one
everyone’s off at a horse show except myself and james and another stable hand and I’m scheduled to ride a hot headed little chestnut ex-racehorsed/polo pony. I usually hack out with his nervous owner hauling on his mouth and moving at best, a restrained trot, while I ride one of the full livery horses- once I encourage her to a quiet canter through a wooded loop on the downs early in the morning and I think they might have a chance. Amanda and AG follow me and Archie the piebald cob through the shade and hedgerows and rabbits run into the blackberry bushes and the sun is out and everyone is enjoying themselves.
But Amanda is absent and so are the show riders and head girl and competent T and James puts me on AG for an afternoon hack. I’ve worked my way up here from my first UK ride on Cromwell, an old sway backed liver chestnut who I was put on as a test for my first ride at Woodruff. Cromwell’s back is so crooked and wide that riding him at a canter is like sitting on a couch on the back of a swaying double decker bus- he’s old but he takes the bit in his teeth and puts his head down and bulls forward until we almost hit the white rails. From there I rode all the ponies and solid horses and worked my way up to my favorites- the kind of hard ones.
AG is largely considered one of the hard ones. Amanda is so timid and AG is so forward and so through-bred oriented that the staff have to be cautious not to let him have his head, lest he run off with Amanda on board one day. A former Polish stable girl galloped him at the exact same spot on the Downs every ride out that when his hooves hit the sand, no matter who was on board, he’d remember his racing days and prance and snort and plunge forward. and so we are forbidden from letting him get out his beans.
James is on Dicky, a big, floppy eared bay moron who can turn himself inside out bucking, A is on my dependable cob friend Archie, and I’m jogging along on slim little AG, across Headley Road and down the lane toward Langley Vale, past Chalk Farm and out onto the Downs. AG is a perfect gentleman, a phrase the seller used when he sold him to Amanda. The penny shiny gelding is a dream, but not suitable for an amateur rider. With a light hand his mouth is electric. He jiggles the bit in his mouth and steps out off the leg, forward into the contact, just like you want. Contentedly, his head drops and his ears bounce from side to side, taking in the world. When we hit the sand gallops James moves out at a brisk trot, which AG eagerly matches- it’s easy to feel the current running through him. The gallops must evoke something of the old racehorse in him. He perks up at the rails and the footing but is still polite. I’ve since ridden racehorses that spun in excited circles as soon as they hit sand or took off, ripping arms out of sockets, as soon as they hit the sand. But AG and I converse silently. “No,” I say with my seat, posting slowly, sitting deep, leaning back. “Not yet.”
There’s so many ways we could go. Sometimes we go out up Walton Downs or to Tattenham Corner and tie up the liveries while we get a pint in the garden. Sometimes we ride up the gallops parallel to the grandstand, a gamble if you’re on an OTTB remembering their racing days. But today we turn left to cut up The Hill. The Derby is passed and the grounds are clear of caravans and bare knuckle boxers and travelers who grab at the bridle of my mount and ask “How much for the colored mare?” and James takes off at an uphill gallop shouting, “Come on, then!” I start to shout back, “I’m not allowed!” and he says back, holding Dicky back, “I’m in charge today. Let him run” so I sit up in my seat and give the copper gelding his head and we’re off, uphill, in the most beautiful gallop.
There are wildflowers all around on the summer grass of the downs and The Hill is so steep it’s a green plain before me with the distant thin blue line of the sky at the top- Dicky is moving his huge bulk at a remarkable speed in front of us and behind us I catch a glimpse of Archie boogying uphill with Amy barely hanging on and I look back in front of us and hold on. “Let him out!” James says back without looking. “This is just a lovely little picnic!” so I let the reins out another notch and move my hands up AG’s neck and trust. Every motion is absolutely synchronized. My center of balance over his pitching back on the uphill slant changes every second, but my hands are moving with his neck and my thighs are up out of the saddle and it’s simultaneously so precarious and precisely perfect. Sometimes riding a Thoroughbred full tilt is not like this, a silent conversation, anticipated, instantaneous communication. Sometimes its a fight to maintain control, sometimes its the barest understanding of each others language, a light speed, death defying journey in which your bodyweight is held by two slim aluminum bars. But today, as James has promised, it’s a lovely picnic.
We pull up at the top of The Hill and as James had planned all along, the geldings are all tired from the steep gallop and give no protest at being reined in. We move down past the grand-stand at a collected trot and when we turn back to come through the woods north of The Warren, James coaches us through contact and collection. With lots of leg on heavy Archie, Amy pushes him up and he moves beautifully in frame for a few moments before both tire. AG and I prance under the overhanging branches- he wants still to run but he transfers that energy into what I’m asking from him, his mind and body engaged in the task at hand.
Later, after I left England (regretfully- turns out the horse industry in Canada is significantly more exclusionary) AG took off on the Downs with Amanda on board, quickly dumped her and impaled himself on a broken 5 bar gate in his frenzy. He took off toward the Langley Vale golf course, reins dangling and bleeding profusely from a gaping chest wound, and was ultimately euthanized by a police officer in somebody’s back garden. I can’t help but think if he’d been in a home with a more confident rider and allowed to run on a regular basis, this never would have happened.