I Love You Karen O'Connor
A platinum sponsorship package for Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event is $20,000. The cheapest sponsorship package, bronze, is $6,000. Both packages include grilled vegetables, sautéed snap peas, chicken paninis, tomato and herb soup, organic spinach salad, and an open bar with a bird's eye view of the main arena. Access to the sponsors' tent also includes an outside viewing area which was crowded with young ladies and gentleman, all sporting Ray Bans or Maui Jims.
I had a frosty glass of Belgian beer in one hand, a rum and coke in the other, and I was wearing a grin very similar to Bettina Hoy's, who had just scored a 28 and was leading the world by 14 points, when I saw Karen O'Connor.
"How did you get in here?" She asked.
"Through the kitchen in the back" I replied, having absolutely no idea whether she would think this was funny or brave. Perhaps if I had not had the rum I would have known how she would react.
Karen must have come straight from the trade fair where she and husband David had been scheduled to sign autographs at the Practical Horseman booth. I had walked by two hours ago and had been surprised to see a line of eager kids and patient parents stretching and twisting and blocking traffic. I knew the O'Connors had fans, but the atmosphere was more like the comeback tour of New Kids on the Block than a horseshow. Most of the kids held magazines or books to be signed; most popular was Life in the Galloping Lane, a chronicle of David and Karen's life. I recognized the blue and green cover because I had been given a copy when I arrived at the O'Connor's farm in Ocala, Florida in February.
Throughout my stay I retained a confidence in my riding that was not always justified by reality. In my first jumping lesson with David, on Danny, one of his favourite horses, I crashed through an oxer that threw me out of the stirrups and up onto his neck. I could have reached down and grabbed Danny's ears if I had wanted to. David did not say anything; he simply lowered the jump and had me come again. However, it would be a long time before he had me jump that height again.
Karen, on the other hand, says exactly what's on her mind. At a small schooling day at a neighbour's farm one weekend I was walking Danny, who was quickly becoming my favourite horse, when Karen slowed her horse to a walk and asked me how he was doing.
"Perfect!" I said.
"Perfect. Perfect? What do you mean? People are way too quick to use the word perfect."
"He was fairly good," I corrected myself.
"Perfect is way too often used, people just throw it around, sort of like the words ‘I love you'. Now how is he?"
"He is forward and sound, and very well behaved" I answered trying to ignore the growing crowd.
There were two days in April when I could not do anything right. Minor incidents that when taken together earned me a stern lecture from Karen on the importance of horsemanship. There was the time I sat on the grass and scared a horse that was being shown to a potential buyer. Then there was the time I led a horse out of the barn and almost straight into another horse that was supposed to be jogging for the vet, but was instead rearing and causing havoc. There was also the time I was cleaning stalls and missed seeing a cut on a horse's knee. These mistakes, luckily, did not end with mishap or misfortune. But in dealing with horses it is not enough to be alert and attentive ninety-nine percent of the time.
Horsemanship is more than simply riding or horse care. It's not about doing flying changes or learning to braid, although it may include those things. It is an almost indefinable ability to understand and be aware of horses. Just the way a musician can hear and understand written music before it is played, so a horseman can predict how horses will act in certain circumstances. Horsemen realize that on one hand all horses react in certain predictable ways, yet on the other hand every horse is unique. Great horsemen have fewer accidents, more trust from their animals and ultimately greater success.
After my horsemanship lecture with Karen I decided to go clean tack - a relatively harmless task that I enjoyed because the tack room was often cool and quiet. I grabbed the first bridle, from a group of eight or nine, and started cleaning with a wet sponge. The leather was newly wet, and I was still hoping for a few minutes to myself when Karen and some other riders started congregating in the tack room as well. It was too late to leave and so I just stayed quiet and wished I was a little smaller. Karen looked at me and made a joke about something. I must have looked at her in complete shock because she said "What?! Can't I be nice to you after I'm mean?". "I guess you can" was all I could come up with. But a smile reappeared, unbidden on my face, and with it my confidence.
Some trainers have a structure that they follow for every horse, but Karen believes that training a horse is like creating a painting; every painting follows certain broad ideas and goals, yet every one follows its own unique path to that end.
She has a way of explaining and simplifying concepts that I connected with. In my first lesson with her she taught me the four cross country positions - galloping, preparation, jumping and drop - and the four rider responsibilities - line of direction, speed, balance and rhythm. She described how by standing in the stirrups at a gallop a horse will feel the change in balance and feel the slight increase in wind resistance causing it to slow down. She taught me how the stirrup should be slightly further back on the foot and how the stirrup leather should remain perpendicular to the ground, even over jumps and down banks.
Until that point I assumed that cross-country was a faster, longer version of show jumping. My whole body position changed, my mindset changed, but I felt right at home. I had the ability to get around even the biggest jumps. I did not do everything perfectly the first time, but the second or third time I did. I had the skill, but not the experience. I could do what I was told, but I hadn't figured it out for myself yet.
Karen has more aptitude and experience than most, but she did not have a horse to compete on at Rolex; only last year she had five horses that qualified. Karen also won Rolex three times in the nineties (David has also won Rolex three times). But Eventing is known for the dangers to both horse and rider, and it is not unheard of to go from having a large string of horses to having none. I imagined that Karen must be feeling very left out right now. But between coaching other athletes, participating in presentations and making time to meet some of the younger athletes and fans that had come to watch, she was making the best of it.
Despite her fame, or perhaps because of it, Karen is one of the most honest people I have met. And so I should not have been surprised in the sponsor tent that day at Rolex when she looked me straight in the eye and said, "Bad form!"
The rum made it a little hard for me to realize that she was serious, and although my stomach turned over, my smile remained a moment longer than it should have.
Karen glanced at my drinks, and then looked back at me.
"Really bad form".
I stood awkwardly next to her table, frozen, unable to decide whether to apologize or sprint for the nearest exit, while she sat with her friends and sponsors watching the mega-screen. She turned back to me after the next rider had finished. I was sweating and didn't even register who was on the TV. She smiled and said "Well, I guess your excuse is that you're from Canada. You better sit down and join us!"
I could feel my pulse in the palm of my hand that was holding the beer. I sat down and stared at the TV, not seeing anything. Nobody paid much attention when I left a couple minutes later. I did not go in again.
Later I remembered how after that first country lesson with Karen, I'd hosed off Danny, cleaned my tack, and returned to mindlessly raking leaves. I kept my mind occupied by replaying the lesson over and over again in my head. I could feel my body lean back and my legs go forward as Danny dropped into the water. I slipped the reins, and then gathered them again as Danny balanced himself underneath me. Then the five strides on a bending line to the skinny, slight opening left hand. Land, balance, go forward... I didn't realize Karen was approaching me on her golf cart until she was already beside me. She rolled to a stop and looked at me. "Great job today! I think you may have found your destiny".
I hope she was talking about my riding and not the orderly piles of brown leaves. Just like Karen I would rather be riding around Rolex than watching it on the mega-screen. However I realize that those few minutes of riding in the arena, beneath the watchful eyes and tanned faces of the sponsors in the white tent, are not what this year is about. Instead I am learning the thousands of details that precede that point. I am learning about the journey.
