A Special Moment

I spent the weekend volunteering as a jump judge at a local riding competition. There isn't much to the "judging" part as long as all goes well. It's essentially Pass/Fail: did they jump over the jump on the first try, or not?     

There's a judge at each jump over a course that covers a couple of miles and the horse-and-rider pairs arrive about 2 minutes apart. Most of them jump over the obstacle without incident and gallop away. But when something happens -- the horse doesn't jump on the first try, or the second, or the third, or the rider falls off, 2 minutes is not a lot of time before another galloping pair approaches. That's when being the judge requires some grace under pressure.

Not only are you in charge of reminding the rider to move out of the way and allow the other competitor to pass, or that they've used all their chances and are eliminated, you have to report on the radio while things are happening, so the folks in charge know what's up. And if the rider falls off, you're the one who calls it in, asking for medical, the veterinarian, or course repair, depending on what's needed. It can get pretty intense there for a bit. 

Fortunately, "safety first" is a big part of the sport and injuries are infrequent. Folks do fall off, though.

I had one rider fall off at my jump yesterday. She didn't land on her feet, either, which is even more concerning. 

Usually when the rider falls off, the horse gets loose and takes off for the barn. They've been galloping, they're pretty excited, they're maybe a little scared or a little lonely, and they seek the security of the stables and the company of their horse friends, so off they go. The rider gets a long walk back to think about what went wrong. 

But in this case, the horse stayed right with the rider. Per the protocol, I went up to her to ask if she was all right and see how she was doing, and the horse was right there. She seemed okay, but she was having trouble catching her breath. She told me she had asthma and just needed a few minutes. And during the time that she waited, her beautiful horse stood close to her and put his forehead against her upper arm, and just waited.

Horses are marvelous, but they aren't really companion animals. It's not uncommon for a dog or a cat to curl up with you when you're having a bad day. And yet, horses have an innate ability to sense human emotions and react to them, and I've never seen a more lovely example of communion between horse and human than I saw between those two. He knew just what she needed to steady herself, and he gave it.