Riding Lessons
By Sara Gruen
Rebound by Sagebrush
Copyright © 2004
Sara Gruen
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9781417701452
Chapter One
"Are you ready?" says Roger as he gives me a leg up,
and I laugh, because I've never been so ready in all
my life.
And Harry is, too, with his red neck flexed and his
ears swiveling like antennae, but never together -- if
one is forward the other is back, although sometimes
they land impossibly out to the side, like a lop-eared
goat's. He stamps and snorts as I lower myself into
the saddle and gather the reins, and I forgive him,
this time, for not standing still while I mount because
while it's terrible manners there are extenuating
circumstances and I, too, cannot be still. I run the
reins across the black gloves that cover my wet
palms and icy fingers and look back at my father,
whose face is lined and stern, and then at Roger, who
smiles up at me with his face a perfect composite of
tension, pride, and joy.
He lays a hand on my booted calf and says, "Give
'em hell, babe," and I laugh again, because I have
every intention of doing just that.
And then Marjory is leading us to the gate -- actually holding the reins, as though I can be trusted
to take fences of almost five feet but not to steer
Harry into the arena.
"Watch your pace going into the combination,"
she says, "and don't let him rush you. Collect him
sharply coming around the turn after the water jump,
and if you get past the oxer and you're still clear,
hold him back and take it easy because you've already
got it even if you take a time fault."
I nod and look across the arena at the judges because
I know that already. We can take eight faults
and still tie for first, and if we get none or four we've
done it, and nobody else has a hope. Marjory is still
talking and I nod impatiently and just want to start
because Harry and I are going to explode with the
excitement of it all, and we're ready, we're ready, oh,
we're ready. But I know it's not Marjory who gets to
decide so I try to remember to breathe and ignore her
and suddenly it's easy, as though I'm in a wind tunnel
and all of everything beyond Harry and me is on
the outside.
Then I get the signal and I think that it's time to
go -- think it, that's all -- and Harry goes, walking
forward so deep on the bit his nose is pressed to his
chest, and as we step into the arena I can see our
shadow on the ground and his tail on end like a flag.
The man on the PA introduces us -- Annemarie
Zimmer on Highland Harry, with a commanding
lead and yadda yadda yadda -- but no one's paying
attention because they're staring at Harry. No gasps
or murmurs this time, not on day three, but then
someone goes and wrecks it because I hear some
bastard man say, "Now there goes a horse of a different color," and I know from that one remark that he's
missed days one and two and I hate him because I
know he feels clever for the remark. But I suppose
I'd say it too, since you don't see many or any striped
horses out there, and before Harry I never knew such
a thing existed, but here he is, and there's no denying
that. Not today. Not here.
I hear the whistle and press my calves against him
and we're off. Harry shoots forward like a coiled
spring, so compressed his haunches feel like they're
right under me.
I tighten my fingers, No, no, no Harry, not yet, I'll
let you, but not yet, and his ears prick forward, together
this time, and he says, All right, and gives me a
collected canter that feels like a rocking horse, so high
on the up and so low on the down. And we rock
around the corner and approach the first jump and he
asks me, Now? And I say, No, and he says, Now? And
I say No, and then a stride later I can tell he's about to
ask again, but before he can I say Yes, and he's off and
I don't have to do anything else -- won't have to until
we're over and on the other side, and then I'll just
have to ask him again, and he'll do it because he loves
me and we're one.
There's the flap-flap-flap of leather on leather, the heavy incalzando of hoofbeats, da-da-DA, da-da-DA,
da-da-DA, and then a massive push, a hundred thousand
compressed pounds exploding forth before --
Silence. As we arc over the fence, the only parts of
me in contact with anything are my calves and hands
and the balls of my feet although it looks like I'm lying
on him, so forward am I and curved around his
neck with my face alongside where his mane would be if it weren't braided into a row of nubby topknots.
And then bang! We've landed, and as soon as his
front hooves make contact with the ground I'm back
in the saddle and we're headed toward the brick wall
and it's perfect. I can tell we're going to be clear because that's just the way it is.
We're flying now, and it's a wonder to me that we
touch the ground at all because clearly we don't need
to over one, two, three more fences. I lose remembrance
of the order of it but don't need to remember because I feel it ...
Continues...
Excerpted from Riding Lessons
by Sara Gruen
Copyright © 2004 by Sara Gruen.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
