Hunter/Jumper horse shows combine two very different disciplines of the forward seat riding style that emerged from the mounted cavalry. Showjumping is all about speed and scope, or athleticism. The fastest horse around the course that jumps clean, (without knocking anything down) wins. Jumper classes are objective, like ice hockey, with clear rules and penalties, whereas the prestigious hunter divisions are subjectively judged against an ideal of perfection, like figure skating. Hunter classes were originally developed to assess a horse’s suitability as a foxhunter, so the judges reward a pleasant horse with a ground covering stride and a bold but careful and athletic jump. Each over fences class consists of a course of approximately eight jumps designed to mimic the obstacles hunters encountered in the field, like farm gates, stone walls, or picket fences. The evolution of equestrian sport away from strictly military and aristocratic circles led to an explosion of amateur interest in horses as a hobby, and a corresponding boom in the horse show industry caters to weekend-warrior riders. Most trainers derive a large part of their income not from the day-to-day training of horses or riders, but from show per- diems and from commissions earned assisting clients with the buying and selling of their horses.
I went out to work as an extra whenever I had a free day. The pay was crappy but at least you were on a set. The houses and hospitals and schools I had seen on TV
revealed themselves to actually be cramped little corners in labyrinthine warehouses, opened up like dollhouses for the cameras and sound and lighting technicians. I helped populate the background of high schools and cafes, pretending to be deep in conversation with other extras, miming speech and laughter without making a sound as the real actors said their lines. For party scenes I danced soundlessly to imaginary music that would be looped in later, with groups of other attractive young actors (each of us wearing an approved ensemble from the six different outfits we were asked to bring.) I picked up the inside tricks, like where to buy the designer clothes that were used on camera and then sold off in the Valley for a fraction of their price. And I learned all about making a meal out of the Craft Service table and how to sneak another one home in my purse.
An unbelievable amount of time was spent waiting as crew set up lights and cameras for each different shot. I barely recognized famous people when I saw them on the streets, and then when I saw them on set I couldn’t get over how fake they seemed, loaded up with the pancake makeup that looked flawless on camera. They spent a lot of time hidden in their Star Wagon trailers, or in makeup having their hair sprayed into place (again) and more makeup spackled on and powdered. They wore little white paper collars until the very last minute to keep the tan colored paint from getting on their clothes. Typically sets were as segregated as the Old South, with hired talent carefully protected from the hungry and sometimes delusional approaches of the desperate masses of Extras, all actors looking for a leg up with an agent so they could get real auditions and be a star too.
Getting an agent was harder than finding a bartending job, harder than finding the perfect guy, even harder than picking the winning lottery numbers. You couldn’t get work without an agent, and you couldn’t get in to see an agent if they didn’t want to see you, and the only way an agent wanted to see you was if you were getting work and they thought they could make money, so you basically had to find a way to be a star in order to find an agent, in order to get auditions, in order to be a star.
I auditioned for an acting class at The Larry Moss Studio in Santa Monica and was given a spot. The class was serious, full of real New York style actors who talked about finding their motivation in a scene and read Stanislavski.
I wanted new headshots: I needed a photo that promised I was interesting,
attractive, different, special. First I needed a new haircut. I went to an insanely expensive hairstylist who examined me critically and told me I might need a browlift. She said I looked like the next Renee Zellwegger and then she gave me Jennifer Aniston’s haircut.
I needed new clothes for my headshots. Black was too stark on film, white threw off the white balance, I needed something with a little texture but that didn’t compete too much with my face. Denim looked too working class and too dated. I was going to need more money.
I got called in on a music video that was shot on an all white set with a mixed cast of actors and dancers. We were dressed in hip outfits with lots of bright colors and told to walk around the stage looking like dreamy New Yorkers. (Los Angeles thinks New York is very cerebral. I guess maybe it is, compared to LA.) There was a rotating platform at
the front of the stage that some of us were assigned to walk onto and spin around on. I prayed I wouldn’t get picked, since stumbling and falling were an embarrassingly high probability even without the turntable, but of course I did. So now I was wandering around the stage and wobbling onto the moving record player and struggling not to giggle hysterically while the Director talked about becoming a “living, moving Magritte
painting.” Most of the other actors were deadly serious but one girl appeared to recognize how ridiculous the whole thing was, which sort of surprised me because she was
gorgeous and I don’t generally expect girls that pretty to have any idea what’s going on. She and I shared a look. I mean, New Yorkers would never walk around so slowly, or wear such bright colors, and probably no one there even knew who the hell Magritte was or what his paintings looked like. It was fun, though.
I finally mastered the walking, looking dreamy, and stepping onto a circular escalator: I just had to think about puppies while I anticipated and accounted for the movement of the platform. During lunch I stood around flirting with a super hot guy named Mark while the crew worked on the lighting, until the blonde girl joined our conversation. She and I discovered that our birthdays were only a few days apart in February, which led to an immediate zodiac bond about our Piscean shoe obsessions. Her name was Zoe. She looked like a cookie-cutter version of a Hollywood starlet—blond, blue-eyed and tan, skinny but somehow voluptuous, she was almost too perfect to believe. After that, Mark flirted mostly in her direction. At the end of the day we all exchanged numbers although it was obvious that Mark was not planning to call me.
One night my parents called me to tell me my grandmother had died. I hung up the phone and sat in my tiny compartment and looked vacantly at the way the light fell flat on the beige wall. It was warm outside and people were laughing on the boardwalk. I wanted friends who knew what had happened without my having to say it. I wanted someone who loved me to make me feel better. I wanted to not feel alone in the middle of millions of people. I decided to go out, but I came back home lonelier than ever.
When I went home for the funeral, my mom treated me to a visit to the family dentist. The first time I ever heard of the Los Angeles Equestrian Center, the dental hygienist had both of her latex gloved fists in my mouth. She asked me if I still rode horses. I gargled something that sounded vaguely like “GOh, I mish it, oh” which,
probably since she was in the habit of asking questions while making conversation totally impossible, she correctly interpreted as “No, I miss it though.” She told me that her daughter had lived in Burbank and ridden horses there. She said there was a huge riding facility, right next to Griffith Park.
When I drove into the Los Angeles Equestrian Center the acres of parking lots were all packed. I turned under the big arch, expecting to find impeccable green grass and white fencing, and determined to find a way to get back on a horse. As my car bounced and clunked over the succession of speed bumps, I got a dirty look from a thin-lipped rider whose boots dangled in her stirrups as she walked her horse along the fence to my right. Everything that wasn’t covered in asphalt was a reddish-dirt brown.
I parked in an empty spot and slung open the Oldsmobile’s door. The scent hit me like an aromatherapy candle. The smell of horse mingled with clean leather, hay, and sweat—as primordially comforting as the smell of a campfire, hot coffee or caramel. I immediately recognized the sound of a horse show going on, an announcer droning the names and numbers of riders over a loudspeaker as they entered the ring. I walked in the direction of the competition.
Low stone walls surrounded several arenas which were filled with perfectly raked footing of damp beach sand and jumps built to look like the split rail fences, hay bales, hedges, and picket gates of a utopian aristocratic estate. The rails were painted in hunter greens, tree bark browns and crisp whites. Each jump was draped with flowers and surrounded by potted plants. But the horses were staggering.
Each gorgeous animal was bigger and more magnificent than any I had ever seen. Glistening mahogany bays, blood orange chestnuts, snow-white greys cantered and trotted in concentric circles. Each muscular neck was accented by perfect, tiny button braids and each horse seemed to be ridden by a tall blonde girl, every one of which was wearing a navy riding coat and breeches a weird shade of greenish beige. Underneath every navy hunt coat was a white shirt with a navy monogram on the collar. I stared at the girls with their black velvet helmets perched over their hair, ponytailed and hair- netted and artfully swooped over their ears and tucked neatly up into their helmet.
Golf carts and Hispanic men surrounded the arena, holding lead ropes attached to horses that stood quietly napping with hind legs cocked. They carried grooming boxes filled with brushes and spray bottles, wore martingales swung over their shoulders like bandoliers, and fussed over their charges, painting dark polish on their hooves and
running brushes through their thick tails. Trainers stood in the middle of the warm up area next to a series of plain looking jumps, screaming orders at the riders.
“Halt! HALT! Come on! RIDE! You have to hold him together. Again.” “Francesca, hand-gallop the oxer, then roll back and trot the crossrail.”
“That is EMBARASSING, Christina, horrible, put your spur on and come again.” Each rider eventually trotted into the ring and jumped the course, then the trainer clapped and whistled loudly for their client and the horse was returned, sweating and dirty, to the groom who walked the horse back to the show barn.
There were four or five long wooden shed row barns and there were a half dozen more barns made out of canvas tents. I knew that you could rent a stall for your horse at multiple day shows, but I had never seen anything like this. Row after row of stalls were filled with shining horses, and then there were other stalls set up with cross ties and rubber mats lining the floor to serve as grooming stalls, or feed stalls full of hay bales and horse food. There were temporary tack rooms with orderly rows of saddle racks and acrylic trunks and matching bridle racks emblazoned with the barn colors, and bandage racks stacked full of white cotton quilts and color coordinated stable wraps. There were even stalls that had zip up curtains for clients to use as dressing rooms. Each different trainer had colorful fabric banners and drapes and directors chairs, trunks, some even had the flowers customized in their barn’s colors. There were even little patio sets of whicker furniture with framed pictures and a cable knit blanket (in the barn’s color) slung over the back of a seat, like home away from home. All the farm names were idyllic adjectives crossed with a landscape feature: Rainbow Valley, Walden Brook, Golden Crest. Ribbons were hung across the front of each display: blue, red, yellow, white, pink and green,
universal horseshow code for first through sixth place. The biggest displays consistently boasted the most blues.
I had never seen this sort of production for a weekend of showing. This must be an ‘A’ show. A pilot light inside me sparked to life and a tiny blue flame caught and quivered, waiting to burn higher.