My sandbox is often 100 feet wide and 300 feet long. And on any given day, there may be another fifty people in there with me—dirty, gritty, sweaty, and very happy. Today, I’m playing in the dirt at the Horse Park of New Jersey at Stone Tavern, just down the road from Great Adventure.
I’m getting ready to show my mare, Spot (her real name is Briannes Final Print), later in the day. The riding arena is my sandbox. Horse shows, and being around horses in general, provide me with R&R, a rush of excitement, the opportunity to see friends, and the chance to challenge myself in pursuit of perfection.
Right now, it’s 5 a.m. and the sandbox is crowded. There are children, teenagers, young professionals, blue collar workers, doctors, lawyers, real estate agents, CEOs, housewives, grandmothers, and grandfathers—the riders come in all sizes and shapes. But everyone has a common goal: to ready our horses to show and hopefully win later in the day.
I stand out in the crowd. While most people ride little bay, buckskin, or sorrel horses, I am on a big brown and white tobiano-paint with markings you can’t miss. I often joke that, on a horse like mine, people remember you if you do well, and also if you don’t.
The sport I do is as unique as my mare. Called “reining,” it’s derived from the ranch work of the old West. The movements performed by horse and rider are highly stylized modern recreations of the maneuvers originally used to herd cattle. The cardinal rule is that the horse is “willingly guided,” responding to light pressure of the rein against his neck, or to small shifts in the rider’s body position, seat, and legs. The trademark maneuvers are:
Spins: From a standstill, and with the inside hind leg serving as a pivot foot, the horse crosses one front leg in front of the other and makes a specific number of revolutions, mimicking the quick turns required of a ranch horse.
Sliding Stops: For this maneuver, the horses wear special hind shoes, very slick with small extensions, like tiny skis. Starting at a gallop, the horse gradually locks his hind legs, and slides with his hind legs, leaving two long parallel tracks (like ski tracks). Meanwhile, the front legs walk forward. In the old West, a horse would have had to pick up speed, cut a cow off quickly, and then stop immediately if the rider roped the cow.
Rollbacks: After the sliding stop, the horse gathers himself and lifts his front end, making a quick 180-degree turn, prior to galloping off (ideally in the slide tracks he just made). Again, think chasing cows.
Circles: Large circles at the gallop are preceded or followed by instant slow downs, still at the lope (or canter) and on a loose rein, to demonstrate how well trained the horse is. When the horse changes direction in his circles, he changes leads, as well, shifting his balance so that he “leads” with the left front leg on a circle to the left, or the right front leg on a circle to the right.
