The Eighty-Dollar Champion - Elizabeth Letts [93]
Harry de Leyer, not easily cowed by pretensions, did not concern himself with these things. When it came to riding, no amount of hauteur could take the place of seat-of-the-pants skill. Harry didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about the competition. Reputation was all relative. Harry remembered the honor of being chosen to bear the flag, and how it had felt to parade in front of the crowd on his mare Petra during that glorious time in Amsterdam when the war was over. The crowds in the stands that day had been ecstatic, and all eyes had been upon him. That day, he’d seemed important and feted and respected.
And then there’d been other days, dark days on the tobacco farm, trying to please an alcoholic boss, watching the tobacco plants go from glossy green to shriveled and brown with the drought. On those days, he’d been sweaty and grimy and dressed in coveralls. On those days, he’d driven the milk cart down a dirt lane, about as invisible as a man could be. But Harry knew he’d been the same man in both circumstances. It was not his surroundings or his appearance or the opinions of others that mattered. The only thing that mattered was his belief in himself. So he did not give much importance to the closed-off, snobbish world of Piping Rock.
Harry had brought three horses to this show: Night Arrest and Wayward Wind to compete in the green jumpers, and Snowman to compete for the Blitz. The gray settled right into his stall, his calming presence helping keep the other two on an even keel. As long as Harry was around, Snowman never minded showing up in a new place. With his head hanging over the half door, he took in the scene with a calm air. He seemed to know he was part of the family, and if the family wanted to make a gypsy caravan to a new place every weekend, that was fine, as long as he got to come along.
Snowman was braided up and spotlessly clean, groomed until his shiny late-summer coat showed dapples if the light reflected across it the right way. His whiskers had been trimmed and his hooves painted, and like the children, he looked dressed up in his Sunday finery.
As Harry bedded his horse down for the night, he knew that he would give his very best, and Harry could not ask for more than that. The children were excited. School would be starting soon, and their long summer spent following Snowman from show to show would come to an end. Harry loved their simple childish belief in their pet. Only he and Johanna understood that their lesson horse had just stepped into a whole new level of competition. This show would not pay for itself unless Snowman won the Blitz prize—and that meant he would have to be cumulative champion across three days of grueling competition. As always, Snowman looked at his owner with the big brown eyes that had earned him the nickname Teddy Bear. Sometimes Harry felt that the old horse all but opened his mouth and talked to him. The gelding’s steady dark gaze told Harry that, as always, he would do his best.
Friday dawned gray and cool, perfect riding weather. The bright green turf field was as neatly groomed as a golf course fairway. At Piping Rock, it was traditional for society folk to line up around the arena in their fancy cars, these prime parking spots playing the role of the reserved boxes at the indoor shows. Schooling jumps were set up out in the woods. Some riders took advantage of the hidden fences to pole their horses. A groom stood on each side of a fence holding a pole, and as the horse went over the fence, the grooms lifted the pole and rapped the horse on the tender, bony part of the cannons. This practice was supposed to surprise the horse into jumping even higher to avoid the painful smack; it was also illegal. One prominent rider had been asked to “sit down” for an entire season after