So August 1993 we loaded up the black Keifer Built once again and just like in 1991, we met up with the Pople Ridge group and drove South West. A convoy of several trailers, we traveled onward to Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas for the Youth World Championships. This time we had one additional ingredient in our mixed nuts concoction inside the Ford…Christy Stoddard joined my mom, my dad, Buffy and myself on our thirty three hour journey. Christy and I had become two peas in a pod and sarcastically annoying to everyone else. I remember there were some inside joke regarding the trees as well as a Christy/Thelma moment regarding toe nail painting.

The trip was fun and the memories of the hotel, the pool side fun, Billy Bob’s and Dad’s Bronco are some of the best. Those are all stories within this story though, and I want to stick to the telling of me and Fox…ok, just one quick sidebar story. Half way into our ten day trip Mom, Christy and I headed out to the local Dairy Queen for lunch. My mother ran in as we waited in the truck…parked under a very large overhead awning secured by four large cement posts. In the beginning of that summer I had taken exactly one Driver’s Ed. Class at Oriskany School. I found out that day that I would not be able to complete the course so I dropped out. The one thing I learned during that first Oriskany road trip was that when the car is in reverse, you should be looking behind you at all times. Those were his explicit instructions. That stuck with me.

Mom handed us the bags of food and got settled. You never move the vehicle until mom is buckled in and comfortable…even as a new driver I knew that. I placed the truck in reverse, cranked the wheel, turned to watch behind me and proceeded backwards. Christy sucked on her milkshake in the back seat, and I caught her from the corner of my eye. Her jaw drop from the straw and her eyes grew big as quarters…it was a very slow few seconds with no time at all to react…I saw her face…I heard the crunch. I had embedded Dad’s Ford Bronco into the giant pole that held up the Dairy Queen. See I was looking behind me, and never saw where the front end was going. It was decided after we overcame the panic and had inspected the truck that we would wait to tell dad until after lunch. Where he was upset, he was remarkably cool. And this of course gave him something to talk with the other horse show dads all afternoon. I will say that I survived that afternoon strictly because Christy was with us…witnesses.

So back to the good stuff…I had nationally qualified that year in hunter Hack and in Jumper. I failed to make any events as a state qualifier, and that was alright…I was there for Hack…Jumper was just for fun (I’m not sure who’s, but for fun)

I rode in the preliminary Hack class doing my fence work. My fences we PERFECT. I was thrilled to be called back for my flat work. To my elated surprise, my number was announced first on the list following that part of the prelim event…I had made the finals. I knew I was probably last at that point, but I was in the finals and couldn’t be happier. This was my last year as a youth rider and for the first time ever as a rider I was actually at a horse show for the competition. This was the first, and only time winning or losing ever mattered to me.

Next up was my Jumper class. Now I learned to ride in a Jumper barn…I know this stuff. Christy and I walked the course discussing every step and doing the best to overhear the other trainer’s instructions…all the while trying to point out the big names that were also walking the same lines that we were and of course in classic, Christy/Michelle style…make fun of the rest.

I knew my route, I knew my options, I knew what to do. However at some point between my warm up in the holding area and the long walk down the shoot for bit and tail checks, I somehow forgot every single thing I had ever learned about riding a jumper course. I failed to see a single spot. We chipped every fence as I cowboyed Fox around the ring. I was in such fear he would stop that I thought of nothing else. In hind sight, a refusal would have been better… Fox finally had had enough with my uneducated and brainless ride and actually managed to turn out between the A and B jumps of the In And Out. Amazing. I had never ridden that before. So what do they teach you on day one of jumping…an ‘in and out’ is one jump. You refuse any part of it, then you retake the whole thing. So I pulled him around in a hurry….never stopping to think or regroup…like I was already in the timed part of the event, and I aimed him for the ‘B’ jump. That’s right, I broke one of the goldenist rules of show jumping. Danny Woodruff, David Connors, my Father!!! All yelling to me to take both fences…I heard nothing….all I saw was one more fence on the other side and I could get the hell out of there. I finished my ride and they announced my number followed by those most dreaded words…disqualified.

I knew it immediately…I didn’t even need to think. I knew what I had done. I met my disappointed father in the drive way and he just asked what I was thinking. I tried not to cry and put my horse away.

So DQ’d from Jumpers, I still had “my” class to compete in. I would put that behind me and concentrate on the hack class. Only one small glitch…in my crazy, ugly Jumper ride, Fox had bode his right hind tendon. We noticed the swelling and began the hosing and the walking. It only blew up and bothered his movement when he was still for any length of time. So Fox would now be walked for the next day and a half. Christy and I took Features Fox for a walk to every inch of the show grounds…just one more bonding experience for the three of us. He was allowed to eat from a hay bag for braiding and then walked again. He was allowed short rests in his stall and was properly wrapped for a short overnight rest. The next morning he was walked as his braids were bumped. He was walked as we saddled. He was walked as I bridled and as I mounted…he never stopped. At one point we had been given some cooling gel to rub him down with, but as I was applying it someone from Pople Ridge told me to wash it right off as it would show up on a random drug test. So of course, I did.

Fox and I warmed up and he was sound…unless you were looking for it. This was our last chance at World’s so we had to at least give it a shot. Scratching was discussed, but it just did not feel like an option. I stepped into the shoot. The line was set up on the diagonal but with a reverse approach. I took my fences very well. They were not our best, but they were good and I was happy with myself. Once we exited…we began to walk again as we listened. Finally the top fifteen were called back to the arena. I was on that list! Finalist at the very least!! My little Novice horse and I were getting a ribbon at the World Show!

I took my place in line, again had my bit and tail checked and trotted down the shoot and into the arena…I was terrified. Not of showing…that never bothered me, but I was mortified that everyone would notice the lame horse! Outside of the show ring, my horse was lame for God sakes…this could not end well was all I could think about. I trotted around the arena as the rest of the competitors entered and they closed the gait. Christy sat ring side yelling at me to TROT! I was merely doing a long jog…I was so afraid that if I let him trot out Fox style everyone would see his gimp. But I guess I had forgotten what horse I was on. I was on the Phar Lap of the youth quarter horse industry. A horse that was all heart. A horse that loved competition and the win. A horse that knew exactly where he was. He trotted as sound as a dollar. He moved beautifully. At first I buried him on the rail trying not to be seen, but eventually I did realize that he was not off, and I pushed my way to the inside. His trot was not our best, but our canter, like always was perfectly in hand…even and steady, he rocked his way around the ring with the utmost consistency.

Finally the flat work was over and we were called into line up. As we strolled into our line, the announcer mentioned that randomly selected, eight and first place would be drug tested for this event…It was at that moment that I honestly knew where we had finished. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind. Eight had always been my favorite number…Shelly Kinne had once thrown a brown eighth place ribbon on the floor calling it the color of dirt making that a new family joke…we had an illegal substance on his leg for two minutes the night before I was certain would now scandalously show up. It was my destiny.

I waited in line and clapped for each of my friends as they started with the finalists and worked their way down to the winner….the World Champion. Finally they got to eighth place…Features Fox, ridden by Michelle Cramer of Westmoreland, NY.

And there is was.

I stepped out of line in a glow. My poor boy had been allowed to finally stand still so it was a slow first step, but we sauntered over to receive “our” blue cooler. I had done it. I had long since given up my dream of the Olympic ride and come to a more realistic goal…and I had accomplished it. We had accomplished it…me, Fox, my mom and dad…Buffy. We hung tight for four years, endured the injuries, the hoof issues, the long truck rides, the hotel rooms, the teens! We had gotten to exactly where we wanted to be and succeeded. Top ten at the World Show. Eighth place out of sixty two horses.

Breathe…

Fox and I were escorted quickly to the veterinarian area where they did their random testing. Shortly after I made my way to Harold Compton and had our photos taken. I hugged my horse. I hugged my parents. I hugged my horse again. Mr. Kaplow passed us on the way to our stalls and made a comment about how elated I was and he looked genuinely happy for me. Fox was hosed down, rubbed down, wrapped, fed and finally allowed to rest. My next move was a phone call. I had to call a little blonde girl in Clark Mills, NY and tell her my news.

Finally the show was over for us. We loaded Fox onto the trailer once again now pulled by the damaged Bronco ($1800.00 to the fender damaged) and we headed home. That was another long ride, but there was a new kind of happy spin in our tires.


Fox would be given a break to heal…he had earned it.

We arrived at out next horse show in Syracuse to find Christy clad in a t-shirt that simply read…I survived Texas with the Cramers.

As for me and Fox…well there’s more to our story, but we always hold tight to what we accomplished. We always hold tight to each other…

He is my hero…