Champion Horse by Jane Smiley Read Free Book Online Page A

school. It was in Kansas somewhere, which is right above Oklahoma, where my grandparents live. The front cover had a pretty drawing of a horse’s head at the top. I saw that it was illustrated by an artist named Sam Savitt. I had never heard of him – the books I had at home were illustrated by someone named C. W. Anderson.
    All the drawings in the book were of soldiers on horseback – they were wearing peaked caps and light-coloured jackets and ties, and they were sitting up as straight as could be. They were also all riding Blue, only as a bay or a chestnut, it looked like (they were pencil drawings, so they had no colour). It really was strange to look at the pictures, especially the one that illustrated how you were supposed to sit – the horse had large eyes, forward ears, graceful neck, head a bit long but slender. Blue’s spitting image. I, of course, turned to the section about jumping, and then to the section about refusing, running out, and rushing. It wasn’t very long. Right at the beginning, it read, ‘In order to stop at a jump, if he is going along at a good pace, he must lower his head.’ That seemed true, though I had thought Blue was lowering his head because he was staring at the jump, not to get away from my hands. The next words were in italics, so I knew they were important: ‘ Therefore with a refuser, contact must never be lost. ’Okay, I thought. ‘It is, however, very necessary that the hands follow the mouth while maintaining the heavier contact.’ I opened the front cover of the book and looked at the price. Five dollars. I had a dollar. I went back to reading. The part I didn’t like, on the next page, was about punishing the refuser. ‘The moment after a refusal occurs, the offender should be faced squarely up against the centre of the obstacle and punished sharply, just in the rear of the cinch, with the spurs or on the croup with the riding whip.’ I had not punished Blue after his refusal; I had just turned him around and headed him back over the fence, and he had jumped it. I couldn’t imagine jabbing Blue with spurs (I didn’t even wear spurs with him) or smacking him hard with the whip, but maybe I was going to have to do that.
    Then I read about running out, which was a type of refusing where, instead of stopping, the horse ducks to one side, left or right. According to the book, whichever side your horse ducked towards, you would never turn that way – you would always turn him back the way he didn’t want to go. While you were doing this, you were supposed to punish him with the spur on the same side you were turning towards. So let’s say Blue and I were cantering down towards a brush fence and veered to the right. I would turn him back to the left and punish him behind the girth with the left spur. If I had a left spur. I was glad that Blue did not run out, at least so far.
    The rushers were the scary ones. These were horses whose riders held them too tight as they went towards the fence, so the horse sped up and pushed forward in an attempt to get over the fence. Apparently, the worst thing you could do to a horse was hold him tight and kick him on, because he would get a little frantic. Then if you let go of his mouth over the fence, he would (or could) fall forward. If he was used to this, then in order not to fall, he would go faster. Even the thought of this made me nervous. I read, ‘To jump a rushing star-gazer is a dangerous ordeal. If he is rated, he cannot always see the jump, and if turned loose too late, a calamity is always imminent.’ I guessed that ‘rated’ meant held too tight. I slammed the book shut and thought of my list of rules. The fact was that jumping was fun, but it was also a lot harder than I had thought it was. What in the world was I doing, teaching Melinda and Ellen? Well, this was what – I was relying on Gallant Man always to be a good boy. I set the book down. I touched the one beside it, called Schooling Your Horse, but to be