I wished that Gus were right here, right now, but he was making his way toward the ring, slowly this time, navigating high-volume horse traffic with the wheelchair. Gorton was about to follow Gus when I managed to cut in front of him, nearly knocking him off balance.
“Hey,” Gorton said.
“I got this,” I said.
“Who do you think you’re talking to?”
“Somebody I used to work for.”
“There’re some things I need to say to your mother,” he said.
“Get in line,” I said.
SIXTY-THREE
THERE WERE SO MANY horses in the ring, so much of the round incomplete, I couldn’t spot her at first.
Then I saw her crouched in a far corner, taking deep breaths, her shoulders rising and falling, as Emilio passed behind her with Sky.
“I need to get down there,” Gus said.
“Me first,” I said.
“I’m the one training her now,” he said.
“I’m her daughter.”
I made my way along the outside of the ring and when I reached her I hopped the fence. She didn’t see me at first.
“Hey,” I said.
She looked up, as if startled. There were red blotches on her cheeks. Eyes a mess. She’d already taken off her hairnet and laid her helmet on the ground next to her.
“I just embarrassed myself out there in front of the whole world,” she said.
I waited.
“I can’t do this,” she said. “I was crazy to think I still could do this.” I wasn’t worried about her crying, not here, in front of everybody. She looked more like she wanted to fight somebody. Maybe herself.
Finally she said, “You want the horse back, he’s yours.”
She pulled herself to her feet.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” she said finally.
“Yeah,” I said. “Suck it up.”
SIXTY-FOUR
IT WAS MORE THAN a year since I’d been in this ring with Sky. It had been a much smaller event, on a Wednesday afternoon. But I’d never been with her under the lights on a Saturday night. Never even considered it until now.
I kept telling Daniel that I needed to see how Sky could handle the stage. But the truth was, I wanted to see how I could handle the stage, riding her now and not Coronado.
I wasn’t even going to start the Olympics process if I didn’t think we were both up to it. She’d always been my wonderful little horse. My baby. But now, maybe for one night only, we were about to dial things up. And, being competitive as hell, I wanted to do well tonight. Maybe even shock the crowd and the rest of the field and win. But I promised myself from the first time Sky and I had started showing that I’d never make her do something that I honestly thought she couldn’t.
Daniel and Emilio were with me in the gate. My mouth was suddenly as dry as the dirt on my boots. I could feel my hands shaking. Good nerves? Bad nerves? Who the hell knew, except that the horse ahead of us in the order had just finished its round. I took in the lights and the noise and the crowd and the atmosphere and even the excitement in the air, everything Daniel Ortega called “the moment.”
Of truth, maybe.
Eric Glynn came past me on his horse, Valance, having just gone double clean.
Time.
I knew I was being introduced, heard my name, nothing after that. Trying to block out the noise, trying not to think too hard on the moment.
Truth or dare.
We took the first part of the course like breezing through low-height jumps in a side ring on a weekday afternoon. I love this horse, I thought. I could always feel how hard she was trying, how she wanted to do well. Tonight she was even more dialed in, almost as if she knew how much was riding on this, for both of us.
Don’t tell me horses don’t know.
Not thinking about the Olympics now. Just riding my horse. We were here. We might as well go for it.
We came up on the first rollback. Sky was usually great on even the tightest rollbacks, maybe because she was small, and closer to the ground than a horse as big as Coronado. Sometimes the hardest turns for the bigger horses were the easiest ones for her.
But I didn’t rein her in enough, and she was suddenly drifting too far outside on an inside turn, Sky leaning so far to the left that I was afraid that we might go around the jump and not over it.
Pilot error.
Totally.
Sky nearly saved me. Tried her hardest to save me. Chipped up in time. Just not enough time. Took down the rail with one of her hind legs.
Shit.
I heard my voice inside my head: Don’t give up.
Still good advice.