66 SIDELINES JULY 2014
FOR HORSE PEOPLE • ABOUT HORSE PEOPLE
Trainer (still giggling with even more nervous
energy):
Good luck. Have fun.
Be careful!
”
Me:
Turning around looking back towards the in-gate giving
him my best “stink eye” and glaring at him. Knowing he knows
what my face is saying, I mouth:
What!? Be careful!?
Are you
kidding me!? Who
says that at the in-gate!?
Mom (reiterating what the trainer is saying):
Be
careful, yes.”
Me (thinking to myself):
OMG, S
top that! Stop that, both of
you! Stop that right now! Who the heck says Be careful?!
Ok, focus … forget the “Be careful” comment. We have on our
game face, and Capri, as always, in her best TB mare mode, is
super eager to
go
! Jump one, perfect. Jump two, the SCIHM with
Feather Headdress jump, perfect. Jump three, I see four strides
in the distance, and think, jump three, the “
Ha, if
I get that far”
jump, and laugh, and she sails over the four-board paddock jump
with ease. That jump was a little intimidating only because we
contain
them in those paddock fences — we don’t want them to
jump them. Many people had faults at that jump, as it was a pretty
ugly, very upright vertical, “very vertically”, I like to say — a takeoff
from the movie “Elf” when Will Ferrell says “very purpley.” As we
continue to cruise around the course I begin to think, We
got
this!
and I’m sure my trainer is thinking in the stands, “OMG, she might
have this” —
not!
Capri was such a gamey girl and you did feel as if you were
partners all the way, so I just talked to her a lot around the course.
It felt like we were out there forever.
The triple combination comes up fast and she eyes the middle
element and sucks back over it and pulls a rail behind in the
combination. At this point, I feel like an eventer on cross-country
as we start to gallop to be the fastest four-faulter. She pins her little
ears as I pat her, telling her what a good girl she is (like eventers
do after each cross-country jump) and she’s with me. We turn
the corner. I remember looking up at the next jump and saying
“House! OMG, Capri, that next jump is a house!”
I remember
coming to watch Rolex several years in a row and they always
jumped the house. It was
huge
and she even did a peek down at
it as we sailed over it and through the timers.
It’s funny. I don’t think I even remember us discussing the jump-
off, so it was probably a good thing that we were four-faulters that
day! We did — miraculously, however — end up in fifth place in
our first disaster of an A/O class, with four faults in the first round,
no course walk, no jump-off, five minutes to school, an oblivious
mother, lots of cheerleader friends with pom poms, everyone
terrified, with a lot of giggling and the words of wisdom: “Good
luck, have fun,
be careful!
”
From that day forward it was always kind of an inside joke at the
in-gate every now and then to say
“Be careful!” —
especially as
my trainer was trotting in on
my
horse to
do the First-Year Greens, after a naughty
school. He equally returned the stink eye
as he trotted on in. …
About the writer: Kathy Serio is an amateur rider
based in Wellington, Florida, where she works
full time in the equine pharmaceutical industry. In
2012 she married her trainer of 12 years, Tommy
Serio, who often calls her “Lucy,” for “Lucille Ball.”
Being trained by her husband brings a whole new
dimension to riding as an amateur. Kathy spends
her spare time riding and laughing with her 2- and
4-legged gang. As Charlie Chaplin said, “A day
without laughter is a day wasted.”
Kathy Serio
Photo by Holly Gannon
Taboada Photography
fence with no standards. OK, good luck sister, grab mane, shut
your eyes, cluck and
kick!
Me (also laughing now):
“Um….you are
so
not helping me
here, in any capacity — not as a trainer, friend or psychiatrist, so
nip it
!
As they call my name about 15 trips out, I realize we have to
go to the barn; I still need to get dressed and be back to school
Capri in less than 10 minutes so we were barely able to see the
remainder of the course from the bleachers, and it was equally
challenging. The triple combination was made to look like three
jumps that were built out of green and black wrought-iron gates.
The second jump, a vertical, had
holes
cut out of the middle that
people were seriously freaked about, and at which many horses
were stopping, crashing and burning. In the warm-up, the horse
next to us was jumping a blue homemade tarp made with cut-
out holes to simulate the triple combination jumps. Capri took one
look at their warm-up jump and
she
gulped and almost “left the
building!”
Trainer:
Do you want to jump that tarp once before you go?
Me:
Jump it!
? From what county would you like me to jump that
jump? She won’t even get
near it.
Are you crazy?!
Trainer (still laughing a bit):
Right, ok, never mind, bad
idea.
Mind you, this mare was very brave, a very good girl, and we
were always in it together. I don’t think that up to this moment, we
ever even had a single fault on course; she was a
rock
. My “rock”
started disintegrating.
The moment arrives. … I trot into the arena, Mom in the stands,
smiling innocently, wearing completely inappropriate horse show
clothes: white linen with flip flops. She’s waving at me, oblivious
(as moms should be) to the lack of preparedness and to the fact
that I’m now trotting into the lion’s den. Next to her are three or
four equally terrified amateur
hunter
riders from my trainer’s farm,
cheering me on.
That
is when I hear it, although very quietly:
Amateurville – Kathy trying to take her horse into the ring for the
jog and in a classic amateur moment she turned around and
realized her horse had decided to take the day off!
Photo by Al Cook Photography
