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Fall FuzzyOctober 02, 2005 Yesterday was the "Fall Fuzzy," the Martha's Vineyard Horse Council's last show of the season. Fuzzy is what horse and pony coats are growing in these days of waning light and cooler nights. No one expects the spit-and-polish look of the summer shows, and the dress code is much relaxed: brighter colors are much in evidence, and flashy saddle pads in a variety of prints replace the sober black or white of the regular shows. To a sampling of standard classes -- leadline, walk-trot, pony hunter over fences, and the like -- are added a few games, like egg & spoon, command (like Simon Says -- if you don't do what the judge says ASAP, you're out), and sit-a-buck (a bareback class in which a dollar bill is one-third tucked under the rider's thigh; the idea is to keep the dollar the longest, and if you win you get to keep everyone else's fallen bucks). For an island show, Fall Fuzzy is diverse. The shows I rode in as a teenager, most of them sponsored by local 4-H horse clubs, offered an array of classes for hunt seat, saddle seat, and stock seat (western) riders, plus games that were open to all. In those days, Vineyard shows were just as varied: interesting enough to attract spectators like me who didn't know any of the riders. These days there are hunter shows and dressage shows, and if you aren't riding, they're somnolently monotonous. The only spectators are the friends and relatives of riders. In recent years Fall Fuzzy has shared the Ag Hall grounds with a harvest festival, which features the products of island craftpeople, the produce of local farmers, and the Antique Power Show, venerable putt-putts that pump water, make shingles, generate electricity, and perform other mechanical feats of yesteryear. People wander back and forth between festival and show, stop to greet friends, sit on the bleachers, lean on the ring rail -- it's great to have an audience that includes people you don't know. Allie and I rode over from Malabar Farm; it takes about an hour and a half, alternating walk and trot, through the state forest. Few people ride to the shows, and most of them are within a half hour of the Ag Hall. Some people are awed by Allie and me; others think I'm nuts and Allie's a saint for putting up with me. Hell, when I was in 4-H, most of us rode to all the shows; hardly anyone had a trailer, and the parents who did usually figured that if the kid was over 12, the horse was sensible, and the show was within an hour's ride, there was no reason to hitch up the trailer. (People think I lie when I say that we used to ride from Weston to Sudbury down the Boston Post Road, but that's another story.) The trek didn't tire Allie out, far from it: she was a bit hyper most of the day because there was so much activity on the fairgrounds and she'd been to only one show this year, and that a drop-dead sedate dressage show in June. We didn't place in the large horse pleasure class -- no surprise, since Allie was acting too hot for a pleasure horse -- but we did get second in both the adult equitation class and the adult pleasure class. We had to scratch my two favorite game classes, command and sit-a-buck: if I didn't start homeward by 4 p.m., I wouldn't be able to feed the horses at Malabar (Ginny was going to a wedding) and at Elaine's before dark. Allie Iron Horse made the return trip in an hour and a quarter, possibly because supper was waiting. She power-walked up the barn driveway as if she was ready to do it all over again. Elaine and Michael got back on an earlier boat than expected from the Friesian keuring (inspection) in Connecticut, hauling their two mares and 2005 babies in a three-box-stall-size trailer. The big news was that Janka's colt, Steffan, had been named Grand Champion Colt! We unloaded Janka and Steffan, Caroline and Reike in the dark, got them settled, then adjourned to the main house to watch the excellent video Michael had made of their horses' performances. I rode Allie up there bareback this afternoon to return some of their mail that had been in my truck -- I put it in a plastic bag and tied it to one of my belt loops -- pick up some coffee I'd left behind, and see the Grand Champion Colt in broad daylight. Rhodry came along, the longest ride he'd been on since late spring. He takes it very easy in hot weather. The last couple of years, when cool weather arrives, I've wondered if maybe he was ready to give up long rides; he's going on 11, after all. Not yet, it seems, though I think those brisk hour-and-up-long trots through the woods are behind him. I miss my malamutt when he doesn't come along -- I even miss screaming at him to leave that damn deer carcass alone -- but he seems pretty content to lie in the barnyard and wait for Allie and me to come home.
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