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Back in the Saddle…After 44 Years
Back in the Saddle...After 44 Years - Sporting Classics Daily
The hunting jacket collar was adorned with a band of gold wool, indicating that I had earned my "colors"—official membership with The Camden Hunt.
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by Salley McAden McInerney | Jul 7, 2020 | BIG GAME, HUNTING, Slider
I reached into the left, front pocket of my foxhunting jacket, a vintage black and grey-flecked wool frock made by Brittany Riding Apparel of New York. My fingers found something thin and soft—a faded blue pack of 10-cent stamps with an enthusiastic message from the postal service about using your zip code.
"Help us give your letters top speed."
Old message. Five-digit zip codes were introduced in 1963.
Old stamps. Ten-cent stamps were issued in the early '70s.
Old me—issued in 1955.
I inspected the stamp book further. What was the story of the stamps? And the story of a riding jacket I had been given by my mother on Christmas Day, 1972, but a jacket I had never worn?
It's the story of a woman's place.
No, I take that back. It's the story of the many places a woman finds herself before she's back in the place she loves best, before she comes full circle and finds herself where her earliest memories were made.
For me, that is in the saddle aboard a handsome four-legged fellow named Cort on a biting cold morning in the vast natural beauty that is thousands of acres of foxhunting country around Camden, South Carolina.
The air's still damp from the passing night, but the ground is softening to the sun's rising. Horses stamp their hooves, clear their wide nostrils with great, loud snorts. A researcher in France recently suggested that these snorts indicate positive emotions. Indeed, the horses are ready for the hunt to begin.
The huntsman sounds her slim brass horn. The 30-some foxhounds lead the charge into the woods, scouring the territory, searching for scent, signaling to one another what they have found, "honoring" the discovery of a senior hound whose nose knows best.
The chase is on.
It's a chase that's been going on for centuries. Around the world. Here in America. In the tall pines of Camden.
I grew up riding horses. Sensible farm ponies to start. More complicated creatures as I progressed. As a young girl, I foxhunted with The Camden Hunt, established in 1926, but the boundless joy of that sport came to an abrupt end in September, 1972, when I was packed off to a boarding school in North Carolina.
I was riding too much. Studying too little. Adolescence was difficult; boys terrified me. Public schools were in racial upheaval. My parents deemed it time for me to go.
That Christmas, when I returned home from school, the handsome hunting jacket was underneath the tree. Its collar was adorned with a band of gold wool, indicating that I had earned my "colors"—official membership with The Camden Hunt.
Too little, however, and too late. Life intervened. A bad riding accident in college didn't help. I would not wear that jacket or ride with The Camden Hunt until 44 years later.
That's a long time.
Long enough to be in many a woman's place. Long enough to get a college degree, get married, get a job, turn it into a career, have children, raise children, own homes, sell homes, move from this state to that state, keep a marriage going, keep hoping to win the lottery, have friends, lose friends, find them again, write a book, take care of countless pets, watch parents grow old, lose parents, hope you'll find them in the hereafter, watch children stumble, get up, grow into adults and move into their own lives and then—only then, at least for me—did I feel this old place beckoning, did I realize the opportunity was mine to finally wear that wool jacket.
I started with "refresher course" riding lessons. My muscle memory and instincts were intact. Then my husband and I moved to Camden—a community steeped in equine history and sport. A horse named Cort came into my orbit. He was young, kind and sensible. He had never foxhunted, but he could jump the moon. And, he was willing, willing to do what I asked.
With a few alterations, the hunting jacket fit, and on a cold morning in November several years ago, I put it on.
Finally, I had arrived at an old, beloved place. It's a place where the mornings are cold; the fog deep and thick in the woods. It's a place where hounds are long and lanky, noses to the ground, charging through the underbrush. It's a place where horses are sturdy and sure-footed, alert to everything around them. It's a place where humans like to think they are in charge, but in truth, where wily foxes and stealthy coyotes run the show—circling in swamps, bursting through a line of trees, suddenly tiring of the escapade and disappearing into thin air.
After 44 years, it has become my place again, though it's not the same place as it was so long ago.
On a recent hunt, after a grueling stretch of galloping, I pulled my dear red horse to a halt and collapsed wearily over his withers. My legs felt like rubber. My heart pounded. My breath came in gulps. A friend and her pony pulled up beside us. She laughed at my prostrate position in the saddle.
"Well, now you know what it's like to be shot out of a cannon," she said.
Yes, I do, but I am not a circus performer.
This new place where I find myself comes with age, with knowing that I am no longer young, no longer a fearless sprite bouncing off the ground like a rubber ball after a fall from a horse.
I am aware of the danger, the suddenness, the unpredictability of a sharp turn or a screeching halt, the breadth of a big jump, the blistering speed.
In the cold air, I say a prayer for safety, for using my good sense and for Cort using his.
Then, I press my heels deeper into the stirrups, anchors on either side of me. My body synchs with the leather saddle, the shape of my horse. I grasp the reins, the feel of the oiled leather so soft and right. I reach for Cort's shoulder, rub my hand against his bone and muscle. I talk to him. His ears flicker backwards, listening. I trust him. I believe he trusts me.
The huntsman's horn sounds and we set out into this most perfect, returned-to place. A place where an old riding jacket has been altered around the waistline and where a book of 10-cent stamps remains a mystery. I cannot say why it is there, but it stays in the jacket's front pocket as a talisman—a thin, soft reminder of many years and many places.
Reactions: Victor N TN, 45acp230 and jeepnut
45acp230
Very nice! Memories!
Reactions: Victor N TN
Victor N TN
I am sending this on to a friend that I know will appreciate it. Wonderful story. Thank you for sharing it with us.
Be careful,
Victor N TN Jul 21, 2020