Not much more than a couple of strides. That’d make it a much harder jump, and very few horses would do that.”
The doctor agreed to give it a try.
Harry sure wouldn’t mind finding a horse that could clear four feet with only a couple of strides to get a running start. Ja, if he had a horse like that, he’d be in the ring schooling him for the big Sands Point show in September. A friend of his, the trainer Dave Kelley, was going to be riding there—going for the Blitz Memorial Challenge, riding an incredible jumper, Andante. Harry liked being in charge of his own business, but that meant his budget was big enough to buy broken-down ex–plow horses, not trophy challengers. And ex–plow horses did not normally jump four-foot fences, certainly not without a running start. Harry was puzzled, but he was sure they could get the horse to stay put now.
Harry gave the troublemaker a scratch on the neck before he left.
“Now, stay here, you old bandit,” he said. “You’re making a lot of trouble.”
Harry knew what it felt like to kick around without a real place to call your own. It was hard not to have a soft spot for a horse who wanted to come home that badly. At odd moments, Harry still remembered the first look exchanged between him and the horse, down at New Holland—the big dark brown eyes peering between the slats, the way the horse had stood so still and held his head up with the slaughterhouse truck behind him. Truth be told, Harry had never stood a chance against this big gray gelding. Harry was pretty sure that horses were a whole lot smarter than people gave them credit for.
The next morning, Snowman was back at Harry’s; and the next, he was out of his paddock and in a neighbor’s potato field. A couple of days later, he turned up at the de Leyers’ again. The doctor swore that