The Eighty-Dollar Champion - Elizabeth Letts [51]
Harry wanted to compete. Without funds to buy himself a horse, Harry’s best bet was to find a good prospect for one of his students—the father would put up the cash. Harry could season the horse for a year or two before passing it to the girl to ride, devoting a couple of years to a decent animal, and hopefully winning his share of ribbons. But that horse would not be Harry’s own horse; it would belong to someone else. Still, that was the fastest way to get into competition—the pathway taken by other professional riders. Harry had a pretty good prospect in the barn right now: Sinjon. The horse was too challenging for the students to ride, but Harry had started him out himself in some smaller shows and had already brought home some blue ribbons.
Sinjon, a thoroughbred, came from the Charles Town racetrack. Right away, the gelding showed talent as a jumper, but he had too many vices. He was a “dirty stopper”—sometimes skidding to a stop right in front of a fence, a dangerous habit that could unseat even the most skilled rider. Not only that, but he also had a major stable vice: he was a weaver. This meant that he was so high-strung that he could not relax in his stall but hung his head over the Dutch door, rocking back and forth; the nervous habit kept him chronically exhausted and underweight. A Pennsylvania horse trader, Joe Green, did not want to bother with the problem horse and was looking to unload him cheap.
One of the fathers at Knox had been interested. He’d agreed to let Harry train the horse and take him to some shows in the hope that his daughter would eventually ride him. The bay was the dead opposite of Snowman. Where the gray plow horse was placid and easygoing, Sinjon reflected every inch of his thoroughbred breeding. Even though he had been too slow to race successfully, he still had the volatile reflexes and touchy disposition that is bred into thoroughbreds to make them fast.
When Harry could get Sinjon to keep it together, the gelding did pretty well, and he was a typically handsome thoroughbred—the kind of horse that looked as if he belonged in the show ring, not as if he used to work the fields.
Horse shows have different divisions, based on the different kinds of work equines traditionally did outside the show ring. For instance, a “working hunter” galloped and jumped over varied terrain while engaged in the sport of foxhunting. In the show ring, working hunters are judged on their skill, beauty, and style over fences. In Harry’s day, the hunter division was the prestigious one—a place where well-heeled amateurs competed on the finest horses money could buy. Fences were of moderate height, and style, with all that designation entailed—expensive, custom-made riding gear, French saddles, and fine English leather bridles—counted in the judging. A horse like Snowman could never have competed in the hunter division.
If he ever made it to a show, Snowman would need to enter in the jumper division. This division, where the jumps were the highest and the courses the most complicated, was the only part of a horse show that was judged on skill alone. If a horse cleared a jump, he got points; if he knocked down a fence or refused to jump, he lost points. Open jumpers were not judged on looks, or style, or breeding—only on accomplishment.
Harry much preferred the open jumper contests. Few amateurs competed in open jumpers; the courses were just too high and too tough, and the stakes were high, too—a spill over a fence, in those days when protective headgear was not yet worn, could cause catastrophic injury. To Harry, the hunter division just did not carry the same thrill as the jumpers: too much emphasis on looks and style, not enough emphasis on pure adrenaline-rushing