Bluebirdy

Now that we’re on the theme of “behind,” two weeks ago an old friend from Ireland who trains horses and riders for a living stopped by on his way to Basel and took me to the Mercedes CSI International Horse Show in Zurich. Big horse shows with grand prix jumpers and absurd prizes — in one of the classes the winner would receive four kilos of gold. Jumping horses is a big deal out here, much bigger than in the U.S., and the riders are celebrities who don’t just compete, but also stage silliness for their “fans,” the way a basketball player might play in a charity game.

I’m used to watching the Grand Prixes back at home in little ole’ northern California where the biggest prize is a car, perhaps a Jaguar or something of that ilk, but more commonly it’s just prize money in the league of $20k. Since Mercedes was sponsoring this show up at the Hallenstadion, they were indeed giving out a car in one of the classes we watched that Friday evening. I’m also used to watching the riders back home drive off in their fancy cars after the show to go sip champagne and rub caviar all over themselves, or whatever it is that these people do in their spare time. I’m not used to them making fools of themselves, as we common people like to do when we’re riding horses (or at least like what I like to cause the children to do who I used to give riding lessons to).

Riders from Switzerland, Germany, Ireland, France, the UK, Brazil, and Russia were entered in Friday night’s competition, fences were set at about 5′ (that’s 5′ high and sometimes 5′ wide as well, for those of you don’t realize how big these things get), and a gorgeous, technical, indoor course was set for them. Again, horse jargon defined would explain “technical” as requiring a rider to negotiate sets of fences between which are varying numbers of strides, or difficult turns, or tricky visual settings that might confuse a horse. There’s typically a set of three fences in a row called a “combination” that require very specific striding — come into the first fence wrong and you’re as good as dead unless you’re riding a horse named Jesus. There’s also usually a fence with a liverpool under it, which is a rectangular inflatable pool that can be filled with water. Horses sometimes balk at this because of reflections and the fact that well, it’s water and horses like to be afraid of things commonly found in nature.

The course will have a set time limit, for example 40.8 seconds, and the rider must come in under the time allowed in the first round otherwise will be assessed time faults. The rider can also accrue faults by knocking down fences (rails). A rail down is usually 4 faults. If you haven’t figured this out yet, faults are bad, and to advance to a “jump off” (final round) you typically need to “go clear” (have zero faults) in your first round. Everyone who goes clear advances to the jump off and then it becomes an all balls out speed competition, which as everyone knows, is the best part. Fastest time with fewest faults in the jump off wins.

This is all very exciting and everything, and maybe not as much if you don’t know anything about horses, but I’ll tell you that the Brazilian guy ends up winning. This was disappointing to my Irish friend who knows all about the European riders and could tell me the life story of each one on the competitors’ list, but didn’t know anything about the Brazilian guy and so called home to his kids to say, “Yeah, some Brazilian won it, I don’t know who,” and then hung up. The good part came after the dressage intermission, when some of the same riders came back into the ring to compete in the Mercedes “Jump and Drive.”

I have never seen anything like this in my life. But then again, I live under a rock, or at least, I lived in northern California, which could be under a rock when it comes to Europe. They had set a new jump course and in between fences had placed pairs of road cones with a tennis ball on the top of each cone. In the corner of the arena, an inconspicuous little, silver car was parked. The liverpool fence was notably lower than the other fences, maybe 2′6″ in height.

I nudged my Irish friend and said, “What the hell is this?” He said, “It’s a Jump and Drive. They have to jump this course, then get off their horses and get in that car over there and race the car through the cone course.” I was floored. I started whirling about in my seat, which I could tell was bugging the heck out of him. “What’s that little fence for?” I asked. “Is that for the riders to jump?” “No, of course not,” he said. “That’s the final fence before you have to jump off your horse and get in the car.” I was a little disappointed by this. I was sure that was a fence for people. It was just like back in the days when I used to run summer horse camp, and we’d make the kids go out and jump all the horse fences just to tire them out. We also made them climb the shit pile, but that’s another story.

The first rider came out and I leaned forward on the railing with my giant camera while my Irish friend leaned way back in his seat, sighing. The first rider completed his jump course with flying colors, then proceeded to slowly come to a halt, slowly get off his horse, and slowly wait for his groom to come get his horse. “This is lame!” I screamed, while the people sitting around us stared. “Isn’t he being timed? He should have leaped off his freaking horse!” Like a scene out of My Fair Lady, no one ever wants to be seen with me at the races.

To my utter glee, the same guy then took off his helmet, handed it to his groom, and started to run, with a spotlight on his dumb ass, towards the liverpool fence. “OMG he has to jump the horse fence!” I said, elbowing my Irish friend until he sat up. Now, it’s not like I’ve never seen someone running in their boots and britches. I myself have run in my own boots and britches at various horse shows, trying to get to my class or change horses or take a piss before I had to get back in the saddle. It’s that I’ve never seen a bunch of Grand Prix riders running in their oh so expensive threads and leaping over a horse fence the way the 7 year olds did at horse camp. The best part is, the fence wasn’t even set reasonably low or narrow. It was at least 2′6″ and 3′ wide with water at the bottom of it. Excellent.

The guy sort of makes it over the fence, landing with a splash into the liverpool on the other side and then running like a girl over to the car. He then jumps into the car, lurches it into gear, and starts the car course.

Not a one of these people could drive a car. They either knocked over every cone and/or tennis ball, or went so slowly that you probably could have beat them at a jog beside their car, or, if you were the third guy, got into the car only to go off course two seconds later and get disqualified (after a perfect round on his horse). “None of these people have any skills besides riding horses,” my Irish friend said half sadly, half disgusted. He nodded his head as I laughed like a wild hyena next to him, leaning over the railing and smacking the seat. He had his hand on his forehead when I looked back at him.

“Oh come ON,” I said to him, “how can you not find this even a bit entertaining? You don’t think this is funny?” He then smiled and leaned forward a bit. “Are you sure you’ve never seen this before?” he asked. “Even if I had seen this a hundred times, “I answered, “it would still be hilarious the 101st time.” He did eventually start to get into it, and by the fifth rider I had him leaning forward in his seat yelling, “Oh come on you idiot, go faster!”

There were two guys who were not total disappointments that night, and one of them managed to nearly spin out around the corner and spray dirt dangerously near the socialites eating dinner at their pricey tables set at the far end of the arena, so it wasn’t all a loss. If you want to see the rest of the show, the Mercedes CSI gallery is here. (And there are a few photos in there worth clicking the link for.)

Irish told me later that there’s another version of this class where you have to jump a course and then get off your horse and play soccer against the other competitors. I’m already looking for tickets for that show.

February 5th, 2008 | Category: Uncategorized | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL