The Eighty-Dollar Champion - Elizabeth Letts [57]
Waiting at the in-gate, the horse stood half asleep, his ears flopping at angles, looking every inch the lesson horse. When the gate swung open, Harry gathered his reins and urged Snowman into a trot. A quick glance around the stands revealed that few spectators were even watching. Harry had Snowman canter a tight circle, then headed for the first fence, and that’s when he felt a sudden click of engagement. Now Snowman was paying attention. As Snowy gathered his hindquarters to take off for the first jump, Harry sensed the raw power coiled within him.
When they trotted out of the ring at the end of the round, they had gone clean. Harry looked over at Al and Dave; they were still laughing. One clean round was nothing—any horse could have a single good round. Winning in jumping required consistency.
The crew descended on the ring to raise the hurdles for the jump-off. Harry felt a small flutter of excitement. Now it was getting interesting. Snowman usually did better when the fences were higher. But he had never faced a course this big in competition—the fences’ height was manageable, but the spread might cause problems. Snowman sailed over the first fence with room to spare, but over the second oxer, a spread fence, he knocked down a pole, and as he crossed the last fence, another pole fell. Al Fiore’s mount, Riviera Topper, won the class handily. Snowman’s jump-off performance was good enough for third. The plow horse trotted back into the ring to pick up the yellow ribbon. When Harry came out, he handed the ribbon to his children, who squealed in delight.
The former paddock jumper excelled at high vertical fences, snapping his knees up tight to clear each obstacle. (illustration credits 12.2)
In the classes that followed, Dave Kelley and Al Fiore traded back and forth for the top spot while Snowman took no more ribbons. Harry did not ride him too hard. Nobody paid attention to the gray horse who was so calm he sometimes dropped to a trot between fences.
During the green jumper stakes class, nobody paid attention when Snowman entered the ring. The stakes class had the highest jumps. Snowman put in a serviceable round, knocking down one pole. Over the challenging course, that was good enough to land him in sixth place out of about twenty horses.
Back at the stables, Harry untacked the horse, rubbed him down with liniment, then scratched his neck, chuckling when the horse curled his lip into a laugh. Snowman’s yellow and green ribbons, plus the blue ribbon from the junior class, were hung proudly on the wire that stretched across the side of the van to show what Hollandia had won.
With Snowman settled, Harry returned to the arena and leaned against the fence to watch the open jumpers. It was the culminating event of the day, and the crowds were no longer milling around, eating food from the concession stands. Instead, everyone was pressed up against the fences and crowding the bleachers. It was the end of a long day. Children had sunburned noses; junior riders had sore muscles and were yawning from mornings that had started before dawn. Little kids had hands sticky from ice cream cones and lollipops. But everyone mustered their energy to focus on the main arena, where the fences had been raised up to four and a half feet—as a starting point. The poles would get even higher in the jump-offs.
Harry never sat in the bleachers. Taking a position at the fence, with one foot up on the bottom railing, he kept himself close enough so that he could get a good look at the horses, and where he could run into the ring if anyone needed help or a strong hand.
When Riviera Wonder, the reigning national champion, came into the ring with Fiore aboard, Harry snapped to attention. Like Snowman, the horse was gray, but the resemblance ended there. A thoroughbred gelding, he came from