sarma

The 134th annual Barrington Fair is a maze of balloons, draft beer, hot fried food, immense fuzzy prizes, grimy Ferris Wheels that break down and leave you queasily suspended above the noisy crowd. In sheds on the periphery wait the sweet-faced heifers and coddled rams waiting to be judged; the bulbous, polished vegetables; the jams and cakes.

But the Fair's opening is to be graced by visiting royalty -Lipizzan stallions. "Not", says the ad hastily and in minuscule print, "affiliated with the Spanish Riding School or Austrian Government." Equine renegades? No, probably just a little touring company bred from the horses the grateful Austrian government gave Patton in return for rescuing their animals during the war.

Thousands of us crowd around the track. Nothing is quite ready. Behind a parked van of understudies, four men in red livery and cocked hats warm up their horses. You can see flashes of white tails and prancing hooves.

Finally they appear, bold and white -a child's dream of noble horses- strutting to a Handel fanfare. Compared to race horses with their lean, edgy bodies, these horses seem immense and solid. Their training has shaped them into massive baroque curves. Although the riders' hands appear kind on the bridle, the reins are short, and the horses hold their chins in, making their necks look even thicker and more deeply arched.

I can't imagine them lazing. I wish I could imagine them covering ground. What are they like offstage when their manes aren't braided and their plumy tails curried? They rarely make a mistake in the tasteful program of pas de deux, de trois, de quatre, pas seul. Two can step sideways, keeping heads or tails toward each other in mirror image. They can pirouette by walking in tight circles. They can pace together with subtle alterations in gait. They can stand on their hind legs for a moment in a jubilant-looking salutation. The bravest and strongest, with the star-rider (authentically Austrian) not mounted, but walking cajolingly beside him, demonstrates curvets, or cabrioles. His front feet lift, and just before they touch ground, both back legs kick out, rocking the horse back and forth. The landing must be a shock. We cheer, and our horse -the handsomest, the best-suddenly doubles his front legs under and kneels in a bow.

I cry the way I cry at parades -laughing at myself for crying. I cry too for the miles and years that separate the courts of Vienna from Great Barrington, Massachusetts. And I cry for the fine, big, doubtless happy horses who've been taught to restrain all lust for distance to mince elegantly, printing many steps onto a short stretch of track.

And yet they do nothing truly inimical to horses; watching them, you see only a slight -disturbing, but beautiful- deformation of their nature. They make me think of bonsai, of topiary gardens, of radishes cut into the shape of roses. And I think idly of women dancing on pointe and how they would look to a Houyhnhnm. Then I decide I'd better stop thinking and have some popcorncottoncandyhotdoglemonade so I'll have something worth being sick with when those cars start whirling.

From the top of the Ferris Wheel (stuck, of course), I see that the track has been taken over by Hurricane hell drivers.