Dressage Queen Goes Rogue

Preparations for the Ride & Tie World Championships began the week before with weighty deliberations. The primary agenda item? Which knee-high socks to wear to prevent chafing in the saddle. The neon green ones with bright red mushrooms embroidered on them? Or our tried and true rainbow striped ones from our only previous Ride & Tie event? The decision had nothing to do with how we would complete the race and everything to do with how good we looked in the photos.

In the end, we settled on a pair of neon striped leg warmers, which would not only photograph well but would allow us to wear regular running socks with our sneakers. Voila! A perfect pairing of vanity and function. On a short practice ride before race day, our mount Courage proved himself to be fresh, fit, and ready to tackle a tough course. My partner, Siobhan, proved herself ready to ride like the wind, quite an improvement from her floppy intro into riding one year ago. On a 3-mile downhill single track, I yelled ahead to rein them both in. Tomorrow was race day, after all, and we had no business tearing like hellions on a practice run. Spouting advice like the consummate dressage trainer I am, I lectured Siobhan to take it easy with Courage, keep his heart rate low, feel for any unevenness in his stride, and all sorts of other details.

By 7:30am on race morning, I had consumed enough coffee to forget about the pain in my lower back from sleeping in a tent. I was focused on one thing: having a controlled start with Courage and keeping my team at a sensible, reasonable pace. It was already a stretch for this Dressage Queen's comfort zone to be suiting up in a riding outfit comprised of Lycra tights and striped leg warmers, never mind the fact that our "warm-up" included a river crossing and narrow trail through some brambles. We strapped on our helmets and headed to the starting line-- an unmowed meadow at the bottom of a fire road that headed straight uphill. Being the more experienced rider on our team, I would ride Courage for the start; Siobhan would start on foot. We anticipated that Courage might get a little wild, as is normally the case at a starting line of an endurance event. My strategy for these kinds of situations is not so much about what I intend to do but more about avoiding what EVERYONE ELSE is doing. The leaping grey Arabian to my right, for example? I already have an exit strategy, should he head this direction. Same thing goes for the rearing bay and the frantically prancing brown one, too. As the officials count down to start time, my primary goal becomes survival. If I can survive this meadow scene, the race might actually be fun. I give Siobhan a meek wave on the hillside above. Someone shouts "GO!" and we're off. Courage is perfectly composed under me, listening, obedient, eager.

Right as we are clambering up out of the meadow, flanked by snorting, crazed horses, I feel something unexpected happen inside. Suddenly, I feel like a teenager again, full of spunk and speed and who-cares-if-my-horse-is-on-the-bit. After lecturing my partner yesterday about pacing and our necessity for a cautious start, I am leaning forward like a jockey, pushing my heels into Courage's sides. He moves out faster and we are now chasing the front runners up the fire road. I give him another squeeze and he offers more speed. Now, we're flying fast enough to make a thundering sound. And I am surprisingly in heaven. My form stinks, Courage is definitely not on the bit, and we are careening around turns like a barrel racer.

For the next three hours, I never resemble a dressage rider. I am the horse-obsessed teen with two gears: fast and faster. I am the grinning, flopping girl somewhere unrecognizably between posting trot and two-point position. Courage's spirit never lags, nor do his gentlemanly qualities. He is a racing machine. Siobhan and I trade places, running and riding. Inspired by Courage, we both try to run like the track stars we never were but might still become. We streak through the vet check with ease and then begin the steep second loop of the 22-mile course.

I let Courage walk parts of the hill as he huffs and puffs and climbs his way to the ridge top of Humboldt Redwoods State Park, a place so high and remote that your only company is the whooshing sound of wind through the trees and a lone bobcat. Standing in the stirrups, I grab a handful of mane to lean my weight forward off Courage's back. Eventually, the trail opens into a field spotted with white wildflowers. Across a narrow valley to our left, three hillsides fold into each other thick with Redwoods.

This is sublime, I think. Late morning sun warms my face, drying my salty forehead.

Courage gives his head a shake, his signal that it's time to pick up the pace again. We speed down a single track that curls back and forth like a ribbon through a thick forest. Courage leans into the turns like a motorcycle racer cornering at the track. We dart left-right-straight, left-right-straight. I was 10 years old the last time I let a horse lean into turns like this, before learning about bend and balance, inside leg and outside rein, poll flexion and all that fancy stuff I have honed for the past 20 years. Briefly, I consider asking Courage for more balance and less speed on these turns. But the thought disappears as quickly as it arose.

Gone is my inner dressage rider. Gone is the woman who trains horses for a living. In her place is a trail-loving rag doll in the saddle. A girl whose cheeks are cramping from smiling so much. A rider with neon rainbow leggings and running shoes.

I give Courage's neck an affectionate rub as he negotiates tree roots and hops over a ditch. I love this horse. But not for the reasons I typically would-- that he has a smooth sitting trot, that he shows aptitude for collection and flying changes, or that lateral work comes easily to him. No, I actually love this horse because he's none of that. He's all trail horse and that's it. He's a trail-winding, hill-climbing, river-crossing, hoof-thundering trail horse that reminds me how exhilarating it feels to ride a horse like him. Courage reminds me about a different kind of harmony than what we arena riders seek. For one, he reminds me not to take myself so seriously or obsess over details.

Siobhan, Courage, and I speed to the finish line in 2 hours and 50 minutes, hooves and neon stripes flying. All of us feel strong and giddy, like we could have kept our pace all day through those Redwoods. Hopefully, we will have the chance to some day. For now, I've pulled on my breeches and boots again to resume life as a dressage trainer, albeit a much looser and smiley cheeked one. My horses here at the training center undoubtedly appreciate Courage's affect. Sometimes we need these little reminders, whether they be a silly horse show, a trail ride, a group outing, to refresh why we love this life with horses so firmly, so unshakably.

Monkey See Monkey Do

I’ve often heard that people choose pets that look like them. And while I’ve never actually decided whether my friends’ dogs look like them, I can attest that their pets do eventually act like them. With enough time, a pet will take on the characteristics of its owner, for better or for worse. Horses have proven this repeatedly to me over the years.

I’ve seen perfectly well-mannered horses under everyday circumstances turn into basket cases the moment they hear their owner’s car in the driveway. Suddenly, they’re pawing at the wall, pacing circles, chewing the wood from their stall doors. It’s as if the presence of their owner unleashes a spoiled personality that is otherwise dormant.

Likewise, I’ve witnessed stolid and steadfast mounts turn into spooky freaks once their owners mount up for a ride. It never fails to amaze me, though I should have become quite used to it by now. Like it or not, our animals mirror us. They take on our neuroses, our strengths, our weaknesses, and everything in between.

And sometimes it’s uncanny how little we want to admit that. I recall a few years ago riding a client’s young mare and having a productive schooling session when the client raced in the driveway, kicking up clouds of dust behind her sports car. She spilled out of the car, eyes bulging from a day of stress at the office, clutching a cell phone in one hand and a large extra-caffeinated mocha from Starbucks in the other.

She was using the speaker function of her phone to have a conversation with her ex-husband that used volumes of profanity I hadn’t heard since high school.

Anyway, before I knew it, she was in the arena with me (having put the ex-husband on mute) and wanted to ride her horse. Mentally, I came up with a dozen immediate reasons that amounted to a bad idea. Against my better judgment, I told her that would be fine if she could take five minutes and settle herself down. To her, that meant finishing her mocha and setting down her keys.

Before I knew it, I was giving this stressed-out, hyped-up woman a leg up on her young unsuspecting horse. Needless to say, within moments, the horse mirrored the woman, even without the ingestion of a 16-ounce mocha. It began darting around the arena, jumping out of its skin, and—I’m not kidding—its eyes bulged, just like its owner’s.

The woman wanted to know what was wrong. I gently pointed out that the horse had picked up on her frenzied state and was absorbing that energy, causing it to be unsettled. Of course this made no sense to Ms. Starbucks. Horses are horses, she said. As if they are completely dead to sensory input. No, I reminded her, horses are like their owners.

Fortunately, this can work favorably. My trainer friend Mark Schuerman is one of the calmest, unflappable people I’ve ever met. After two months in his barn, any horse takes on his quiet nature. It’s like a magical transformation, an osmosis of sorts. I was deeply grateful for this fact six years ago when I had just moved to California.

I shared a barn with Mark, who trained exclusively Arabians at the time. For some reason he had a fondness for these otherwise high-strung animals that became docile puppies under his hand. Being reputable in the Arabian world, he was invited to give a short riding performance at the Western States Horse Expo, the largest horse exposition on the West Coast that regularly attracts 65,000 or more spectators over one weekend in June. Mark was honored. He would ride one of his most prancing, gorgeous, bay Arabs under spotlights in the late-night ticketed show. He agreed to it with enthusiasm.

Then he got a hot date for that same night. But he didn’t want to let down his fans from the Arabian community, so he held his commitment to do the Expo gig by recruiting yours truly to ride his horse. I agreed without further thought because, first of all, I had no idea what I had gotten into and secondly, I knew Mark really wanted to go out with this attractive blonde woman. So, there you have it.

A few weeks later, I found myself mounted atop an increasingly nervous Arabian gelding squeezed into a crowd of roughly 100 other demonstration riders on equally nervous horses in the pitch black scrambling around on pavement while we each awaited our turn to blast into the main arena for five minutes of glory.

There’s much I don’t remember about that evening. What I do remember is that the act preceding my ride was a mounted shooting demonstration, which meant that while I waited with my snorting Arabian outside the arena’s main gate, a dozen or more out-of-control riders galloped around inside shooting pistols at balloons until they all popped. I’m not sure if it was the gunfire, my sudden nausea, or all the yelling and screaming, but my horse was quickly coming unglued.

I tried dialing Mark on my cell phone to tell him not only was I not going into that arena, but this night marked the end of our friendship, too. Before the call went through, though, a rearing giant Friesian stallion streaked across the pavement towards me, slid on his shoes, and rammed into my horse’s backside. That itself would have been startling enough. But the horse and his rider, a wanna-be—eighteenth century knight, were entirely decked out in chain mail armor. The more the horse reared, the more his armor clanked and rattled, which added further mayhem to the gunfire in the arena.

It was at this point that I realized I’d not ever drawn up a will. It became clear that I would not survive the evening alive and I was chanting to myself “huh, so this is how it ends…” when I remembered that the only thing in my favor was the fact that I was on top of a horse Mark had trained.

This meant that even with the Friesian stallion attacking us from behind and gunfire in front of us that things might turn out fine if I just acted like Mark. So, in spite of my chattering teeth and trembling bones, I did just that. And my horse reflected it. Albeit a little nervous, the horse kept himself composed. Someone swung open the arena gait, and we cantered in under huge spotlights in front of a crowd of a couple thousand people. We floated as if on air, as if my life hadn’t just passed before me moments earlier.

Part of me thanked Mark for being such an exceptional horseman. The other part wanted to hunt him down on his date and tell him I would never again ride at an event with both gunfire and horses.