Caitlyn and Joey: A Horse, a Dream, and a Light Extinguished

by Emily Monroe, rhapsody98@gmail.com, for Advanced Composition, Summer 2011

The smell of wet, rich dirt was thick in my nose, overpowering most of the other smells in Virginia Intermont College’s Riding arena. It was a cold Sunday morning in the autumn of 2000, and we all shivered into our coats and scarves as we watched my sister Caitlyn and her horse Joey performing. This morning was the culmination of a year and a half of the hardest work I had ever witness, and I couldn’t possibly be more proud of my little sister. We couldn’t have known how it would all end.

Summer of 1999

We were never a rich family. My father was a cop, and until recently, our mother had been the stay at home kind. The only way Caitlyn had gotten her first lessons in horseback riding was as a Christmas gift. Our grandmother had paid for six months at once, for lessons at Four Winds Farm in Bristol, Virginia. After that, Caitlyn became something like a “Ward of the Barn.” She showed so much talent and interest that she was put on a scholarship program for a few months, and the owners, Bob and Beth Repass, had cut her lesson price down to bare minimum. It couldn’t have come at a better time for her.

We were never a rich family, and the long, bitter divorce certainly wasn’t helping. I was a freshman in college, with a fiancé and a job, and had my own life. My next sister, Anna, also stayed busy with high school, marching band, swim team, weight club, and her part time job. Meanwhile, Caitlyn buried herself in training at the barn. She was only eleven, a scrawny little girl who would grow into an athletically slim teenager. Her hair was a lighter shade of brown than either mine or Anna’s, and it would turn naturally curly very soon. When she rode in a show on one of the training ponies, she wore the classic “Fox Hunting” uniform, a tight fitting hunter green jacket, and cream-colored pants, with boots nearly to her knees. She kept her hair in a bun under her helmet.

Before long, Caitlyn wanted a horse of her own. She had always been stubborn, and many times my parents had given in just so that she would be quiet. This was one time when they simply couldn’t, and Caitlyn had realized that. She told our mother she was going to buy her own horse. Mom just laughed and said “Fine.”

Caitlyn spent the next year working as hard as she could. She did chores for money for our parents, and then for the neighbors. She saved every penny and dime she found. She told everyone not to give her gifts, but cash, and she saved all of her Christmas and birthday money.

My mom told a friend that she worked with about Caitlyn’s determination, and her friend gave her the number of a lady who sold candles. The lady’s company was called “Little Light of Mine” after the Bible School Song. She made her own candles. She made a deal with Caitlyn to sell them for her. Caitlyn bought them for four dollars and sold them for eight. Everyone we knew bought candles: Grandparents, work friends, school friends, college friends, my future mother in law, the guys down at the police station, people at church, everyone we knew bought at least one candle.

After about seven months she’d raised about six hundred dollars, Caitlyn wanted to start looking for horses. Mom and/or Dad (because sometimes they didn’t want to be in the same car together), would take her out to farms or barns to look. There just wasn’t one that was reasonably priced, or a good jumper, or that Caitlyn wanted. She wasn’t being particularly picky, but to be a good Hunter Jumper, a horse had to have specific qualities. Most of the barns in South West Virginia and East Tennessee are devoted to Western Style riding (based on speed and tight turns, as in Barrel Riding), and Caitlyn was taught English Riding (based on precision and high jumps, as in Fox Hunting).

Spring of 2000

Finally my dad heard through a friend that Mike, the man who did all the towing for the Bristol, Tennessee police department, had a horse for sale. Mom and Dad took Caitlyn down to meet Mike and his horses. He had three of them: Reba, a pregnant mare with a distinctive red coat, and her sons Skillet and Joey. Skillet was very outgoing; he waited by the fence for people to come and visit, and hogged all the attention he could get. Joey was a shy little brown guy with a white star on his forehead and four white socks on his legs, who wasn’t through growing. Caitlyn had to go out into the field to see him. She brushed Skillet aside without even a second glance, and marched right up to Joey.

Mike later said from that day there was a change in the little colt. Something in that horse knew that Caitlyn was there for only him, and Caitlyn loved him from the first time she saw him. He hadn’t yet been broken, or trained for a specific style of riding. He was young, but he was going to be tall when he grew up. Caitlyn would be able to ride him all the way through college. And more than that, Caitlyn and Joey seemed to be two parts of the same whole.

But Joey cost $1000. Caitlyn only had $700. She’d already tapped out all of her immediate money reserves. The only thing she could do was to keep working and selling candles and hope that no one else wanted him before she could raise the money.

Caitlyn came back once a week just to play with Joey. She clearly made Joey very happy, and instead of the shy little colt hiding in his brother’s shadow, there was a happy and active col, constantly looking down the driveway, waiting for his girl. Mike took Joey off the market, and told Caitlyn that as soon as she had the money, he was hers.

Caitlyn worked extra hard: she sold candles to people she’d never even met before. She did everyone’s lawns and washed dozens of cars.

In July, she brought Joey “home” to Four Winds. Everyone was so thrilled for Caitlyn.

Beth and Bob loved that little guy from the first time they saw him. All day, Joey sat in his new stall, and Caitlyn sat right in front of the door so he would know that she hadn’t abandoned him. She read, mostly, but also played with him, loved on him, and fed him extra treats. It can be difficult to choose a show name for a new horse. “Joey” was always his everyday name, but not dignified enough to be announced at a show. Joey’s name wasn’t hard to find: “Light of Mine.”

When training began the next few days, the whole barn community was amazed at the talent that Joey had. Bob said he had never trained a smarter horse, and that Joey was the fastest learner he’d ever seen. Beth said his jumps were nearly perfect and that he followed Caitlyn’s directions flawlessly.

There seemed to be an indefinable connection between them. Joey knew Caitlyn’s moods, and Caitlyn knew Joey’s thoughts. They didn’t seem to be communicating directly, but they were always synchronized. Once, when Joey was spooked, he bucked and Caitlyn fell off. Instead of running like all spooked horses, he stood as still as he could. It was as if he knew that if he stepped wrong he’d hurt his girl. Caitlyn just climbed back into the saddle.

Joey’s stall was $300 a month, his food was $150 a month, and she also had to pay for lessons for them both. In august of 2000, Caitlyn turned twelve. Child labor laws do not apply to family run agricultural businesses and Four Winds Farm was a family run agricultural business. At twelve, Caitlyn could legal work there. From her birthday on, she worked eight hours a day, five days a week (sometimes six), and every penny she made went toward keeping Joey. She mucked stalls, turned horses in and out of the fields, washed them, fed them, watered them. She helped the new students with tacking (placing saddles, bridles, and reins on the horses). If it needed done, she did it, as Bob and Beth’s only employee. Mom would drop her off at Four Winds on her way to work and pick her up as she came home. But Caitlyn never complained. She loved this work, this life style. She was always with Joey, or with the other horses.

All this culminated in that wet fall morning of 2000, the day of Caitlyn’s first show on Joey. She’d shown on some of the Four Winds training ponies, and done respectably, so this was Joey’s trial. The duo was competing against little girls whose families’ could afford to spend $20,000 or so on horses whose show names were Ride of the Valkyries, Red Aces, and Midnight Train to Georgia. The whole family thrilled as the announcer announced the pair “Caitlyn Monroe and Light of Mine.” Every jump, every step, every movement was perfect. They came in first for every even they participated in.

We couldn’t afford to show Caitlyn in ever show, especially not the ones as far away as Winston-Salem, but every other show within our local area, Caitlyn and Joey won top points. At the end of the season, they had as many points as some girls who had shown at every show, but done poorly. A lady even approached my mother at one of the shows and gave her a business card. She wanted to talk about a possible equestrian scholarship to Virginia Intermont College. Joey was already big. He was nearly sixteen hands (which is five foot four from his hoofs to the spot where his mane ended), he was going to be big enough when he grew up that Caitlyn wouldn’t even need another horse, and they could go to college together.

For a year and a day, she lived her dream.

July 4^th, 2001

On the day after the anniversary of Joey’s coming to live at Four Winds Farm, there was a thunderstorm. It wasn’t just a bad storm, it was accompanied by hail, and high winds, and was so big that it covered the entire tip of Southwest Virginia. My grandparents in Wise got hit as hard as we did in Bristol. The thunder and the lightening scared the horses, understandably.

As the storm began, the whole herd of horses that had been enjoying the day in the sun ran toward the shelter of the roofed arena, which was kept open for that reason. As they crested the hill, Trudy (Tiny Dancer) was struck by lightning; she became a living ground wire. Every horse within fifty feet that was wearing metal shoes was immediately electrocuted.

Bob and Beth could only wait until the next morning to go see the damage. There were five horses killed in that storm. When Beth saw the crumpled bodies she covered her eyes and ben into her husband’s embrace.

“Please. Tell me that’s Firefly. Please tell me that’s Firefly.” She sobbed. As much as she loved the little old training pony, she would’ve given anything…

It was Joey.

I wish I could say there was a happy ending to this story. Mike, out of grief for the little horse he’d loved too, sold us Reba’s foal for only $100, her stud fee. We named her Baby. The rich parents at the barn started a collection, and bought Roseanna, a full-blooded Virginia Highlander. Roseanna and Caitlyn never had the same connection and bond, and Roseanna was stubborn and wouldn’t follow where Caitlyn led, as Joey did. Eventually she was sold to someone who wanted to breed her. Caitlyn showed Baby for a year, but she’s a runner, not a jumper. All the same, she will never be sold.

Trudy, the horse that had originally been struck, had been a good friend of Joey’s. They were usually found in the field together. They were buried in the same grave, with Joey’s head resting on Trudy’s hip.

My sister was never the same. She never cried again, even at our grandfather’s funeral. Even today, as a 22-year-old nursing student, she carries an aura of sadness about her, and she doesn’t shine as brightly as she once did. Joey’s death was even worse on her than the divorce. In a few months, the attacks of September 11^th would take place, but Caitlyn had already seen worst tragedy of her life. In many ways, that night, my sister’s light was extinguished.