A True Story: part 6

 

At his first show, Cosmo was Cosmopolitan again, “by Peron out of Celestia by Donauschimmer”, and we went down the centerline in the covered arena at Conyers to the sound of shuffling footfalls in the bleachers that were loud as gunshots. I had a nest of snakes in my belly, and the stress had turned my arms to overcooked spaghetti. Cosmo’s owner was watching down  at A with Mom and I had a moose antler Trakehner pin on my lapel that she’d given me.

“…X, halt, salute. X, proceed working trot…”

I was not prepared: for the bigness of the venue and the curiosity of the looks we were earning, for this overwhelming sense of responsibility – because the last time this horse had been at the Horse Park, he’d had a seasoned veteran and full-grown man astride him. And I was just a little girl with a red pony back home who had only just found out that dressage was not, in fact, “a bunch of fanciness”.

The red pony in question

 

We made fools of ourselves that day; Cosmo executing tempi changes down the long side during what was supposed to be a canter lengthening. But Cosmo was snorting and happy. The judge, bless her kindness, wrote, lovely changes, but not necessary at this level, on my test sheet and drew a smiley face beside it. And the most important part of all of it, my mom reminded me, was that Cosmo had gone from almost dead, to improvising a first level test.

The road to Conyers that day was a long one, full of hill work and stretching, trot poles and transitions, strength training and slow, slow, therapeutic steps forward. His workout regimen was careful, so careful, and we eased him into progress. I was patient with him, and he in turn was patient with me as I started my dressage education. The greater my understanding of the communication between horse and rider, the deeper I delved into all the philosophical and ideological components of the sport, the more I appreciated it. Loved it even. Dressage horses are gymnasts – their fitness, form and technique judged in a subjective way that has nothing to do with time faults or rail drop penalties – and we as humans guide them through a ballroom dance routine without words, instructional videos, demonstrations or ESP. It’s truly amazing.

Cosmo and his three best friends - he never grew a winter coat

 

And Cosmo was a fantastic listener. Long before we dared whisper “show” and know it was possible, Cozzy and I were hopelessly bonded. You couldn’t not love him. His giant head that he rubbed on you, those donkey ears and liquid eyes. He was afraid of nothing (save the vet) and was tame as a puppy dog. If you were at his stall, he wasn’t eating, he was visiting. If I went out to the pasture to scrub the water trough, it was never long before his mile-long shadow fell over me. I think he wished he was a Chihuahua and I could have carried him around in my purse. Never have I met a horse so genuinely sweet. I love all my horses, but they’ve all had their little quirks and hang-ups, their bad days and hot-button vices. Cosmo was almost too perfect to be real; and was smart as hell to boot.

As his muscle tone returned, it became clear, very quickly, that he remembered everything he’d ever been taught. He was a show-off, a worker, and he anticipated what I was asking of him. Kelly would talk me through a shoulder-in and when I began setting Cosmo up for it, he leapt right into one, even though my too-short legs were in the wrong place and I was hanging on the inside rein, my seat bones were all out of whack. Leg yields, half passes, flying changes – he was helping. “Oh, is that what you want? I can do that. It’s okay that you kinda suck, I’ve got this; just sit up there and I can do it.”

His favorites were trot extensions. There was no mistaking his gathering of muscles and happy little snorts for anything less than sheer exuberance. And half an ass or no, the boy could extend. He had that big-boned, foundation build and his extensions were the parallel, flat-kneed, locomotive bursts that some of the typier horses can only dream of.  Riding them felt like going over the drop on a roller coaster. Maybe it was just me wanting to personify him, but I swear he was always proud of himself afterward. It was his best trick, and he knew it.

Before our first official show, we tested the waters at a saddle club sponsored dressage fun show at Wild Horse Creek Park. It was a no-pressure, local, one day event: the perfect place to put all of our hard work to the test. Kelly and I had worked with Cosmo at home for almost a year and we couldn’t be happier with his comeback. The big sweet dope was a farm success story, and to me, he was just Cosmo; my surrogate pony. I wasn’t expecting the attention he would receive when we left the farm, and I certainly wasn’t ready for it.