Riding on the Downs
It was almost spring again and we were riding on the downs. The “downs” are little hills with no trees, just grass open to the sky. They look like the hills you draw when you’re little. We were racing to Miss Monkman, who was on top of a hill; she’d told us to stand still until she got there and that when she raised her arm we could start — and we could go as fast as we wanted to when we were going uphill; going down we had to walk or trot.
As soon as Frisky and I got to the bottom and the ground was flat, I squeezed with my legs to make him go faster and he bounded into a canter. The grass felt short and springy. My feet were in the stirrups, my heels pushed down, my ankles acted like springs every time he bounded forward — but the rest of me stayed still except for my hips, which sank down into the saddle and moved back and forth in rhythm with his canter. I’d finally learned to canter and I loved it. It’s hard to describe what cantering feels like but I’ll try.
Your legs grip the horse, your calves especially, and your hipbones move one TWO three (and then a little pause while the horse is in the air for a second), one TWO three (the little flying pause again). Your legs don’t move, your upper body doesn’t move — just your hips. Your hands are kind of pressing into the rough mane; they don’t move, either, but your elbows bend in rhythm, too.
When we got to the top of the hill, I squeezed the reins and gripped hard to make him slow down: it’s a little scary going fast downhill — you feel off-balance, as though you might slip out of the saddle and slide right down the pony’s neck, And anyway it was against the rules of the race.
So we walked down but when we got to the bottom he jumped into the canter as soon as I squeezed — and up the last hill we galloped. In a gallop your hips don’t move: you stand up in the stirrups a little bit and you feel the pony stretch out and jump, stretch out and jump, faster and faster, over and over … the rhythm isn’t smooth like the canter, and it’s so fast. You feel almost like the pony’s taking little jumps into the air, pushing and pulling and stretching himself with each foot, and the hooves on the ground are so loud. Frisky wanted to win as much as I did, I could feel it. We went faster and faster — it was almost hard to breathe. I just stood up in the stirrups and looked straight between his ears at Miss Monkman until we got there.
We were first.
“Well done, Libby!” she said, and I patted Frisky and felt proud.
I’d worked hard at my riding and, even though almost all the other girls were better at it than I was, I still felt proud that I’d learned how to do it.
And I loved it. Nothing is as much fun as riding your best on a good horse. That day the air was wet, with that muddy late-winter, almost-spring feeling, and I was riding my best. My body was doing everything I wanted it to do all by itself. Without my even thinking, it moved in perfect rhythm with Frisky.
Maybe, I thought, next term I’d learn to jump; and then I remembered that I wouldn’t be there next term.