The starting box

One of my favorite classes to enter in horse shows in Kenya is called "Team Gamblers". I'd never heard of it before, though it may be common all over the world for all I know. Horse-rider teams of three -- chosen in some wildly non-transparent manner by the people who do these sorts of things -- start out in a square box inside the show-jumping arena. The box is defined by ground poles. The horses often don't know each other and may not like each other. Inside the box, the origin of the phrase "in a fine lather" becomes perfectly plain.

Outside the box is an array of obstacles of different heights and with different freak-out factors. Fake Flowers! Painted Bricks! Scary Stripes! Each has a point value. A bell rings, and the first horse comes out of the box and starts jumping as many obstacles with as high a point value as the rider thinks possible, at the fastest speed the pair can manage. The obstacles may be jumped in either direction and more than once. The bell rings again, horse #2 comes out of the box, horse #1 returns, horse #3 has a mild nervous breakdown while remaining in the box on pain of disqualification. The bell rings again. Horse #3 LEAPS out of the box and tears around like a mad thing (with luck, some productive jumping gets slotted in). Horse #2 returns to the box. Horse #1 tries to bite a chunk out of Horse #2, just for something to do. The final bell rings. Horse #3 crosses an imaginary finish line (or forgets to cross it, disqualifying the team). The team with the highest point total wins.

I love it because it is everything that my late-life approach to riding is not, most of the time. It is not cautious. It does not count strides. It does not think neatness counts. It's all about speed, height, and adrenaline. And I love it because it sums up the joyfully competitive spirit of Kenyan horses and riders.

Why ride? It's a question I ask myself all the time, and I think one of the answers is that it's a way to put deliberate danger into life. Which is not a very good reason on the face of it, but seems to be necessary for me. Maybe my chestnut mare is the balding accountant's red Ferrari or the tenured professor's racing boat...Well, let's not go there.