Ultimate gamble: Riding horses competitively is like rolling dice

My life in the world of competitive horseback riding — English hunters, jumpers and equitation — up to my 18th year had been a lot like a lottery. I was taking a chance with each decision to continue showing and training from middle to high school.

Nearly everyone at these English horse shows owns at least one horse of their own, on which they practice consistently. Not having one of these animals made my absolute devotion to riding interesting. When I was 14, I flew out to Colorado from my humble beginnings as a jumper rider in Utah to work at a competitive show barn, filled with dozens of near-wild thoroughbred racehorses, fresh off the track.

I leapt from bed every morning in anticipation of being thrown onto one of these fire-breathing animals' backs. In exchange for cleaning stalls, polishing bridles, wrapping legs and remaining ever willing to risk my life, I learned how to ride.

Every moment of the sport was like waiting, breathless, for my number to be called, clutching the leather reins in disbelief at hearing the musical sound of the announcer say my name.

Then, I would canter towards the brilliantly colored jumps, arranged like artwork upon the smooth sand of an arena, watching two delicate ears prick up at the end of a long, arched neck while euphoric, I sunk into my heels and we both became airborne and weightless.

For five years I compromised everything, from schoolwork to sleep, for the opportunity to show up at a competition where I managed to negotiate my way onto a horse's back.

This, of course, was the ultimate lottery.

Some horses — very few horses — that no one owned or cared to ride turned out to be charming and accommodating animals. Many, however, were left unridden and untrained for an understandable reason.

After my experiences with misunderstood equines at the barn in Colorado, I was lucky to get some rides on horses with whom I could work out an agreement. The remaining horses were impossible. I fell off. A lot. Into fences, water jumps and trees and onto pavement.

I experienced frequent moments of discontent with my haphazard riding career. I ached for one of the impeccable equines schooled under the best trainers and born of the finest blood — a horse that would offer me a trip to all the best shows and bouquets of cobalt-blue ribbons in every class.

But, I must admit, this would have ruined the fun in the game. I continued to stake all I had for one more round in this strange version of Russian roulette.

Because you never knew.

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That last ticket, that last card, that last horse might just be a winner.

The concept of college presented a rather significant obstacle in the path of pursuing of obsession. So, I took another gamble and picked a long-shot. I declared I would attend Princeton University. In the likely case I did not get in, I would return to California — where I had been showing during high-school — and ride. However, after taking this satisfactorily dangerous risk concerning my higher education, I began to develop an appreciation for the school. Like showing jumpers, it was all the more attractive for its unattainable nature.

It was when I learned more about the Princeton Equestrian Team and the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association that I decided to pour every cent of my very heart and soul into this jackpot where the chances of winning were extremely slim.

Now, as a junior in the midst of my third season of Intercollegiate horse shows, I would like to believe I am perfecting the art behind this unquenchable desire to take that chance on the back of an unknown horse.

College shows do not allow riders to bring their own horses. Instead, we ride the horses that the hosting college provides.

This is determined by a lottery system. You draw a random number. and find the horse whose number matches yours. Then, you ride it in the show, over jumps. A big part is luck, but so is making a quick agreement with the animal on whose back you jump moments before asking him to do the same.

This year, I've played my cards well enough to earn the title of High Point Rider for the Mid-Atlantic region of universities, as well as a trip to the national finals in New York.

I'll be competing in an open-level jumping class, a non-jumping class and the Caccione Cup, a competition among the high-point riders from each region of the United States in a series of jumping and non-jumping tests.

Much of the fun of riding is participating with a team, and I've enjoyed and benefited immensely from the lessons I have learned from the other riders at Princeton.

My obsession with this unpredictable game has remained, for better or for worse, constant throughout even Princeton's attempts to educate and discipline me.

And every time I step from my dormitory into the inexplicable magic palpable at dawn during the first early moments of a horse show, the same flutter of anticipation that filled my 14-year-old stomach when throwing my leg over the back of a snorting, kicking racehorse, the sensation of laying down a potentially lucky hand in a poker game, the possibility of drawing the lucky number, allows me to forget everything else.

Everything except the chance that the dark bay or grey or chestnut or black horse that I ride into the ring just might be the winner. Kelly Wells is an English major from Park City, Utah. She can be reached at kwells@princeton.edu.