24
Later that morning, I went to the riding ring and set up the three barrels.
I saddled one of the Appaloosas. Lightning was the filly, or mare, it is kind of hard to decide which is which, and Lightning is at that place where they can be a filly or a mare.
Depends on whether you breed them or not, I suppose.
Lightning was one of the three mares or fillies that Mom and I found or adopted that were too bonded to separate.
Some would have, but the Appaloosa vendor and my mother were not of that persuasion.
They are a bonded trio; they remain a bonded trio.
And Lightning, a snowflake pattern filly, was my choice as a rider.
Lightning was extremely intelligent; I could sense that, but she also needs a strong-willed rider at least as of now.
She will mellow with age, but right now, she is a handful at times.
This morning, Sarah was assigned to me, which means, to the limit of her ability, she has to follow me wherever I go, even within the house.
And Lowri was at the farmhouse. It was a good day at the Mercer Studio with a shoot in both indoor studios and two on location, and Cleo was doing very well.
Cleo’s daughters were not present; they usually are right now.
Mom hired them as stable hands for the summer, which really means that she is going to teach them to ride her way.
But I was the only one riding.
From twelve until about eighteen, when it was decided that my horse could no longer handle it, I rode in competitive barrel racing.
Barrel racing is a rodeo sport that is usually associated with female riders and not the male rodeo set.
And this works because female riders first weigh less, and that means that they can ride a lighter and more agile horse, and are capable of doing stunts that a man on a quarter horse will get thrown over.
But I was, well, rail thin. And there was no possibility that I was roping, so I rode barrel.
Barrel racing consists of three barrels set at the extremes of the rodeo ring, which are specific to the inch locations, and the rider rides a set pattern circling each of the three barrels.
The goal is time. No style points. You can touch the barrel, but not move it or knock it over.
The fastest rider wins after deductions.
And I put Lightning to the test. I had been told that she had trained on the barrels.
And it was clear that she did. Appaloosas are fairly small horses, light in the body, originally ridden bareback by the Native Americans who developed the breed, and very light on their feet.
The breed was developed for buffalo-style hunting where the rider had to move within the herd, select an animal, and... I don’t like the bloody details.
And that is what Lightning was and what she did. My weight is about twenty pounds less than her max; she is a small horse presently. She will fill out and will be able to hold and handle a heavier rider, but we are talking about now, today.
And she was well-trained, and she was fast.
I started easy, and as the afternoon progressed, I started pushing her to see if we were competitive.
Mom, remember, is the old horse lady of the Stone House Farm, who got wind of what I was doing and showed up with her stopwatch.
Mom, when we were kids, rode barrels competitively.
She knows what is what and how to time the rides.
After I finished and was hosing Lightning down, yes, it is that hard on the horse, Mom came over and said, “Worthington is in two weeks, are you riding?”
I thought for a minute and remembered that I was off that weekend somehow and said, “Yes, I want to ride.”
Mom said, “You know this is going to piss a few people off.”
“I know, Mom, but this is my life, and I do get to keep something from before.”
“And you are choosing horses?”
“No, Mom, I am choosing to live the lifestyle that you taught me, and that lifestyle includes riding horses. And if that riding is competitive? Well, so be it. My keepers do not own me; no one does until the wedding, and then it will be Carmine, not Ellen.”
“Good, and Shannon, it’s been almost three years? Your times are exactly where you left off.”
“And Shannon, I have wedding invites to go figure out.”
And I finished up with Lightning.
Lowri came over and helped; she is a rider from England.
“Shannon, is that the only way you know how to ride?”
I laughed at that. “No, Lowri, but it is the way that I challenge myself to ride.”
“Oh, I can see the technical aspects, and Shannon, I grew up with horses, and I have never, absolutely never seen any woman handle a horse like you just did.”
“Lowri, I am locally good, but the right woman on the right horse would make me a fool, as if I had never ridden.”
“I don't know about that. Shannon, do you think that I could learn?”
“Lowri, I started barrel riding when I was about eight.”
“OK, I will stick to trails.”
Sarah came over and asked, “Do you think I could try on one of the other mares? I promise not to push as hard as you did.”
Sarah was the quiet security; I almost never talked to her. Kelley, on the other hand, and I talked endlessly.
“Sarah, I didn’t know that you could ride?”
“A bit.”
“Go in the stable, take the Appaloosa you want out, you know where the tack is, you have helped me saddle a few rides with me, and let’s see what you can do.”
Fifteen minutes later, Sarah returned riding Blanket, an Appaloosa with the blanket pattern and just a few random spots. I could see that Sarah had selected competitive tack; it is definitely different from trail tack, don’t ask, it just is. And she put Blanket through her paces.
And she was good, but rusty.
“How long since you last rode the barrels?” I asked.
“About ten years, never thought I’d get a chance again.”
“Well, I suppose I just got a riding partner.”
And then Lowri said, “No, you got two riding partners. If you don't try to kill yourselves in this ring, I will join you on the trail. I definitely miss it.”
“You know, ladies, for trail we can take the Arabians, or if it is cooler, the Forest Horses; the Appaloosas are the only ones my mom would allow in this ring, but on a trail ride?”
And we made a plan for the morning and took care of Blanket.
In the morning, we got up early and rode the trail. Sarah rode Blanket, Lowri rode Spotted. I did not name the horse, so there were no remarks. The horse is named Spotted, and it has more spots than any Appaloosa that I have ever seen. OK?
And I rode on one of the Arabians, figuring that I would ride Lightning in the afternoon in the ring doing barrels.
We did about two hours, and the three of us on the trail were equals, so that made me very happy. I missed riding, and I want it back in my life.
To be brutally honest, riding is about the only thing that was part of boy Shannon’s life that I actually do miss.
Everything else that defined me from before?
It has no consequence in my life now. I spent my time here on the farm, and that meant riding most days or studying.
I had no other life. My sisters had a social life; I never developed one.
I would say something asinine like “interesting,” but it really is not.
Just a simple statement of fact. Boy Shannon had school, the farm, and riding.
That defined him. If I kept the farm and the riding, I would lose nothing if I never went back to being boy Shannon again.
No friends, no activities, no hobbies, and no sports.
Just the farm and riding. Studying, that we all do every day of our lives, whether we want to or not.
And that afternoon, I rode Lightning. This was the second day that Sarah and I rode the barrels together.
When you ride a horse this hard, there has to be an absolute trust between rider and horse.
You are pushing the horse to its limits as a rider, and the horse is pushing you to your limits to stay with it.
In barrel racing, finesse is not the goal; seconds are.
And the faster a horse reacts, the harder it is to stay in the saddle.
And I knew that, and this horse knew that.
Mom joined us again with her stopwatch and timed the last five runs.
When I finished for the day, Lowri and Sarah actually took Lightning for a cool down, hose off, brush out, as we wanted Lightning to be used by multiple hands on her.
And these two would be around me when we were riding.
Besides, they wanted time with Lightning, trying to steal my horse, I think.
They can steal my horse, but not my woman.
Anyway, Mom came over and sat me down on a hay bale.
“Shannon, you bested yesterday’s time, and it is about what you used to ride. And you are riding both Saturday and Sunday at Worthington. I will make sure that Lightning is there; you make sure that you are there. But I wanted to make sure that first, you are riding as girl Shannon, and second,
you need rodeo clothes. I do not suppose you can find those in New York for free.”
I had to laugh at that, but it did get me thinking.
“Mom, who designs the clothes for rodeo queens and riders? Maybe we could figure out if they are interested...”
“That is Ellen’s world, but I think we are seeing her tomorrow, correct?”
Mom was not insisting that she accompany Carmine and myself to the endocrinologist.
In the morning, we were flying to Teterboro and then going to the specialist that Ellen knew to see about hormones.
This was a one-day trip as Carmine was taking off the day from the studio and her work.
Both Carmine and my mother insisted that I was not doing this alone.
And I am OK with that. Nothing hidden here with these two.
Mom was driving up to the hospital in Grove City today to get the latest test result of the blood work I had done.
We wanted to know exactly where my hormone levels are as of today before we make any decision.
So yeah, why not bring Ellen into the cowgirl world? I think she would look good in a Stetson.
In fact, I think I’ll wear a Stetson tomorrow. Why not? That will make someone’s day editorially; someone is always looking for a story. And as Ellen says, there is no bad news in modeling, as all attention drives what you are paid. Good or bad.
The following morning, Mom drove us down to Grove City. I could have taken the Land Rover, not the Porsche two-seater, thank you very much. But I could have taken the Land Rover that Byron is leasing for me, but, well, it’s a mom thing, and you do have to humor them occasionally.
We left at 7:30 a.m. and were in Manhattan within two hours. We stopped at the agency; there is always something that I need to do or sign, someone wants a measurement double-checked, something that I can not get away without doing.
“Shannon, you want to do what? You want to race a horse at a rodeo in two weeks?”
“Shannon, are you nuts?”
“Shannon, what if you get hurt? Then what? What about your career?”
“Ellen, look over all of my contracts. Dad puts in a barrel clause, as he calls it, and it states that I am allowed to do barrel races whenever I desire.”
Ellen called her legal or contract person and asked if there was a barrel race clause in my contract.
Five minutes later, she received a call back on the speaker.
“Yes, in Shannon’s contracts, but not in her sisters. George inserted a clause that allows her to barrel race when she desires.”
“And you never told me?”
“I didn’t think it was significant, and to be honest, what is a barrel race anyway?”
“Well, apparently it is Shannon getting dressed up as a Southwest rodeo whore and riding a real live horse as fast as she can in a rodeo ring in competition in front of a screaming crowd.”
“And your problem, Ellen?”
“Well, first, she could die. Second, the horse could die, and third, there could be no one there from any of the fashion press shooting this event.”
“And how does this affect legal?”
Ellen hung up and just said, “Idiot.”
“OK, I can see that I will not talk you out of this, that your mother is behind you, that legally I can’t stop you. So the question remains, how do we handle this, and to what level do you want this to become part of your public world?
I think that this is a path that will open doors and generate covers I have never thought about in the past...”
And you do not want to be bored with the rest.
The result is that we have photographers in Mercer, and those two days they will be in Worthington, and we are not publicizing that I am doing this beforehand. Still, we will offer the session and the video that will be shot to the magazines, and we will play this up big time as part of my brand.
I don’t talk about brand much, but brand, meaning my brand that I promote and sell, is what drives my income.
Everyone has a brand in this world. Mine is young and developing and not deeply established.
A brand can be an asset or an issue. You want to be branded as easy to work with and always present on the shoot, and it is not a hit or miss if she shows up hungover or not from the night before.
Both are brands. One is going to get you shoots; the other will be an express ticket out of fashion.
But deeper than that, who is its model, what does she look like, act like?
Where does she hang out? Those also factor into the assignment offered to you.
And that is what Ellen was laser-focused on: horse girl, rodeo queen, hidden unknown life.
All of those are brand attributes. They will develop my personality as a brand.
Not my personality as a person, but the personality of the brand that represents the person.
Ellen knows this; I play professionally.
And this is important. Shannon, as in the one named model, is not, I repeat, is not Shannon Gail O’Connor, the twenty-one-year-old student at Mercer University.
Ellen knows how to capitalize on this, and I give her free rein.
If she wants to turn Worthington into a fashion spectacle?
Hey, why not? It costs money to keep horses.
Now, not that I need that money, but what we establish now will shape me down the road for many years to come if I can manage to stay in fashion.
And with that thought, the three of us caught a cab with Kelley to my medical appointment.
Dr. Anna MacKee is a forty-something endocrinologist of the rich and famous; of course, she is in Tribeca, wherever in hell Tribeca is.
I keep being told that they are in Tribeca, like I am supposed to be impressed, but no one, absolutely no one, has told me why or where Tribeca actually is.
All I get is, you know, along that avenue and between this street and that street on the upper side of something, none of which I have ever heard of.
I could look at a map.
But that is off-brand for me. You know, a hang-on from the boy Shannon stage, the male who, along with all other males, can not read a map.