Free Chancey of the Maury River by Gigi Amateau Page A

morning grain each day, I felt freer of pain than I had for some time. As Claire and I were not jumping too aggressively, I felt certain that I could tolerate well this degree of soreness and aches. Indeed, it would have been more painful to deny, to Claire or myself, the satisfaction of becoming a team.
    True, Claire and I were only jumping small eighteen-inch fences and, at most, a course of two outside lines. But it was a joy for me to be with Claire no matter what we were doing. We progressed easily from taking the little jumps at the trot to taking them at the canter.
    We quickly found that I needed to be very nearly completely retrained to jump. As a way of compensating for my poor eyesight, I had long refused or ducked out of jumps. As everyone now understood the reasoning, no one — not Mrs. Maiden, Mother, or Claire — seemed the least bit dissuaded from the effort it took to retrain me. My refusal behavior was treated as an entirely natural consequence of my visual impairment; no one accused me of a poor attitude or nasty temperament.
    The burden of retraining me fell primarily to Claire, under the guidance of Mrs. Maiden, and with the encouragement of Mother, who no longer kept up a pretense of reading or writing at the barn. In fact, Mother joined us in the ring by taking lessons, using Mac as her teacher. Mac rather enjoyed this phase of Mother’s. He is known to adore human females and is rather boastful of the fact that he has never, accidentally or with intent, allowed one to slip out of the saddle, even at times at his own peril. Mother and Mac got on sweetly. Though they did not train together as Claire and I did, they appeared to enjoy each other’s company, and Mother grew comfortable enough with Mac to call for the canter herself every now and then.
    The presence of Mac and Mother in the ring, along with Daisy and her new student, Ann, helped us prepare better for showing than if we had undertaken our training privately. As is sometimes the case with bossy mares, one must use extreme caution when approaching from behind. In Daisy’s case, she is hardwired to kick out behind her at the slightest detection of another horse. This posed no problem for Claire, or me, for Claire had years of experience as Daisy’s primary student. She was well informed of Daisy’s invisible bubble and the consequences of violating said bubble. Daisy herself gave off plenty of warning by pinning her ears flat back as soon as any horse even approached her. Daisy’s presence in the ring with us simulated the very conditions under which Claire and I would be competing, assuming I could be retrained to jump consistently and safely with Claire.
    To help me undo my bad jumping habits, Mrs. Maiden constructed several exercises. First, she began placing dollar bills between Claire’s calves and my barrel. Claire was then instructed to ride our entire lesson, even over jumps, without losing the bills from under her. This was necessary, explained Mrs. Maiden, because a strong leg is the best aid a rider has to communicate with her partner. Furthermore, Mrs. Maiden told us that in my case, Claire’s legs needed to compensate for my poor eyes.
    She said, “Claire, blind horses can compete in Grand Prix events, if they’re matched with the right person. Chancey’s not completely blind yet; there’s no reason he can’t do anything you ask him to do. You just have to consistently ask him. If you ask with your hands but not your legs, he’s going to have to guess what you mean. Sometimes he’s going to guess incorrectly. But if everything about you — your eyes, your legs, your hands, your heart — are telling him the same thing, then it’s just as if you were talking to him, like I’m talking to you now. So we’ll work on your legs first.”
    Claire picked up the reins and held the dollar bill tightly against my barrel. For a girl her age and size, Claire already possessed a strong leg; the dollar-bill game only added to