Dante Is Our King

Dante and I cruise through the arena question. Photo by Jenni Autry. Dante and I cruise through the arena question. Photo by Jenni Autry.

A few days out from Fair Hill, I finally have a chance to take a deep breath and write my last two blog entries. The demands of a CCI are constant and consuming, so there’s rarely a chance to sit down and reflect.

On cross-country day, Dante and I were early in the order of go, heading out only an hour into the day. This gave me an opportunity to hear feedback about how combinations were riding, but not so much time that I worried myself sick over the issues that were occurring on course. I knew it would ride big and I knew it would ride tough. The course itself was nearly identical to last year’s, mostly including changes to the outs of each combination. In some ways, it was a touch softer, but I knew I couldn’t let my guard down just because I’d ridden around it once.

Last year, I naively set out to have a canter around, knowing that a non-qualifying dressage score had already busted my chance for a qualifier. I planned to pull up if we had a stop, but I didn’t really expect to have one. One thing I didn’t realize was that for Fair Hill to ride well, you had to attack the course. Instead, I piddled around, and while we had a clear go, Dante saved many an awkward combination through his sheer honesty, and I came off that course knowing it wasn’t I who had the clear round, but my lovely, generous horse.

Not this year. This year, I had a game plan, and I was going to go for it. We set out on cross country with guns blazing and Dante never let up, never gave me any indication he was tired. We hit our minute markers and began to inch up. Eventually, I wasn’t able to hear my watch over the crowds, so I just let Dante keep trucking at the pace he wanted to, balancing up for the gallop fences and riding balanced but forward for the combinations. When we were spot on through the arena question, I knew we were clicking.

The coffin was tough. It shouldn’t have been; it was the smallest and most straightforward combination on the course. At the time, I thought I had brought him back enough for the question. In retrospect, although I felt the drastic change from Dante’s normal gallop was enough change, it still wasn’t small enough for a series of fences that in no way backed him off.

Dante jumped in great, but then dropped a foot in the ditch, stumbling badly. He recovered quickly, but not quickly enough to jump well over the C element … so he jumped it awkwardly. It wasn’t very big, a small cabin on an angle, but his twisting dislodged me quite badly, and I found myself clinging to the side of his neck as he swept forward directly under a tree. I felt the leaves brush my face, gritted my teeth, and pulled myself back into the tack through sheer force of will.

On we galloped.

The rest of the course was absolutely amazing. Every spot was perfect, every line was perfect, all of our striding was perfect. We laughed at the combinations that were causing so many issues, tackling the angled brushes with ease. Even the final water rode in a perfect four to three, Dante plowing through water as if he had never fallen in the Plantation water jump a year ago.

At this point, I finally heard my watch again, and realized just how up we were on time. It’s never my intention to be the fastest round of the day; Dante is just quick and easy to ride on cross country. The lack of arguments can easily lead to a clear round. I’d offered him chances to slow down and take a breath, but he had practically refused them, darting forth after every fence as if it was still the first minute. Even after the final combination, once I realized we were so ahead on time, I tried to ease him off into a slower gallop, and it was a fight to do so. He finally acquiesed, but not with much grace.

He cooled out in his typical manner, respiration dropping rapidly, and temperature falling at a bit slower pace. Dante runs hot all year, which sometime can alarm the vets in the box, but is very typical for him. It’s very valuable to know your horse’s typical numbers for cooling down, particularly if they have an unusual pattern that gives vets pause. I was able to reassure the vet that everything she was telling me was normal for him. Sure enough, after a short period of time, he was very interested in trying to eat the grass and walking around politely.

After the long walk back to the stables, we set up Dante with his ice boots. He is very good about standing in them, so we can generally leave him alone in the cross ties while Brigitte and I tackled sorting and cleaning all of the tack used. We jogged him for my trainer after the first icing and he looked great. After three sessions of twenty in, twenty out of the ice, he was wrapped and allowed to have some down time. Through all of this, Dante was pretty proud of himself, digging through my tack trunk in search of treats and demanding very clearly to be fed part of our lunch (grilled cheese and ham!). He was king, and he knew it.

Last summer, while Dante spent time at Sprieser Sporthorse, we joked that he was getting in touch with his inner dressage king. Some geldings can be a bit queen-like, but Dante has never been a diva in any way, so king seemed to be the more appropriate term. Eventually this morphed into the hashtag #danteisourking, a play on a phrase from the Harry Potter books. And in so many ways, this is much more applicable to the second phase than the first. Even though he has seemed to settle in the dressage ring lately and learned to strut his stuff, he still reigns supreme on cross country.

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