Even hatless, the only way I could get Patch to calm down was to walk off and leave him alone for a while. My stomach was growling, so I decided to go back to the cottage, where I made myself a giant glass of iced tea and two ham sandwiches. As I sat at the table and ate every last crumb, I wrote out a fee schedule for my services and went over my notes from farrier school. Then I cleaned up my dishes, shoved four apples into a paper bag, and headed off. I still had nearly an hour before Natasha’s driver would pick me up, which gave me enough time to work with Patch a little more, assuming he’d calmed down by now.
At the main barn, I hung my hat on a peg by the door, placed the bag of apples on the floor, and grabbed a handful of carrots from the bin. Then I moved on into the smaller stable, holding my breath as I stepped through the doorway. Just as I’d hoped, Patch’s reaction to my appearance was completely different from before. I was the same guy, but with no hat on my head this time, the horse had no reason to fear. In fact, he barely gave me a glance as I walked toward him, only growing skittish once I got close, but for him that was normal. At least he let me feed him a carrot and pat him gently on the neck.
Incredible.
Now that I was pretty sure Priscilla had been right about the primary cause of Patch’s problem, I could get down to the business of fixing things. Seemed to me, a phobia of hats had to be about one of the worst phobias a horse in Lancaster County could have, especially a horse owned by an Amish family. There would always be hats in Patch’s life, which meant I would have to desensitize him to that particular fear while also training him to trust his handler whether he was frightened or not.
I took Patch, who seemed willing but wary, out to the smaller outdoor pen behind the welding shop, speaking in soft, comforting tones along the way. I set the carrots on the ground beside the fence and led the skittish horse to the center of the pen, pausing to latch the gate behind me. I waited until he was calm, and then I dropped the lead rope and took a step back. As soon as Patch realized he was free, he began to trot around inside the limited space, huffing and puffing and nervously trying to discern the limits of his boundaries. I left him alone for a few minutes, until he settled down again. When he finally came to a stop, I reached for a carrot and slowly began to approach the horse’s flank.
I was about ten feet away when he spotted me and darted off, running frantically around the circle again in an attempt to escape. Classic flight or fight response. There wasn’t really anywhere for him to go, however, so once he’d calmed down and come to another stop, I tried once more, moving with quiet determination toward his flank. It took several more tries, but finally I was able to get close enough to offer him the carrot. He took it from me, munching away greedily as I went to retrieve another and start over again.
The next time, though, I wouldn’t let him have the carrot until he had calmed down a little more first. This became the routine, and after about fifteen more minutes of me approaching his flank and rewarding him with a carrot every time he stopped flinching, he began to visibly relax.
“See there, boy?” I told him, patting his neck as he chewed away. “I’m not going to hurt you. Nobody’s ever going to hurt you again.”
When our time was up, I led a far more compliant Patch back to his stall. We were done for now, but before I left, I retrieved the bag of apples, returned to the stall, and rewarded Patch’s efforts by giving him one. He took the ripe fruit from my hand, emitting a grunt of pleasure as he did.
“Good session,” I told him with a final pat. Then I headed back outside, snagging my hat and returning it to my head as I passed through the door.
By then it was nearly two o’clock, so I took a seat on a stump near the driveway and ate one of the apples myself as I waited for my ride. A sleek black pickup appeared just as I was finishing, and as it turned into the driveway and eased in my direction, I stood and slid the remaining two apples into my pockets for later.
I’d been in plenty of cars and trucks before, but never in one as classy and up-to-date as the vehicle Natasha Fremont had sent for me. The interior was all inlaid wood and leather, the dash looked like a small computer, and there was even a tiny fridge in the console. The driver, a twentysomething stable hand who introduced himself as Ryan Warner, offered me a beverage as soon as I’d climbed in and shut the door—at least I thought that’s what he said, though he had the music cranked up so loud I wasn’t sure.
“You like country?” he yelled over the din as he turned us around in the driveway.
“It’s fine,” I replied, because I didn’t exactly hate it.
“What’s that?” he asked, turning the volume down just a bit.
“I said it’s fine.” The twang of the tune that was playing was a different sound for me, and not exactly my favorite. I’d been a rock and roll kind of guy when I was younger and in my rumspringa. But I could deal with this for now.
“Go ahead,” he urged, sensing my hesitation about his offer of a drink. “Help yourself.”
As we headed off down the narrow road, I did just that, opening the console and viewing my options. Nothing looked familiar among the various bottles and cans. I chose something called Perrier, which sounded vaguely familiar. It turned out to be water with a fancy name.
“So you just graduated from farrier school?” he asked as he turned the music down a little more, much to my relief.
“Not exactly. I mean, yes and no. I graduated a year ago.”
“Gotcha. How do you like it so far? Are you allowed to use modern conveniences back at your shop there?”
I had to think for a moment what he meant. Blacksmithing was an ancient art, so there weren’t really any modern conveniences to speak of, except maybe the fact that we ordered our shoes from a catalog now, premade, as opposed to forging them ourselves. But those shoes were put on a horse the same way they were a century ago. An electric machine couldn’t shoe a horse and probably never would.
“Well, our forge is propane powered, if that’s what you mean,” I said, taking a light tone.
“Oh, yeah. I guess there isn’t much about shoeing that involves a computer, eh?” He laughed. I smiled with him.
“Have you been with the Fremonts long?”
“The last four summers. I’ll be going back to Penn State in the fall.”
He went on to tell me he was one of three students Natasha employed each summer. Apparently, they did a lot of the grunt work, such as cleaning out stalls, watering, grooming, repairing fences, and exercising a small contingent of horses she stabled for other owners, in addition to caring for their breeding mares and the foals.
“About the only horse over there we don’t fool with is Duchess. She has her own stable, closer to the house, and Natasha prefers to handle that one herself.”
“Duchess?” I asked, wondering if that was the horse I was being brought out to see.
“Long story,” Ryan replied with a wave of his hand, as if to say he wasn’t in the mood to tell it.
We were silent for a moment, and I tried to think of some other topic of conversation, lest my driver grow bored and decide to turn the music back up. “Natasha seems pretty nice,” I finally managed to offer.
“Yeah, she’s nice enough. Rich, but nice.”
“Do you enjoy working with the horses?”
A new song came on, and Ryan began tapping out a rhythm on the steering wheel. “Sure, though warmbloods aren’t my favorite. I like hotbloods. Arabians, actually. If I had my own horse, that’s what I’d get. An Arabian.”
“I hear you,” I said, and I really did know what he meant. As Amos and I had explained to Priscilla earlier, hotbloods were fast and feisty, which made them much more exciting than the well-trained warmbloods of the horse show world. Definitely more interesting—at least to a guy like Ryan.
“You people probably don’t have any show horses, though, right?” he asked. “I mean, what would an Amish man do with a warmblood?” He laughed again, clearly enjoying his own sense of humor.
“Yeah, that would make about as much sense as your taking a buggy with you back to college,” I replied, and he howled with laughter.
We managed to converse easily enough the rest of the way to East Fallowfield, talking about horses and riding and all things equestrian. As we got closer, the subject came back around to Natasha, and from the way Ryan talked, it sounded as if she was more than just the money behind a successful horse breeding and boarding business. Apparently, she was also a top-level competitor in the sport of dressage.
“She made Grand Prix champion by the age of thirty,” he said, as if I would know what that meant. “Can you believe it? The horse she won with is retired now, but she’s working really hard to get there again, with Duchess this time.”
I could act as though I knew what he was talking about, or I could just ask. I opted for the latter. “Grand Prix champion?”
“Sorry. Guess I forgot you’re not part of the horse show world.” He went on to explain that dressage had levels of achievement, with each horse-and-rider pair having to earn their way up the various levels at competitions until they reached the highest level, which was “Grand Prix.”
“Right now, Natasha and Duchess are still three levels down from there, at the ‘Prix St. George’ level. But I have no doubt they’ll make it eventually. The next qualifying event is in Devon this fall, and Natasha is determined to compete and earn up to the next level from there. If she can do that, they’ll probably be able to make Grand Prix in another year or two.”
“She must really be something,” I said, my eyes on the gorgeous scenery that surrounded us. “But isn’t she a little… ” I stopped short, realizing such a question would be rude.
“A little what?” Ryan replied, crowing with laughter. “High strung? Intense?”
I shook my head, mad at myself and my big mouth. I wanted to drop it, but he wouldn’t let it go.
“Fine,” I said. “Old, okay? I’m guessing she’s in her late thirties. I was going to say, isn’t she a little old to still be competing in horse shows?”
“Oh.” Ryan’s laugh faded. “No, not at all. Gosh, Steffan Peters was almost fifty when he took gold at the Pan Am games a few years ago. And then there was that guy from Japan at the London Olympics—he was like seventy or something, wasn’t he? Dressage isn’t about age, it’s about precision and training and having the ability to work with a horse in a really unique way.”
He explained how, in dressage, the riders communicate with the animals physically, using arm and leg movements. They train their horses to understand all of their different, very specific physical cues, and the best horses will respond by doing exactly what’s being asked of them.
“When it’s done well,” he said as he slowed and put on the blinker, “it’s kind of amazing to watch, warmbloods or not.”
Ryan turned off the road onto an expansive paved entrance. He came to a stop at an ornate wrought iron gate, reached up to the overhead visor, and pulled out a small device. A remote control.
“Welcome to Morningstar,” he said as he pressed a button and the gate began to swing open. When it was wide enough, we pulled through to the other side, and he used the remote again, this time to close it behind us.
He continued on much more slowly, following a long driveway that stretched before us, surrounded on both sides by pristine pastureland. In the distance stood a massive stone-and-timber home surrounded by smaller buildings in the same graceful style.
I must have sucked in my breath because Ryan laughed.
“Told you they were rich. And established, if you know what I mean. That house has been in the Fremont family for a hundred years.”
As we drew closer, I could tell that the entire place—house, stables, and grounds—wasn’t just beautiful but perfectly manicured as well. I’d seen a lot of nicely maintained Amish yards where I came from, but none that was even close to being this perfect nor this big. We continued on past the house and down a ways, finally pulling to a stop in what looked like a small parking lot. As we got out of the vehicle, Ryan took a cell phone from his pocket, tapped the screen, and held it to his ear.
I assumed he would tell me where to go from here, so as I waited for him to get off the phone, I stood there trying to take it all in. The place was really something, even if it was over-the-top fancy.
“Not answering,” he said, shoving the phone back in his pocket. “Come on, we can leave the car here and just walk if you want. You can see more that way.”
We set out on a stone path which meandered past a covered patio, a gazebo, and a rose garden before rounding a hill. As we neared the top, I caught a glimpse of the stables on the other side.
They were huge, the biggest I had ever seen, stretching out like an elongated, one-story version of the house. On both sides were riding rings, one small and one big, though neither was in use at the moment.
We followed the path the rest of the way down to the stables, crossing another smaller parking area and going inside. As I stepped through the door, I was hit with a wall of cool air—a sensation so utterly out of context that it took me a moment to figure out what it was.
Air-conditioning, I realized, and then I had to stifle a laugh. I was plenty familiar with air-conditioning, of course, as was any Amish person who had been to stores or banks or other public places in the heat of the summer, but this was a new one on me. Air-conditioning in a stable? I couldn’t imagine such a thing. I also couldn’t wait to tell Amos, who would get a good kick out of it as well.
I followed Ryan farther inside, astounded at the beauty of the building’s interior. Each stall was timbered in gleaming, treated pine. The painted, cement-floor alleyway in between the stalls was clean enough to eat off of, and there wasn’t even a hint of the scent of manure. We passed four horses: a pair of warmblood mares, one obviously pregnant, and a couple geldings I assumed Natasha was boarding. Next came a foal and its mother, a russet beauty with a creamy star on its forehead. Nearby their stall sat a young stable hand on a bench, trying to untangle a rope.
“Natasha around?” Ryan asked her.
She tilted her head toward the nearest door. “Last I saw, she was heading out that way. But that was a while ago.”
I followed Ryan back outside, where a pair of workers were putting in a row of fence posts.
“Have you guys seen Natasha?” he asked. The two men simply shook their heads.
“Sorry about this,” Ryan told me as he turned to go back inside. “I know she’s around here somewhere.”
I was about to follow him to the door when movement in the nearby pasture caught my eye. Glancing over, I did a double take when I spotted the single most beautiful horse I’d ever seen. It was a mare, solid white, standing at the crest of a hill. She was staring off into the distance, her nose twitching in search of a scent, her ears pricked, and her white mane and tail lightly fluttering in the breeze. I stepped closer, placing my hands on the split rail fence as I gazed out at her.
“Told you she was something,” Ryan said in a soft voice, coming to stand next to me.
“Huh?”
“That’s Duchess.”
Duchess. The one Natasha was pinning her hopes on to win the big dressage championship.
“Well, the name fits. That horse totally looks like royalty.”
“Yeah. Too bad she—” He cut off his own thought midsentence, as if realizing almost too late that I was a consultant here, not an employee, and therefore it was none of my business. Instead, he just whipped out his phone again and pressed a button.
While he stepped away to talk, I returned my attention to the magnificent horse in the field. For some reason, part of a verse from Revelation popped into my head: I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True. Surely, the horse I was gazing at now looked a lot like the one the verse described. I couldn’t imagine a scene more glorious.
“Okay,” Ryan told me, interrupting my thoughts. He put the phone away and gestured toward the stable door. “Natasha’s coming. She’ll be here in a sec. In the meantime, I’m supposed to show you January.”
“January?”
He took off walking. “The horse you came here to work with.”
It took me a moment, but then I caught up with him—literally and figuratively.
“I thought I was here to help Duchess,” I said as we moved back inside.
He let out a laugh, as did the girl who was still on the bench with the rope.
“I told you, man,” he said, shaking his head, “nobody fools with Duchess but the boss.”
He led me toward the end of the building, coming to a stop at one of the last stalls. Inside stood a dark, caramel-hued mare with a honey-blond mane and tail, a beautiful palomino. I could tell she’d recently been bathed and brushed, as there wasn’t a smudge of dirt or waste on her.
The horse looked up at our approach and immediately looked away, one ear swiveled in our direction. She shifted the weight on her back legs from a resting position to a poised one, as though she were preparing to dash off if need be. I slowly approached the railing so that she could smell me and look at me again if she wanted. She swung her head from side to side and chuffed.
“She has some issues,” Ryan said.
“I can see that.”
I was about to ask him for details when we both heard footsteps. I turned to see Natasha striding toward us, Eric on one side of her and an older gentleman on the other. She held a halter lead in her hand, and though she was now in jeans and boots—far more appropriate for her surroundings, I thought—gold and diamonds still flashed at her neck, wrists, and ears.
“Natasha,” I said when she was closer.
“Jake,” she replied with a nod. She turned to the gentleman beside her and introduced him as her stable master, Ted Wilding.
“Pleasure to meet you,” I said, shaking the man’s hand.
He seemed cordial but tentative, as if wondering what a mere blacksmith—and an apprentice at that—could do for this horse.
“And of course you know Eric,” she added, gesturing toward my friend.
I was hoping Eric and I might have a chance to talk once I was done here, but he responded by saying he was just on his way out. “I only stuck around this long so I’d be here when you came,” he added with a smile as he pulled a business card from his front pocket and held it toward me. I took it from him, a little puzzled until I saw that he had scribbled a number on the back.
“That’s my cell,” he said. “I know you’re not exactly a phone guy, but call me sometime. We need to chat.”
His words were accompanied by a meaningful look, which made me curious. Truth be told, I wanted to walk him out right now just to learn what it was he had to say. But I knew that wouldn’t be appropriate, so I simply gave him a nod, pocketed the card, and assured him I’d be in touch.
Once he was gone, Natasha was all business again, stepping forward and lifting the latch on the horse’s stall to open the door.
“Want me to bring her out?” she asked, glancing my way.
Before I could respond, the mare took a few steps backward, her eyes wide.
“Let’s wait,” I said. “I’d like her to get to know me a little bit first. How about if we just chat for a few minutes so she can acclimate to the sound of my voice?”
“All right,” she said, though I could tell she was a woman who didn’t like to be kept waiting.
“What’s her name again?” Moving around Natasha, I took one step into the stall myself. “January?”
Natasha nodded. “The previous owner said she was born on New Year’s Day. At first I thought the name was corny, but it’s grown on me.”
I turned my attention to the horse and spoke in a calm, gentle tone. “Well, that’s a nice name. Hello, January.” I took another step, but then so did Natasha—a little too quickly. In response, the horse lifted her head and seemed to zero in on the lead in Natasha’s hand.
“How about you give the lead to Ryan? There’s no need to use it right now. I’ll just take a look at her here in the stall.”
Natasha wordlessly passed the halter and lead to Ryan while I took another step inside.
“How long have you had her?” I asked.
“About five months. I bought her from a top stable in North Carolina.”
I took another step and reached into my pocket for one of the apples I’d put in there earlier. “And when did the behavior start?”
“She arrived here a little skittish. I chalked it up to being in a new place. But if that’s all it was, she should be getting better by now, not worse. The longer she’s here, the more familiar this place should seem and the more comfortable she should be. But that’s not what’s happening. It’s the opposite, in fact.”
I asked Natasha about the horse’s feeding habits and how often she was exercised. I took another step farther in so I was just a few feet away from January’s head. I took a bite of the apple to draw attention to its scent and then placed it in an open palm and extended my arm. January hesitated only a second before stretching her neck and wrapping her lips around the fruit in my hand. The apple disappeared into her mouth. As she chewed I placed one hand on her jaw and the other in the nose hold.
“What kind of life did she have with her previous owner?” I asked as I gently swept my free hand up the horse’s head.
“She was competing in dressage and won a couple regional competitions. But then her owner fell ill and had to pull out of all that. It’s been a year since she’s competed. But she was well cared for if that’s what you mean. She comes from good stock. And her coloring is exceptional.”
“She’s a beautiful horse,” I said, working my hand up to the area known as the poll, just past the ears. Having swallowed the apple, which had helped to distract her, January was now fully aware of my touch. She shook her head, and I waited until she stopped again before I continued. I laid my hand feather light on the atlas muscle near her neck, barely touching her at all. I wanted the mere warmth of my hand, not its pressure, to show her I meant no harm and that she had no reason not to trust me.
I could sense that the muscles in her neck were tense, and as I moved down her shoulder to the scapula, the tension increased. I slowly followed her spine down to her hind quarters, stopping every few seconds to let her respond to me if she wanted to. I had read that a shake of the head, a chew, a yawn, even a long blink were all signs that my light touch was encouraging her to relax. She barely allowed herself the luxury of a blink.
Something was causing January to be constantly vigilant. She was perpetually in preflight mode, even though she was clearly eating a healthy diet, was groomed regularly, and got plenty of exercise. It would take multiple sessions to get this horse to let down her guard and allow herself to trust me. I turned to Natasha and explained the situation.
“Are we talking every day, every other day, what?” she asked, nearly hoping, it seemed, that I could snap my fingers and make her horse better.
“Every day would probably be best,” I said. “I’m thinking her relief would come in small increments. I can show you and Ted some of the techniques I know. They really aren’t that hard. You don’t have to be an exp—”
“Can’t you come and do it?” Natasha said, frowning. “I’ll send a driver over for you. And I’ll pay for your time in transit. Both ways.”
“Thank you, but I can’t—”
“I want you to do it. I haven’t seen her this calm in more than a month. Eric was right. You have already gotten further with her than any of us. Please?”
I wanted the work. I definitely wanted the work. I liked puzzles—and January’s condition certainly puzzled me. Plus this was a great inroad into the Englisch horse world. The problem was that I didn’t have two hours a day to spend treating this animal. There was just no way I could take that much time outside the shop.
“I’ll pay you double your rate,” Natasha said, thinking I was hesitating because of money. It really had nothing to do with that. And I didn’t want word to get around that Jake Miller charged double to people who could well afford it.
“It’s really more a matter of consistency,” I said. “I think January would be best off with shorter stretches of treatment several times a day.”
Natasha considered this for a moment. “How about if we brought her to your place? Eric told me you’re working at a blacksmith shop on a big Amish farm. Surely there would be room to take her in there as a client.”
I didn’t remember having told Eric the “big Amish farm” part, but it was true. There would be room for January over at the Kinsingers’, especially once Patch was gone. Then again, keeping Trudy’s Morgan for a few days was one thing. Boarding this fancy horse for the duration of her treatment was another.
“How about it?” Natasha prodded. “Can she stay with you while you work with her? I’d pay her board and feed. And if you need to hire someone to exercise her, I’ll pay for that too. I want her to have your treatment, Jake. I don’t want anyone else doing it. And I don’t care how long it takes.”
Her solution left me speechless for a moment. All I could think was, what on earth had Eric told her to get her to trust me so completely, not to mention so quickly? The horse show crowd was usually disdainful of the Amish when it came to their animals, probably because the Amish were primarily farmers, and farmers as a whole treated their horses differently than those in the show horse world treated theirs. To farmers, horses were just one more kind of animal, albeit a useful one.
People like Natasha, however, saw horses as all kinds of things: friends, companions, loved ones, moneymakers, symbols of wealth and prestige, entertainment, and more. Natasha had to know we saw things differently. Yet here she was, ready to send this fancy show horse off to an Amish farm, sight unseen, and entrust her to a mere blacksmith—and an apprentice at that.
It sounded so odd, though I knew she could put her trust in me. On the how-I-saw-horses scale, I landed somewhere about halfway between the two positions. I did consider horses to be a step above other animals, yes, but not so many steps up as to be our equals. Overall, I guess I tended to think of them as employees, with a job to do, and I as their boss. The way I saw it, like any good manager my role was to facilitate their efforts in such a way that they could work to the best of their abilities.
That’s why I knew I was up to the task with January, and in fact I didn’t think she could be helped any other way. It was obvious Natasha didn’t want to be trained on the technique and take a stab at it, nor that her stable master had time to fool with it either. I wanted the job, but I had to be realistic.
“I’m not a professional,” I cautioned her. “I don’t have a license or extra insurance or anything. If you bring her, I’m afraid it will have to be at your own risk.”
“If you want me to sign something, I’ll sign something. I don’t worry about stuff like that. At least not with her.”
“You’re sure?”
Natasha gave me a nod. “She wasn’t bargain basement by any means, but her price tag wasn’t as high as some of the animals around here. If it makes you feel any better, let’s just say I can afford this particular risk, relatively speaking.”
“I guess it could work,” I said slowly, which Natasha immediately took as a yes.
“Wonderful!” she exclaimed. “When can I bring her? Tomorrow?”
Sunday was not an option.
“How about Monday afternoon around four? My last customer is at three.”
“Four o’clock it is.” Natasha said happily. “Do you require a down payment? Can I write you a check? Can you take a check?”
I smiled. “I do take checks, but I do not require a down payment. If you’ve a special feed you have her on, bring that along, and her halter and lead.”
“Will do. And how long do you think she will have to stay with you?”
I honestly didn’t know. “Right now let’s give it a week and see how she does. Then we can decide from there.”
“A week,” Natasha repeated, though I couldn’t tell if she thought that sounded too long or too short or what.
“You can stop by and check in on her as often as you like,” I offered.
Moving forward, Natasha reached out and patted January’s nose. “Taking her to another strange place won’t make it worse, will it?”
I had to tell her that it might. “Sometimes things get worse before they get better, but I’ll do my best. I’m optimistic.”
Natasha seemed to consider my words, and then with a nod and a handshake she left me to attend to the details with Ryan and Ted. Once we had everything worked out, Ted left as well. Before I was ready to go, however, I had one more thing to do. As Ryan waited patiently nearby, I went back inside January’s stall and repeated the steps I had taken with her earlier, this time while standing on her left. I’d learned long ago that you had to work both sides of a skittish horse when you were with her, or you were only solving half the problem. By the time I was ready to go, January was more docile, and I had high hopes that she and I would get along just fine.
Ryan and I retraced our earlier steps back to the car. On the way, we again passed the riding rings, only this time one of them was in use. To my delight, the horse being ridden there was Duchess, and with a start I realized the rider sitting atop her was Natasha. Somehow, the woman looked completely different in the saddle, much more calm and relaxed yet also somehow intensely focused. I might not even have realized it was her if not for the telltale vivid auburn ponytail sticking out from the back of her riding helmet.
I paused to watch, fascinated by what I was seeing. They were in a canter, but then the animal slowed and began to do the strangest sort of step, an odd but rhythmic hopping-type action. Though the movement itself seemed completely unnatural for a horse, something about it was very compelling, perhaps because Duchess just looked so light on her feet, almost as if she were dancing. Horse ballet indeed.
“Incredible, aren’t they?” Ryan said in a soft voice, from where he stood beside me, also watching.
“What is that, what they’re doing? What’s that called?”
“That’s the piaffe. It’s a dressage move. Didn’t you ever see this on the Olympics?” Before I could reply, he chuckled, adding, “Oh. Right. Got it. No TV, no Olympics.”
Finally, I tore my eyes away from the bizarre performance and we continued on toward the car. As we went, I just kept thinking two things.
First, that the show horse world was a bizarre place indeed.
Second, that thanks to Eric and Natasha, my dream of owning a blacksmith and horse-gentling business had been fully revived in the course of a single day.