Somewhere I have my first ride on Billy in competition on video. The video is hysterical, because the camera was set up next to the judge’s booth, which was a two-horse trailer. Billy, who has been on trucks and planes, all over Europe and North America, who yells at the trailer when it leaves without him—whether to a show or the vet or the fix-it shop, he doesn’t care; he’s clearly supposed to be Going Places—absolutely hates being near trailers. And so the video starts with Lendon Gray, two-time Olympian and Living Legend, leading us past, because I couldn’t get him by it. Once we’re in the ring, we never come remotely close to C.
We’ve come a long way, baby.
Since that ride, Bellinger took me to two NAJYRCs (team bronze 2003, individual 11th 2004). We qualified for the team in 2005 but I took another horse so we could move up to Grand Prix; he earned me my USDF Gold Medal before I turned 21, and then we took third place in the first-ever Brentina Cup, in 2006. He earned an award from the Trakehner Verband for being the highest scoring Trakehner in North America at Grand Prix.
And when, in 2008, he told me he was done being a Grand Prix horse, I told him that it was OK. He didn’t owe me anything. He’d made me the rider I was, and he’d never have to do anything he didn’t want to do again.
But that’s not where Billy’s story ends.
A student of a student was between horses, and was frustrated trying horses for sale; because she didn’t have anything to ride, everything she tried felt foreign and difficult, as she wasn’t riding-fit. I offered her Billy on a week-to-week lease. “As soon as you find something, send him back home to me,” I said. If he got hurt, he could come home. No worries.
Four years went by before he returned to me.
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She kept him at her beautiful Middleburg farm, and had me come teach her twice a week. He wintered in Florida, and while she never showed him, Billy gave her so much joy and confidence. And as if that weren’t enough, the proceeds of his lease paid for Fender.
But that’s not where Billy’s story ends either.
He struggled a bit with his last trip to Florida, and rather than risk his health, Billy was sent back to me in December of 2012. He was 20 years old, sound and full of running, but at 20, you know you’re on borrowed time. So I offered him to the parents of a darling 12-year-old girl who was taking lessons from Allison and I. All they had to do was cover his expenses, and the second he couldn’t do it anymore, they could give him back to me to be retired. I figured he’d give her something to ride through the winter.
But winter turned to spring, and Billy got Kristin her bronze medal. They won the Pony Club Dressage Rally. They won Lendon’s Youth Dressage Festival. They won the Regional Finals, and were one of two Jr/YRs to compete at the USDF National Finals, where they placed sixth in the open second level freestyle finals.
And 2013 turned to 2014. They went to Gladstone for the Festival of Champions, where they placed ninth. They were just barely pipped for a spot on the Region 1 Team for the NAJC, which went on to win a team gold medal; instead, they moved up to Prix St. Georges, and got Kristin her silver medal. And they won the Regional Finals again.
This is where Kristin’s story with Billy ends. We’ve never had to go to heroics to keep Billy sound—he wears normal shoes, gets the joint injections you’d expect for a 22-year-old dressage horse who’s been competing at the international levels for north of 10 years but nothing more, and lives out—but lately he’s just seemed a little tired, a little quiet. It’s time to step out of the double bridle, out of the world of pirouettes and tailcoats.
I know him better than I know myself. I know the look in his eye when he’s ready for a break. I knew it in 2008, and I know it now.
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But I also know that this isn’t where his story ends. Not completely.
Billy leaves me this week to go to Jean, a wonderful student of mine who’s a small animal vet. She wants someone to learn from at the lower levels, and when I told Billy that Jean is the kind of gal who brings homemade baked goods for us to her lessons, even though she’s just come off a 36-hour shift at the emergency hospital where she works, Billy said that Jean seemed like his kind of gal.
Maybe he’ll be hers for a month, or maybe six months, or maybe a year, or maybe longer. Maybe he’ll show, maybe he won’t. He’ll tell us what he wants (Lord knows Billy’s never been one to shy from making his opinions known).
All I want is for Billy to be happy. Right now, work makes Billy happy. When it stops doing so, he’ll be sent out to the field, where he can squeal at passersby and annoy everyone. But I can guarantee you that, whenever a horse trailer will pull in or out of the driveway, he’ll call to it, and chase it down.
We all should be so lucky to know a horse who, even though he’s been told time and time again that he owes me nothing, that he doesn’t have to give me anymore, just can’t stop giving his whole heart, his whole self, over and over again. It’s a priviledge to know him, and to call him mine.
