A Good Horse by Jane Smiley Read Free Book Online Page B

down to the walk and walked past Ellen, she yelled, “I want that horse! Is that horse for sale? I love him! Stop! I want to pat him!”
    I stopped by the fence. She stretched out her hand and stroked his neck. Miss Slater marched over and stood in front of Ellen with her hands on her hips. She said, “Ellen Leinsdorf! You are being very naughty! Please don’t make me take you back to the big ring! I’m sure your mother is looking all over for you!”
    The expression on Ellen’s face said, “Let her look.” Just then, Daddy walked over and stood in front of Ellen. Daddy was not smiling, and I knew he was going to come up with something about honoring thy father and mother and “Obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord,” but instead, he said, “Ellen, how about if I walk you over to the parking lot, and if your mother is there, we can ask her to come over here and watch the horse.” Ellen jumped down from the fence and slid through it, between the two bottom slats. She might have been the smallest seven-year-old I’d ever seen. She put her hand in Daddy’s, which surprised him, and they started walking. As they crossed the arena, I could hear hertalking a mile a minute. Miss Slater said, “She’s not a naughty child, but she is stubborn as a tree stump. Now, Abby, while they’re gone, let’s try some flying changes.”
    Black George and I had worked on these, and when I paid attention, he was good. Even so, he was comfortable with whatever lead he happened to be on, no matter what direction he was going in, so there was no reason to change. I explained this to Miss Slater.
    “Well, Abby, he may not have a reason to change, but you do. The canter is an asymmetrical gait, and the legs launch and then catch the horse. If he’s on the proper lead—if his outside hind launches the step, then the inside hind and outside foreleg continue it, and finally the inside foreleg catches it. The inside foreleg steps farther forward so that the outside hind can come under and launch again. If he’s on the proper lead, his path to each jump will be straighter, safer, and also more in line with how the course designer has set it up. You want him to get to the jump and over it in the easiest way, and that means changing leads when he turns away from the direction he’s been going in.”
    She had me sit up straight and canter to the left, in a large loop. When I came across my path again, I was to use my right leg to get him to move a little sideways to the right, and touch him behind the saddle with my right heel. We knew he could change leads, the question was whether he would. Left to right was easier, and he did do it. It felt like a four-footed hop that then smoothed into a right-lead canter. I stopped him, and we did it again. Then we tried exactly the same thing starting to the right and changing to the left. We were both moreawkward at this. I didn’t sit up very straight, and he only changed his front legs. Miss Slater was patient. We tried again, me thinking, “Sit up! Sit up! One—sit up; two—move him over; three—touch him with the left heel!” He changed, and more smoothly than the times to the right, as if it wasn’t such a big deal. We tried again, missed again, then tried again, and had a good one.
    Miss Slater said, “It’s very much a question of being sensitive to the rhythm of the horse’s stride. Count the steps, sit up, ask for the change.” While I was thinking of this, Daddy returned without Ellen Leinsdorf. The look on his face said, “So long, it’s been good to know you,” which was an old song he sang around the barn sometimes. Miss Slater didn’t ask him anything about it.
    Instead, she pointed to the jumps in the field and said, “Abby, we are rather proud of our outside course, and I think you might like going over a few of those. I’m sure Black George will enjoy the open space, and most of those are fairly modest.” We walked to the coop in the fence line