youâd have noticed if you had been at home? Can you see the stables from the house?â
Tricia shook her head. âNo, not easily. But you always wonder, donât you?â
Linc nodded. âStill, if it was the same person orpeople, perhaps it was a good thing nobody did see. Look what happened to Abby.â
Tricia was much struck by this but had no more information to offer so Linc excused himself to go in search of Nina and Hobo and, twenty minutes later, after warming up once more, jumped a competent round to add just four more penalty points to his dressage score.
In due course, having replaced his black jacket with a body protector and a sky-blue polo-necked jumper provided by Nina, Linc was waiting at the start of the cross-country section. Sky-blue was the colour she usually rode in and although event riders donât have registered colours such as jockeys wear, many make a point of always wearing the same colour or combination of colours on all their horses.
Hobo had undergone a transformation too. Gone were the neat plaits of the dressage arena; his mane now hung free in a wavy black mass on his neck. A jumping saddle was fitted, and rubber grip reins, and his hard, black legs were protected by bandages, overreach boots and quantities of thick white grease to help him slide over any rails he might hit. He was ready to go.
Linc rode into the roped-off starting box, leather-gloved hands surreptitiously sliding up the reins one at a time in preparation for the horseâs leap forward. As the official began the countdown Linc started the stopwatch on his right wrist.
âThree . . . two . . . one . . . good luck!â the steward called, and in a flash was left behind and forgotten as Hobo forged out of the box and into a gallop in three powerful strides.
Linc eased into a balanced position, weight out ofthe saddle and off the horseâs back, hands amongst the flying mane, moving in time with the nodding head, maintaining a steady contact. As always, the nervous tension of waiting was blown away in the wind and he gave himself up to the thrill and enjoyment of five or six minutes of galloping and jumping.
Due to his late arrival that morning, he hadnât had time to walk the course before the competition started, doing it after his showjumping round instead. This meant that the first riders were already out on the course and he had to choose his moments to pace out the combination fences. On the other hand, he did have a chance to see how well the course was riding and it had seemed as though bold, forward-going animals were finding little problem with it.
So it proved.
Nina had warned him that Hobo could sometimes balk at drop fences; those where the ground was substantially lower on the landing side than the take off. Sometimes, as was the case on this occasion with fence twelve, these had no upright obstacle, merely a platform faced with railway sleepers followed by a drop of several feet on to a downward slope. For a horse, with its limited forward vision, this manoeuvre requires a good deal of faith in its rider. The ideal situation is to slow up sufficiently for the horse to lower its head and land reasonably close to the sleeper wall, but not to slow up so much as to allow it time for second thoughts.
The worst scenario is for the horse to approach too boldly or even fighting for its head, and to launch itself out into space without a thought for thelanding. This had only once happened to Linc, with the almost inevitable result. Both he and his equine partner, another borrowed ride, had collapsed in a heap on landing and rolled a good few yards further down the hill. Heâd walked away that time with nothing worse than a sprained wrist and some bruising, but it could easily have been a broken neck, and heâd learned caution.
Hobo was bold but sensible, an event riderâs dream. As they landed neatly on the slope and galloped on, Linc
Jessica Conant-Park, Susan Conant