The Eighty-Dollar Champion - Elizabeth Letts [98]
On Friday night, a new blue ribbon hung on the line next to Snowman’s stall, but the horse seemed unimpressed. Harry tried to stay focused. To win the Blitz Memorial, he would have to have the highest average over the course of the three days.
On Saturday, the show’s second day, the weather was hot, the skies were blue, and spectators flocked to the club grounds. Members and their guests sat in boxes or tailgated in their reserved parking spaces, and even ordinary folk were allowed onto the grounds to watch if they paid for a ticket. Harry was leading in the Blitz Memorial Gold Challenge, and he had scored an additional blue ribbon in the morning FEI class against Adolph Mogavero on Sonora. Now the crowd had gathered for the main event: the Blitz.
In the schooling ring, the German horse again looked unstoppable. Not wanting to tire his horse, Harry barely had Snowy jump at all, just took a few turns around the ring to loosen the gray’s legs. He could not help but notice Chapot schooling Diamant, nor the determined expression on the sportsman’s face.
Today’s course looked intimidating. There were more fences, and they were higher. Harry surveyed the jumps, imagining his approach to each one. The series of obstacles played like a movie in his head. He could feel the rhythm of his horse’s gallop even when he was not riding him. The aiken and triple bar both would pose challenges, though Snowman had managed them fine yesterday. Today, there was a brush-wall-gate jump that might be problematic. The three elements used to construct the jump would make it hard for the horse to correctly gauge both the depth and the height of the jump. Unlike touching a pole, making contact with the brush brought no faults, but the hidden pole behind the brush was going to be harder to avoid.
Diamant had been resting since the day before, while Harry and Snowman had done two additional time classes. And of course they were not the only two horses in the class. The seven-year-old mare First Chance—ridden by Adolph Mogavero, Harry’s chief competitor at Fairfield—could hold her own in any competition.
Harry watched as the class progressed, keeping Snowman limber by walking him around in the schooling area. Already several horses had been eliminated at the big brush-wall-gate, and Harry knew that fence would be his toughest challenge. When Diamant came into the ring, Harry rode over to watch. The horse was jumping well, but when he reached the brush-wall-gate, he tapped the rail with a front foot, giving him one fault. Harry stroked Snowman’s neck. At all costs, Harry wanted to avoid a jump-off, which would just fatigue his horse more. The only way to beat Diamant without a jump-off would be to clear the first round with no faults. There was no margin for error.
Despite the pressure, Harry entered the ring on a loose rein. Past the grandstand, Snowman pricked up his ears and glanced at the spectators, then turned to catch sight of the de Leyer children. Harry cued Snowman to gallop and headed toward the first fence. On the approach to the brush-wall-gate fence, Harry saw the problem. From the horse’s perspective, the fence was a hanging gate with a brush box behind it. The white pole hanging behind the brush box turned the fence into a spread, but the horse would not perceive that. Snowman had always excelled at high and narrow fences. He had a short arc and tucked his knees up tight because he had taught himself how to jump out of paddocks, needing to