King and I were among the first at the arena on Friday, since it was my job to open stalls, turn on electrical hookups, and various odds-and-ends that kept me running from 10 AM until I fell asleep that night. My knee, which was hurt in August 2009 during horse swimming when I wrongly dismounted a bucking horse onto an iron ore rock, is doing much better but still gets very weak and tired easily. By mid-afternoon, I had enough of a break that I was able to throw a saddle on King and warm him up. It was the first time he'd ever seen a covered arena, much less one with three big fans rotating above him and throwing strange shadows across the dirt. He didn't care about any of it--he was just glad to get out of the stall. He walked, trotted, extended trotted, and loped all across the arena, and once satisfied that he didn't care and would work well, we rode out.
To give my leg a break, I spent the next hour doing my Arena Manager duties mounted. Mounted on King's back, he and I would ride up to stalls and unlock then,plus ride to breaker boxes and flip breakers to turn the power on and off. It was boring work, particularly to him whose job was pretty much hurry-up-and-wait while I worked the locks, but the grass he got to munch on while working the breakers seemed to make it worth it.
Saturday is our long day, and our slow day. We start off with Frontier Period and Native American costume, followed by Halter & Color, ending with Green Pleasure and Tejas Pleasure. King and I dressed up for costume, with me sporting a pirate costume and him a rope bosal with a brass and copper anchor lamp hanging from it. This was our story:
The pirate Maria Delgado, perhaps recalled as being the pirate who stole a cowboy's horse, was sad to announce that the good ship Kelpie had perished. After going down off the coast of North Carolina, Maria and the other survivors swam across to the beach of Corolla, where wild horses lived freely and not much else. But just because they are land-locked doesn't mean they won't be pirating. Maria caught one of the wild horses, using ropes from the ship, and hung the Kelpie's anchor lamp from the halter. At night she would lead the horse up and down the beach, the swinging motion of the lamp giving the illusion of another ship and tricking other ships at sea into coming to close to the islands. Those that survived the wrecks didn't for very long, and Maria and her cohorts would take whatever cargo the ships had been carrying.
Our costume not only won our class, but also Grande Champion Froniter Period Costume.
However, what I am likely most proud of from Saturday is King's halter win. Our class was "O" Aged Stallions, easily the hardest halter class to judge at the National. The entries in this class were Under the Sun (Locomotion/Lady Madonna), Northern Song aka Cajun (El Tigre Segundo/Kiowa Windsong), Builing a Mystery aka BAM (Rowdy Yates/Liona), Timber Ghost (Beetlejuice/Little Corn), and CWH The Sea King.
King placed Second, beating almost all of the documented pedigree horses, including the famous NATRC National Champion BAM.
In our Pleasure Class, Green Pro Pleasure (a class designed for horses under saddle a year or less, and ridden by people who have trained horses professionally at some point) it was only us and Jerry Hilligoss on 4-year-old Illya Kuryakin, who'd had less than 12 rides. King beat Illya, even though I was sure he'd been off-lead at the lope more than Illya. Judge Curtis George laughed at that.
"I couldn't tell," he admitted, "I would think he was off-lead, look a little closer, and he would do a flying lead change onto the correct lead. He was constantly switching leads." The Corolla's athleticism made me doubly proud.
Sunday was a lot faster. Trail, and then the four speed events. The pattern for the trail class was challenging, but fast-paced. Trot while weaving four poles; trot over four cavaletti; stop at the mailbox and get the mail; pull a drag several feet; pick a bucket up off a barrel and circle two barrels, then pit the bucket back; ride into a "dead end", then back out; and, finally, trot to a cone and stop.
I sighed. King's a great boy, but I assumed we would completely blow some of this. Particularly the drag. He'd never drug anything before, and there was a reason King's nickname was Chicken of the Sea. We'd just do our best.
He handled the poles like a pro, and while he bumped one of the cavaletti he handled it well. he stood like a rock for the mailbox. Then came the drag. Mike Halupa handed me the rope as safely as he could, trying to keep King from seeing it.
It failed.
"Easy, boy," I soothed as he eyed the Navajo blanket we were about to be pulling. He gave it suspicious looks as we started off. I tried to keep him from looking at it, but he insisted that it wasn't to be trusted and needed to be intensely stared at.
Other than that, nothing. Nada. No jumping, no snorting, no bolting--just giving a piece of cloth the evil eye while he walked along.
After that, everything was a breeze. He didn't do so good a the back, which didn't surprised me as we still need to work on that, but he aced everything else.
Our first speed event was Forest Escape, and King criss-crossed the arena like an old hand, making the turns and loping easily into each "gate". Until we got to the second to last one. We made the turn to wide, and were going to run over one of the poles, which added an extra 10 seconds onto our time. Thinking quick, I sat back and demanded he stopped instantly from a hard lope.
He stopped with his chest against the pole, but without knocking it over. We continued with a clean run.
Next was one of the hardest events of the show, Torching the Prairie. It's Backfiring the Prairie meets Keyhole Race. A giant circle of lime, with an inner circle full of brush. You enter the outer circle, toss the "torch" into the brush, and ride out without touching the line.
Guess who never thought twice about it?
Then came Cherokee Ribbon Race. Well, we were going to blow this. We had been practicing on riding close enough to another horse to easily hold the ribbon, which scared King more than anything else, but I still had my doubts. I planned to team with a quiet, easy-going BLM mare named Cheyenne, and when adult came around, Jerry rode up to me on Under the Sun.
"I need a partner," he proclaimed.
"Do you wanna finish?" I asked. A dropped ribbon was a DQ in this event.
"Don't care if we do, so long as we run like hell," he said, and offered me the ribbon. King had only ever done Cherokee Ribbon successfully at a walk or trot.
I sighed. "I warned you," and took the other end. I told them that this only counted for Sun's time, as I was very sure we'd never finish.
Sometimes I like being wrong.
King stuck to Sun almost like glue, needing little correction or compensation on Jerry and Sun's part. Everyone who'd been watching the little Corolla all weekend as shocked. He was sweet, yes, and smart, sure, and lovely and cute as button, but fast? No one would have guessed that one.
We still ran with Cheyenne and Mick Rodgers, faster than I had originally planned but slower than with Sun. We still placed with a 6th. Sun got 2nd. I kicked my butt for not taking the first time.
Pony Express we also ran with Sun, and though it took us a moment to pull off the hand-off of the saddle bags, we did it good enough for me.
When the show was over, however,King and I re-entered the ring, along with Mary Margaret Tunks with CWH Whispering Jessie. My mother, Vickie Ives, then did a presentation on the Corolla horses, telling the amazing story of their ocean-side home and the trials that they face today. Mary Margaret and I showed off our Corollas, and when it was over King did Pony Rides for children, one as young as three. I gave King to Mom soon after.
"People still want to ride him," I told her, "But they need me to do tabulations."
She nodded and took care of him while I helped wrap up the show.
While I was cleaning the arena, I saw Mom riding him again. "We let the adults get on," she said, "Scott Nellis rode him"--Scott being Cajun's owner and rider--"and Jennifer Maddox." Jennifer rides Magneto, a Broom/Esperanza son she'd taken to a National Placing of 1st Open Junior in NATRC on multiple occasions.
Both of them loved him. Scott ended up riding King twice, and Jen didn't want to get off, saying he was so much fun to ride Scott remarked that he didn't feel like he was riding a little horse at all.
Through-out the weekend, King and I were constantly asked about Corollas, what they were like, where they were from, and why they were different. He made an excellent little ambassador for his strain, and I was very proud to be his rider. But what I think we did most importantly this weekend was prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that yes, a Corolla is a pure Colonial Spanish Horse and, yes, they are every bit as good as you Jones', Brislawns, Belskys, and other long-time domesticated strains.
--By Tommi Grey
1 comment:
hooray!!!!!!!
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