10 - Horses. Honor. Scholarship.

An interview and a tough decision for Maeve and Todd, 1987

Things That Can’t Be Broken is a novel presented as a live draft, one chapter every week.

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Part 1 | History is an Angel

10 - Horses. Honor. Scholarship.

Unsplash photo credit: Philippe Oursel

Maeve Allen

April 3, 1987

Dehesa Valley, California

Allen Horsemanship Program

KGTV Channel 10 News LIVE Interview

Transcribed: [3 April 1987]

[0:00]

CLEMENS: We’re here in our ABC 10 News studio with Maeve and Todd Allen of the Allen Horsemanship Program in East County. Tell us a little more about this four-year program for high school students. What can students expect to learn?

MAEVE ALLEN: We teach every aspect of horsemanship, not just riding, but all the basic skills needed to keep and train horses. Each student is given responsibility for the care and training of a horse while they are in the program. Older students, as they are capable, also teach the younger students.

The underlying goal is to help these young people grow into themselves, to get them started on the right foot. Our students go into the world expecting to work hard to achieve their goals.

TODD ALLEN: We keep them very busy every day after school, and all day on Saturdays.

CLEMENS: It sounds like a serious commitment. I have a horse, myself. I’m a sports guy, but unlike other sports, horses are an every day activity.

TODD ALLEN: Aye. Ye may hang your golf clubs in the shed to collect dust, but not so yer horse. It’s not all serious, mind you. We have a lot of fun. But these kids do work, and they do get dirty.

CLEMENS: Good clean horse dirt. What benefits do you offer students, aside from horsemanship?

MAEVE ALLEN: We require students to keep a 3.5 or better grade point average and they must agree to uphold a code of honor, which includes respect for both people and animals, and attendance every day throughout the program. They learn leadership skills by helping each other. This sets them up nicely for their future whether they go straight into the workforce or choose to attend a university.

TODD ALLEN: Maeve gets results with the scholars. The students often tutor each other, and she has helped several get into good schools.

CLEMENS: That sounds like a huge value for parents. I know horses are expensive. How much does this horsemanship program cost?

MAEVE ALLEN: There is no cost to the parents. The program is free for all four years, as long as the student chooses to adhere to the standards.

CLEMENT: That’s incredible. How many new students will you add this year?

MAEVE ALLEN: This is the first year we will be taking donations as a non-profit. At this time, we have funding to take on two new students to start in the fall. But we could take on as many as four with more financial resources.

TODD ALLEN: As a non-profit, all donations are tax-deductible.

CLEMENS: I’m afraid we are about out of time. How can our viewers find out more about the Allen Horsemanship Program?

MAEVE ALLEN: We’re accepting student applications and essays from eighth graders right now through April 30th. Flyers are available at County Public Libraries and most junior high and middle schools in East County.

TODD ALLEN: Aye. And anyone can reach us at 555-2466. Be sure to leave a message. We will call you back!

CLEMENS: Thank you both for joining us today, Maeve and Todd Allen. We wish you and your students all the best!

[3:29]

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Walking down to the barn after the morning’s interview, Maeve was still a little out of sorts. What an odd experience. A three-minute interview didn’t sound like much, it was over before she knew it, but it seemed like an eternity in front of the cameras. Did she hit all the points she wanted to make? No matter how many times she practiced in front of the mirror, nothing could prepare her for the commotion of the setup, followed by the utter silence in front of the blinking red lights of the cameras. Live cameras. Todd seemed at ease with it all. He didn’t even practice.

Maeve was glad it was over. It’s not that she wasn’t grateful her cousin was able to get them the interview. So many people watched the news in the mornings. If the interview helped bring in funds to add more students this year, it would be well worth the trouble. But if she were asked to do another live TV interview, she might just send Todd.

Todd called to her from the barn aisle, “Are you here, mo ghràdh?”

“In the tackroom,” Maeve answered.

His eyes were bright with excitement, “I just had a call with Channel 8 News. They saw the interview this morning. They’re going to bring a crew out here for an on site interview next Tuesday.”

“I knew you had that star power, my love!” Maeve gave him a big hug, while worries popped up in her mind. Another interview. Here?

She said, “Veronica is trying get a job with Channel 10. They’re competitors, you know. There may be some politics there.”

Todd gave a puzzled look, then he nodded, “Och. Aye. . . I suppose I can cancel it.” He looked like a kid who had just dropped his ice cream cone.

“No,” Maeve said, “You know what? We’ve been doing a lot to help Veronica’s daughter. Vera is doing well. And we need the exposure if we want to help more kids. Veronica should understand that.”

“They want to include one or two kids in the interview. I’d like to get Barb and Chris up there.”

“Up to you. I’ll stay on the sidelines for this one.” Maeve said.

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By the time the first-year students were in the arena with Maeve, her anxiety over Veronica and the interview had dissipated. That is, until she saw Vik running toward her from the round pen, waving his long arms as if flagging down a Cessna. “Mrs. Allen! Mrs. Allen!”

CB’s head popped up at the commotion and he bounced stiff-legged away from the rail, but Mary quickly settled him back to a walk. She was solid for a first-year, a natural with the high-strung horse. The other two horses did no more than take a good look at the sudden intrusion. Maeve announced, “Walk your horses please,” to the three students riding in the arena, then turned off her megaphone.

Keeping her voice even and steady, she said, “Vik, please remember we have some first-year riders here. You could cause an accident waving your arms and shouting like that. What is it?”

“It’s Vera! She. . .” he whisper-shouted, “She beat Moonjem bloody!” He pointed to the round pen past the barn on the terrace below.

She what?!

When Maeve arrived at the round pen, she found Chris holding the trembling mare’s reins. Moonjem was foaming with sweat and flipping her bottom lip nervously, making a pop pop pop sound. The horse’s belly was indeed dripping blood from several small cuts and welts.

Barb was sitting atop Vera, pinning her hands to the ground, the long dressage whip pressed under Vera’s right arm.

“Let her up, Barb,” said Maeve, almost losing her cool. “What happened? What’s going on here?”

“She jumped on me!” said Vera, glaring at Barb as she dusted herself off.

Maeve’s heart went cold. There was not a hint of remorse on Vera’s face, no thought at all for the sweet mare she had traumatized.

Barb’s face was red. Her fists were clenched. She yelled, “She was beating the cr-”

Maeve put up a hand to Barb to stop her.

Then she turned to Chris and said in measured calm, “Chris, please take Moonjem out and walk her. When you see Mr. Allen, have him take a look at her belly.”

Barb was staring in the direction of the dressage whip on the ground. Her jaw was clenched, and her feet were planted as if to spring at Vera. Thankfully, she held herself back.

Maeve turned to Vikram. “Vik, do me a favor. Go dismiss the first years from the lesson and take charge of untacking and grooming.”

Vera was standing by the round pen fence, hands on hips. At least she was silent. Maeve wished there was a handbook for dealing with delicate situations like this. These two weren’t children. Vera would be sixteen and Barb seventeen by the end of the year. “Barb and Vera, I need you both to come with me to the classroom, so that we can talk privately.”

After hearing each of the young women tell their separate accounts, it was painfully clear. There could be no more second chances for Vera. This was not the first, but the third time Vera had taken her anger out on a horse.

The first time, it was the roan gelding, Quinn. He was not a fan of cold water and had stepped square on Vera’s foot, probably thinking it was the hose to stop the water. She beat him with a metal sweat scraper until he lost his mind and pulled back, nearly slipping and going down in the the wash rack. It could have broken his neck if he had gone down with his halter attached on both sides to the two cross-tie poles.

Vera was only a few days into the program at the time. Maeve had understood her frustration, having had her own foot crushed more than once. She and Todd agreed that Vera could learn from an honest mistake. They would teach her better ways to deal with such situations.

All of that first year, Vera had pleaded and cajoled Maeve to let her work with Moonjem, a sleek black, perfectly proportioned Saddlebred with a long silky mane and tail—a beauty by any standard. The mare always aimed to please, but she was ultra-sensitive. Maeve knew. She always knew. Moonjem was not a good match for an impatient student like Vera. Vera was her cousin’s daughter, though. It was Maeve’s old guilt about her inheritance that blurred her judgement.

At the beginning of the school year, which was Vera’s second, Maeve gave in and allowed her to work with Moonjem. Vera handled Moonjem just fine for several months with no outbreaks of anger. It seemed Todd was right and the incident with Quinn was a one-time thing.

Then it happened again. Vera’s second bout of rage was very similar to today’s. When Moonjem repeatedly spooked at something and would not stay on the rail, Vera launched a tantrum on her. There was no blood the last time, but the rage was impossible to ignore. The mental damage to the sensitive mare took weeks of patient training to resolve.

Vera probably should have lost the privilege of attending the Allen Horsemanship Program right then and there. Her attitude was always on the edge of disrespect. But she had seemed remorseful about harming Moonjem, and Maeve really wanted this to work. Veronica had held a grudge against Maeve from long ago, and having Vera in the program had bridged a gap between them.

The grudge began when Maeve was a senior in high school and had just been informed she had earned an endowment from her grandfather to pay for her entire college education. She wanted desperately for her siblings and her cousin to receive the same benefit, and she was sure they would earn it, as she had, as long as they did well in school. Maeve knew Veronica was struggling with some her of classes and had been tutoring her. So when she ran into Veronica in the mall parking lot with her friends, smelling of pot, when she should have been studying for a test, she told her uncle about it. He had grounded Veronica. She missed her junior prom. Maeve felt bad about it at the time. It was never her intention, she only wanted her cousin to go home and study.

Veronica got back at her. She spread rumors, told her friends she had said awful things about them. And Veronica was always good at getting people to believe her stories. It made Maeve’s last summer at home pretty lonely. But these were childish memories from long ago. It was good to get past all that. Maeve and Todd agreed it was worth the positive relationship they were developing with Veronica to try one more time with Vera.

Hoping to foster a nurturing mindset, they gave Vera Barb’s usual job helping Todd tend to horses with cuts or scrapes, an abscessed hoof, an itchy tail, or other small discomforts or ailments. On Fridays, he and Vera prepared the week’s individual “extra feed”, the prescribed vitamins and supplements and any medications, for each and every horse on Allen Haven Ranch. And on Saturday afternoons, Maeve allowed Vera to work with Moonjem for an hour with full supervision.

It was hard to tell if it was working. Vera was prone to a low-level surliness, as her mother had always been, but there had been no angry outbursts for several weeks. Eventually, they gave Vera the freedom to work with Moonjem on her own again. Like all the other second and third year students, she was given a training goal to work toward, and counseled on a plan to accomplish it. Everything seemed to be going well.

But now it was clear they had ultimately failed to mine more than an ounce of empathy from Vera for this horse she claimed to love. Vera simply didn’t see horses as equal beings to be respected. They were merely pretty vehicles to be exploited. In truth, Maeve would never have chosen Vera to enter the program at all if it weren’t for her cousin’s request. It felt right to pay for Veronica’s daughter’s place in the program using the money she alone inherited from their grandfather. Maeve had not been much impressed by Vera’s essay, but she was family, and that mattered.

Now all of this.

After the students left for the day, Maeve and Todd walked together to the house. Maeve put a hand on Todd’s shoulder, breaking the silence, “What are we going to do with her?”

“Och! She’ll not lay a hand on Moonjem again. Are we agreed?”

Maeve sighed, “No, she won’t. I hate to say it, but I think we need to dismiss her. We’re not a teen therapy program. Neither of us is prepared to deal with this kind of behavior, and it’s not a precedent we should be setting for the other students.”

Todd nodded slowly, “Your cousin will be disappointed.”

Maeve frowned, “She certainly is not going to be happy.” She moved to the phone in the kitchen, then hesitated.

Todd massaged her shoulders, “I guess we won’t have to worry how she feels about Channel 8 coming here.”

Maeve stared at the phone hanging on the wall. “Vera needs more help than we can give her.”

“Aye,” Todd said, easing the tension from her neck with his fingers. “I’ll tell you, I am proud of Barb, holding herself back.”

Maeve’s brows compressed and she turned to face him, “She dragged Vera off the horse and pinned her to the ground!”

“Aye, so she did. Nae sure I would’nae ha’ done the same. Chris told me Barb didn’t say one word. She didn’t do anything but hold her there.”

Maeve pressed her lips together. “That’s what she told me too. It must have taken some fortitude. That mouth of hers. But Barb has kept the code of honor, hasn’t she? Not a foul word since she signed the warning sheet when she was a first-year. Respect for the animals was never an issue. She doesn’t complain, keeps up her grades. . . Barb and Vera never did get along. But you’re right, Barb has made a lot of progress in getting along with the other students.”

“Truth. No love lost in either direction between those two,” said Todd, “But Barb responds to the respect we show her. I can’ae say the same for Vera.”

Maeve let out a breath. “Why did we want to do this again?” Maeve asked him, “With teens?”

Todd laughed. “Horses. Honor. Scholarship. . . Doing our bit for the future? Do those things sound familiar?”

His smile was more infectious than she could resist, and she looked down to hide hers. He lifted her chin to see it, then hugged her to him, steadying her for the business at hand.

Maeve lifted the phone from its cradle and dialed Veronica’s number.

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Next

Part 1 | History is an Angel

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